Computers in Human Behavior Reports 10 (2023) 100270

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Computers in Human Behavior Reports

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Short-, medium-, and long-term impact of watching humorous video clips

on stress and well-being: An experience sampling method-based
field experiment
Stefan Stieger a, *, 1, Irina Schmid a, 1, Philip Altenburger a, David Lewetz a
a
Department of Psychology and Psychodynamics, Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, Krems an der Donau, Austria

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Stress-induced diseases and the severe consequences of chronic stress have been rising steadily over the past
Humor several decades. To examine the effectiveness of watching humorous videos as an easily-accessible, adaptive
Stress coping-strategy, a preregistered field-based experience-sampling method experiment was conducted (3 weeks)
Well-being
by using a unique design (short-term retests nested within daily assessments). At a daily level, participants (N =
Experience sampling method
YouTube
57) watched short, preselected humorous videos and stated their stress level and well-being (i.e., activation,
valence), once before the video and three times in the half-hour after (N = 2,789 assessments). Furthermore,
stable concepts such as personality, coping strategies, stress, life satisfaction, negative thinking, somatic symp­
toms, and resilience were assessed before and after the study (i.e., 3-weeks). Watching humorous videos was
associated with an instant effect in stress reduction and well-being improvement, which slowly faded in the
medium-term (i.e., within 30 min). No consistent long-term effects after 3 weeks were found. These findings
highlight the short-term effectiveness of an adaptive, free-of-charge, and widely used coping strategy to reduce
stress and increase well-being.

Short excerpt from the screenplay of the movie Don’t Look Up2
PETER ISHERWELL
… the BASH 14 point three phone when set to Liif setting, instantly
senses my mood through blood pressure, heart rates and-
PHONE VOICE (V.O. [voice over])
Your vitals show that you are sad. This will cheer you up Peter.
“Here, this will cheer you up …” appears on the screen and a VT
[video tape] of a puppy riding a rooster.
PETER ISHERWELL
… It also schedules a therapy session with a nearby professional so
we can make sure this sad feeling doesn’t return.
1. Introduction
In the aftermath of global turmoil or national disasters, people often
use humorous content to buffer against the experience of stress. For
instance, this phenomenon was observed after the Challenger disaster
and the 9/11 terrorist attacks (Kuipers, 2005; Smyth, 1986) as well as
during the global COVID-19 pandemic (Bischetti et al., 2021; Myrick,
2021). Although this behavior might be explained by the fact that humor
functions as a protective defense and coping mechanism against life
stress and challenges, so as to maintain good mental health (i.e., the
humor theory based on psychoanalytic view: Martin et al., 2006), the
empirical evidence is more equivocal (e.g., Miczo, 2021) and studies
often have methodological shortcomings (e.g., cross-sectional, lab-­
based; for a similar discussion, see (Martin, 2001). One aspect that re­
mains under-researched is how lasting such positive effects of humor
are, i.e., short-term effect distracting one from negative affect vs.

* Corresponding author. Department of Psychology and Psychodynamics, Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Straße 30, A-3500, Krems
an der Donau, Austria.
E-mail address: stefan.stieger@kl.ac.at (S. Stieger).
1
both authors share first authorship.
2
McKay, A. (2021). Screenplay of the movie Don’t Look Up. https://www.crashacting.com/s/Dont-Look-Up-Screenplay.pdf.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2023.100270
Received 25 December 2022; Received in revised form 14 February 2023; Accepted 17 February 2023
Available online 24 February 2023
2451-9588/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
S. Stieger et al.
long-term, longer lasting, effect. To fill this gap, we conducted a
field-based Experience Sampling Method (ESM) study over the course of
three weeks by asking participants to watch a short humorous YouTube
video once a day. To analyze short- and medium-term effects, we asked
about stress- and well-being-related concepts (i.e., valence, arousal)
before viewing the video, immediately after viewing the video, as well as
at two further randomized time-points in the half-hour after viewing. To
analyze long-term effects, we compared trait assessments of stress- and
well-being-related concepts at the beginning of the study with assess­
ments of the same concepts at the end of the study.
