According to Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, humor includes playful recognition and enjoyment of incongruity, a cheerful view of the light side of adversity, and the ability to make others smile and laugh. The VIA includes humor and playfulness as one of the 24 character strengths.
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By Caroline Miller:
Will my Bat Globe Give Me Longer Life (And Make Me Smile Too)? |
| Lefcourt, H. (2005). Humor. In C. Snyder & S. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology, pp. 619-631. Oxford University Press.
Lefcourt, H. (2001). Humor: The art of living buoyantly. Springer. |
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  Martin Seligman |
Peterson, C. & Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues. Oxford University Press. PP. 583-598.
Chapter 26 describes Humor [Playfulness] a character strength, including a discussion of deliberate interventions to develop the strength, enabling and inhibiting factors, cross-cultural differences, and measurements. In the description of correlates and consequences, “Best established are the conclusions that humor is linked to good mood and that it buffers the effects on mood of life stress and daily hassles.” (P. 592.) |