Is Laughter Really Good Medicine?

Overview

Objectives/Goals I wanted to find out if laughter eases pain. Would people watching a funny video be able to keep thier hands in cold water longer than they could while watching a documentary or not watching anything at all? My hypothesis was that people watching the funny video would be able to keep their hands in cold water the longest. Methods/Materials I had small groups of people, both kids and adults, put thier hands in bowls of ice water (0 degrees Celsius) three different times: once while watching America's Funniest Home Videos, once while watching a Hawaii documentary, and once while watching nothing at all. I asked them to keep their hands in the water as long as they could, but they could take them out when they needed to. I timed how long they kept their hands in for each test and waited about 15 minutes between tests. Results My results are that 19 times comedy had the longest time, 4 times the documentary had the longest time and 10 times watching nothing had the longest time. The time spans ranged from 9 seconds to 3 minutes. Most people said that the pain in their hands went down while they were laughing and stayed down for a while. I am continuing to test groups of people and will add to this data. Conclusions/Discussion My conclusion is that laughter does ease pain.

Competition history

• CSEF 2005 Social Sciences (Junior Division Only) · Entry J1707

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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