1.1. Stress and coping strategies
The effects and consequences of acute and chronic stress are mani­
fold. Given that the importance of research about psychosomatic
symptoms and diseases has been increasingly recognized, it is unsur­
prising that the physical and mental aspects of stress are well-explored
(e.g., Juster et al., 2010; Juster et al., 2011; Lobel & Dunkel-Schetter,
1990; Marin et al., 2011). Global data show that stress-caused and
stress-related diseases and disorders – mental and physical – have been
rising steadily over the past several decades (e.g., see the results of the
Global Burden of Disease GBD study: GBD Results Tool, 2019).
Considering the severe and sometimes fatal consequences of chronic
stress, it is important to be able to find coping strategies so as to protect
oneself from the negative effects of stress on the mind and body. While
maladaptive coping strategies (e.g., substance abuse, self-harm) foster
pathogenesis and the worsening of symptoms, adaptive coping strategies
do not lead to additional psychological or physical harm but play pre­
ventative and rehabilitative roles (for meta-analyses and systematic re­
views, see Compas et al., 2017; Prati & Pietrantoni, 2009; Sirois &
Kitner, 2015).
1.2. One possibility to deal with stress: Humor
One adaptive way to deal with stress is humor-based. Previous
research has shown that humor has positive effects on physical (Martin,
2004) and mental health (Antonovici et al., 2014; Cann et al., 2010;
Marziali et al., 2008). Furthermore, humor is positively correlated with
subjective happiness (Liu, 2012), life satisfaction (Heintz et al., 2019),
self-esteem (Liu, 2012), and well-being (e.g., Cann & Collette, 2014;
Edwards & Martin, 2010; Erickson & Feldstein, 2007; Herzog & Strevey,
2008; Ruch & Heintz, 2013). It has been previously shown that a
one-week online humor-based positive intervention enhanced happiness
and decreased depressive symptoms (Wellenzohn et al., 2016a). A
further longitudinal study showed that the enhanced-happiness-effect of
a one-week intervention could last up to 6 months, whereas the
decreased-depression-effect was only short-term and only effective
directly after the intervention (Wellenzohn et al., 2016b). Furthermore,
McGhee (McGhee, 2010) developed the 7 Humor Habits Program, which
proved successful in helping to elevate participants’ mood and imple­
ment humor as an adaptive coping strategy (e.g., Ruch & Hofmann,
2017). Interestingly, humor-based positive psychology interventions
show stronger effects in extraverted people than in introverts, but no
other moderation effects vis-à-vis personality traits have been reported
(Wellenzohn et al., 2018).
1.3. Consumption of humor in our everyday life: YouTube
Aside from these dedicated humor-based intervention programs,
many people consume humor-related material in their everyday lives.
Using humorous content (e.g., videos; memes, i.e., typically cute or
humorous images related to popular culture) to ease stress in general and
COVID-19-related stress in particular has not only been suggested by
health care professionals (e.g., isolation Gordon, 2020), but was also the
focus of several scientific studies (for a review, see Akimbekov & Raz­
zaque, 2021). For example, watching funny videos can improve the
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Computers in Human Behavior Reports 10 (2023) 100270
ability to focus on tasks currently being performed, i.e., increases the
effectiveness and persistency of employees: (Cheng & Wang, 2015).
Furthermore, humorous videos can have a stress-reducing function on
workers (e.g., Janicke-Bowles et al., 2018) and can raise well-being in
victims of interpersonal aggression (Cheng et al., 2019). Although
videos seem to work quite well, Myrick et al. (Myrick, 2021) found in a
large cross-sectional study that memes despite eliciting positive
emotions – had no effect on COVID-19-related stress.
YouTube is one of the largest platforms where such humorous videos
are watched, i.e., the top genre watched on YouTube is comedy-related
(77%; Global Media Insight, 2022). YouTube is currently the
second-largest social media platform and the largest video streaming
platform and has 2 billion monthly logged-in users from more than 100
countries worldwide and across 80 languages (Statista, 2021; YouTube,
2022). Over 70% of watch time is derived from mobile devices, with the
average time spent on YouTube per day about 18 min. Therefore, the
impact of watching humorous videos on YouTube should not be
underestimated, as it can be considered a very frequent and global
behavior.
