Psychology of laughter

Laughter is an expression of amusement. It is a sound that can be heard. Strong laughter can sometimes bring an onset of tears or even moderate muscular pain as a physical response to the act. Laughter is a part of human behavior regulated by the brain. It is used as a signal for being part of a group - it signals acceptance. The study of humor and laughter and its psychological and physiological effects on the human body is called geletology.

Most psychologists concentrate on question what does laughter mean? It is undoubtedly true that in most cases it means amusement. However, quite often it shows negative intentions of a person. This issue is mostly analysed by psychoanalysts. For Freud, laughter is an "economical phenomenon" whose function is to release "physic energy" that had been wrongly mobilised by incorrect expectations. Other psychologists like Karen Horney claim that it is release of tension or even self-defence. For example, when someone is asked for a difficult question and doesn't know how to answer it, he or she often may begin laughing and joking.This proves Lange-Bard theory that physical response comes after emotion (we are sad because we cry, we are happy because we laugh...). After discovering this fact many researches were made and some laughter therapies invented. It was noticed that laughter increases blood pressure, heart rate, changes breathing, reduces level of certain neurochemicals, strengthens immune system. Even humor therapy for cancer patients were developed. So now laughter is very important to clinical psychologists too.

Finally, I can say that there are not much information about psychological benefit of laughter. Researches are still being done. So we can guess that in the future laughter will be used to cure more and more illnesses.

Psychology of conflicts

Firstly, I would like to define word conflict - it is a state of opposition, disagreement between two or more people or even groups of people. Sometimes conflicts are characterized by psychical violence. Military conflicts between two states may constitute war.
Psychologically, a conflict exists when the reduction of one stimulus involves an increase in another, so that a new adjustment is demanded. Conflicts can exist at a variety of levels of analysis: interpersonal, intrapersonal, emotional, group conflicts and so on. But why do they arise? Many psychologists explain it differently. For example, Sigmund Freud spoke about EGO - it is structure of our mind (psyche) and it is responsible for self-defence and relation with surroundings. So when EGO is very strong and firm it often causes conflicts. According to Carl Gustav Jung, we have such a structure as Persona. Persona is responsible for relation with surroundings, communication. It is like a mask that help to communicate. So if person's Persona is weak, it is difficult to him to communicate peacefully. Persona must be flexible, this depends on particular situations of life. Speaking about one more psychologist Karen Horney it is important to say that she claims that conflicts are just self-defence from showing our weakness. When people don't want to show their weakness they unconsciously begin to conflict, disagree and so on. Psychologists claim that group often find itself in conflict over facts, goals, methods or values. It is critical to identify the type of conflict it is experiencing in order to solve it. However, conflicts are often linked to emotions that are very difficult to control, so this cause difficulties in dealing with conflicts.
Finally, I can say that conflicts are often difficult to solve, even when both sides want to get maximum benefit. The best way to do this is to find a compromise. However it is not always easy to do. But for this people can ask for a help psychologists.