You may not be able to change a situation, but with humor you can change your attitude about it.
Allen Klein
Adaptive Humour use has shown to be effective for increasing resilience in dealing with distress and also effective in buffering against or undoing negative affects. In contrast, maladaptive humour use can magnify potential negative effects.
Madelijn Strick, Rob Holland, Rick van Baaren, and Ad van Knippenberg (2009) of Radboud University conducted a study that showed the distracting nature of a joke on bereaved individuals.
Subjects were presented with a wide range of negative pictures and sentences. Their findings showed that humorous therapy attenuated the negative emotions elicited after negative pictures and sentences were presented. In addition, the humour therapy was more effective in reducing negative affect as the degree of affect increased in intensity.
Humour was immediately effective in helping to deal with distress. The escapist nature of humour as a coping mechanism suggests that it is most useful in dealing with momentary stresses. Stronger negative stimuli requires a different therapeutic approach.