1.4. Research questions
Taking the findings of previous research into account, it is important
to determine whether this frequent worldwide behavior of social media
recipients has an effect on our everyday life by reducing stress and/or
elevating well-being. Furthermore, we want to circumvent limitations of
past research, as, for instance, many studies have used laboratory con­
ditions. Although lab experiments doubtlessly have many advantages,
they usually lack external validity (i.e., generalizability of the results to
field settings). To close this gap, we used an ESM approach to present
YouTube videos to participants in their everyday life once a day for a
period of 21 days. Because watching humorous videos can have inde­
pendent effects on positive and negative concepts, as reported by
Wellenzohn and colleagues (Wellenzohn et al., 2016b), we did not only
assess perceived stress, but also well-being by using the affect grid
(pleasure, arousal) introduced by Russel (Russell et al., 1989).
Furthermore, to analyze medium-term effects of these videos on
perceived stress and affect, we used two randomized retests within a 30-
min time-frame after having watched the video. This sophisticated ESM-
based field experiment renders the investigation of short-term (pre-post
comparison of 2–3 min humorous video clips), medium-term (two ret­
ests within the first 30 min after the video clip), and long-term (pre-post
comparison of the three weeks of participation) effects possible. For the
long-term effects, we assessed a multitude of concepts: perceived and
chronic stress, stress-related coping strategies, life satisfaction, negative
thinking, somatic symptoms, resilience, and personality.
In short, the main objective of this ESM-based field experiment was
to investigate short-, medium-, and long-term effects (including effect
courses) of watching short humorous video clips on stress and well-
being (i.e., pleasure, arousal).
H1. Regularly watching humorous video clips is associated with
reduced perceived stress.
H2. Regularly watching humorous video clips is associated with
increased well-being (i.e., activation and valence).
2. Method
2.1. Participants, recruitment and power consideration
We expected for both concepts (well-being, stress) a small effect size
(Cohen d = 0.2). Based on a classical power analysis for a cross-sectional
design, we needed N = 156 participants (dependent t-test, α = 5%,
minimum power = 80%, one-sided). Based on this calculation, a rough
estimate for the minimum sample size for the multilevel approach that is
used in the present project can be calculated based on the
S. Stieger et al.
recommendation of Twisk (2006, pp.123). The final sample size had to
be at least N = 52 participants (21 retests, assumed ICC = 0.3).
Furthermore, the study was preregistered (https://osf.io/8793a) where
we stated a target sample size of N = 60.
Participants were recruited via social media platforms (e.g., Face­
book). Through a webpage, participants were provided with information
about the procedures, inclusion criteria, objectives, and signed the
informed consent in order to be participate. A raffle of 2 × 100€ was held
among the participants. Data collection took place between July 2020
and March 2021.
A sample of N = 57 participants began the study. Two persons had to
be excluded because they did not complete a single longitudinal
assessment of the videos or did not complete the final survey. One
participant had to be excluded because they did not complete either the
demographics survey or the final survey. This resulted in a final sample
size of Nfinal = 54 participants (70.4% female; Mage = 30.5, SDage =
12.04, range = 18–58 years; for educational level distribution, see on­
line supplement). Moreover, 85.2% of the participants used Android
smartphones, while 14.8% used Apple iPhones. With regard to their
habits of (regularly) watching humorous contents, participants reported
watching humorous video clips on social media M = 17.9 min (SD =
20.48, Median = 10, range = 0–90) per day and watching humorous TV
shows approximately once a week (M = 0.96; SD = 4.16, Median = 0,
range 0–30).
The project was approved by the ethics committee of the authors’
research institution (EK Nr: 1050/2020). We report how we determined
our sample size, all data exclusions, all manipulations, and all measures
in the study.
2.2. Procedure
All participants had to agree to a digital informed consent prior to
their participation. Because people favor different types of humor and
because of gender differences (Schwarz et al., 2015), we let people judge
their own favorite humor style. Through the information webpage,
participants were shown three different, approximately 2–3 min long
demo video clips (satire/comedy, fail video clips, vines = mixture of
nonsense, sarcasm, exaggeration, irony etc.) to categorize their
preferred humor style. Consequently, participants were assigned to one
of the self-selected video groups based on their humor preference in
order to adapt the displayed video clips in the study.
For project administration and data collection of the ESM-part of the
study, the open-source software ESMira (https://esmira.kl.ac.at/?
lang=en) was used. ESMira offers a wide repertoire of functions and
possibilities for scientific data collection, such as the presentation and
consent of the informed consent form, data encryption, data security,
anonymous chat function, graphical feedback, and guaranteed ano­
nymity through randomly generated codes. ESMira was available for
both Android and iOS operating systems.
