Humor and Aging:
Humor Attitudes Among Caregivers of the Aging
Introducing Humor into the Nursing Home
Caregivers Value Humor
At the 2009 Minnesota Aging Services Institute, as part of its presentation on humor in the nursing home, ITCHS administered a Humor Attitudes Survey. Participants were given nine assertions about humor and asked to indicate their level of agreement as “strongly agree,” “agree,” “don't know,” “disagree,” or “strongly disagree.”
We were amazed at the regular pattern of response to all nine, crossing all specialty occupational lines and all lines of difference in educational background. In compiling the data, we coded levels of agreement on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 representing “strongly agree” and 5 representing “strongly disagree.” Thus lower numbers represent agreement, higher numbers represent disagreement with the assertion.
This is what care providers said about humor, on average, in the order of how much they agreed:
They agreed that
Laughter can improve people’s health. (1.25)
I look forward to a light, funny movie. (1.39)
I’d appreciate more humor in my work place. (1.51)
Humor makes things at work go more smoothly. (1.54)
They were not sure whether
Some jokes are ‘sick’ and can hurt one’s health. (2.35)
They disagreed that
Humor is often hurtful. (3.38)
Humor at work gets me in trouble. (3.59)
Humor at work slows things down. (3.95)
Humor is usually used to put people down. (4.14)
For a more in-depth discussion of conference participants humor preferences, see Humor Quotient Newsletter 11.1.