1 The Changing Concerns of Psychology -- My Personal Odyssey -- Turning Psychology to the Study of Positive Assets -- The Introduction of Humor into Research on Resilience -- 2 Experiencing Humor in Everyday Life -- An Intuitive Approach to Understanding Humor -- Can We Truly Understand the Roots of Humor? -- Conclusion -- 3 Early Conceptions of Humor in Religion, Medicine, Philosophy, and Psychology -- Conclusion -- 4 The Pervasiveness of Humor -- Is Humor Universal in the Human Species ? -- Are Humans Alone in the Use of Humor and Joking? -- Are There Universals in the Form and Content of Humor? -- Conclusion -- 5 The Many Faces of Humor: Variations in the Types and Definitions of Humor -- Freud's Contributions to the Literature on Humor -- Other Dimensions of Humor -- Cruel and Hostile Humor -- Humor -- 6 The Development of Humor: Accounting for Individual Differences -- Research with Normative Samples -- Sources of Individual Differences in Humor -- Humor as a Coping Tool among Professional Comedians -- 7 The Effects of Stress on Emotion and Health -- Illness and Stress: The Physiological Connections -- Is There a Way out of the Vicious Circle of Arousal and Deterioration? -- Humor as a Moderator of Stress -- What May We Conclude from These Data? -- 8 Humor as a Coping Strategy -- Humor as a Moderator of Stressful Experiences: An Update -- 9 Humor as a Means of Retaining Social Cohesion and Support -- Membership in Social Groups -- Social Support as a Moderator of Stressful Life Experiences -- Humor as an Enhancer of Social Belonging -- 10 Sense of Humor and Physiological Stress Responses -- Humor and Autonomic Nervous System Activity -- Humor and Immune System Activity -- Conclusions -- 11 Sex and Humor: Interactive Predictors of Health? -- Possible Sources of Sex Differences in Humor Usage -- Conclusion -- 12 Summing Up -- Appendixes -- A. The Coping Humor Scale (CHS) -- Guide for Scoring of the CHS -- B. The Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ) -- C. Bibliography of Research with CHS and SHRQ -- References -- Author Index.