Time-points to complete the surveys were predefined by the authors
and participants received a bing (i.e., signal, in-app reminder) through
ESMira asking to complete a particular survey. After clicking on that
bing, the respective survey opened automatically.
First, every participant answered demographic questions after hav­
ing enrolled in the study (bing sent out automatically 1 min after
enrolment by ESMira) followed by a multitude of scales to analyze
possible long-term effects (i.e., perceived and chronic stress, stress-
related coping strategies, life satisfaction, negative thinking, somatic
symptoms, resilience, and personality). On a daily basis, participants
had to watch a humorous video (each 2–3 min long) over a period of
three weeks. The selection of the video clips was based on a large pool of
humorous video clips. The members of the research team edited the
video clips and removed all sensitive content (e.g., violent scenes). We
agreed on the 63 video clips per consensus. The research team assures
that none of the video clips included morally reprehensible or violent
content. Videos were downloaded from YouTube and added to ESMira in
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Computers in Human Behavior Reports 10 (2023) 100270
order to guarantee availability, as well as to ensure a constant streaming
speed.
The first bing for the first daily survey (directly before watching the
video clip) was sent out at a randomized time-point throughout the day
between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., linking to a randomly chosen video
clip (out of a pool of 63 video clips). Participants had the possibility of
manually adapting this timeframe in case of conflicting daily routines, e.
g., night shifts. After watching the video, the same questions from the
first daily survey had to be answered, as well as additionally rating how
funny they found the previously watched video clip. The same questions
from the first daily survey were also asked at two further randomized
time-points (i.e., post-video survey within a time-frame of 30 min after
having watched the video). In total, the longitudinal survey had to be
answered four times per day in close subsequent order as follows:
directly before watching the video clip (baseline), directly after watch­
ing the video clip (short-term effect), as well as twice within the first 30
min after watching the video clip at randomized time points (medium-
term effect). The first post-video survey was sent out M = 12.15 min (SD
= 8.11) after the video, whereas the second post-video questionnaire
was delivered M = 11.56 min (SD = 6.35) after the first post-video
questionnaire.
At the end of the 3-week assessment phase, a final cross-sectional
survey had to be completed, including all demographic questions from
the first survey in order to inspect data quality. Furthermore, all scales
asked at the beginning of the study had to be answered again to analyze
possible long-term effects (i.e., perceived and chronic stress, stress-
related coping strategies, life satisfaction, negative thinking, somatic
symptoms, resilience, and personality).
Summing up all parts of the procedure, the study duration over the
three weeks being around 1.5 h (21 videos of about 2.5 min on average
plus longitudinal questionnaires; demographic and cross-sectional sur­
veys about 15 min each).
2.3. Measures
2.3.1. Demographic questionnaire (cross-sectional)
Following the installation of ESMira and registration in the study,
participants were asked to respond to a request for basic demographic
details (sex, age, educational level).
2.3.2. Daily survey (longitudinal)
Participants were asked to complete a daily survey concerning their
present stress level and well-being four times (before, directly after the
video, two further random time points within 30 min after having
watched the video). We measured stress through semantic differential
scales using three Visual Analogue Scales (VAS from 0 to 100; used
German items: angespannt – entspannt, belastet – entlastet, eingeengt –
befreit/erleichtert; English translation: stressed – relaxed, burdened – un­
burdened, pressured – relieved). Participant’s well-being was assessed
with the Russell Affect Grid (Russell et al., 1989; for validation studies,
see Russell & Daniels, 2018), including two VAS about arousal and
pleasure (used German items: müde – aktiviert, sehr angenehm – sehr
unangenehm). Additionally, we asked participants how funny they found
the previously watched video clip, but only directly after having
watched the video.
2.3.3. Pre- and post-study survey (cross-sectional)
Before and after the longitudinal phase of the study (see below), in
addition to the set of demographic data, participants were asked to
answer items regarding perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale - PSS – 10;
10 items, 5-point scale from 1 = never to 5 = very often; German version:
Klein et al., 2016), chronic stress (Trier Inventar für Chronischen Stress -
TICS short version; 12 items, 5-point scale from 1 = never to 5 = very
often; German version: Petrowski et al., 2019), stress-related coping
strategies (Stress und Coping Inventar – SCI; 20 items, 4-point scale from
1 = does not apply to 4 = totally applies; German version: Satow, 2012),
S. Stieger et al.
life satisfaction (Satisfaction with Life Scale - SWLS; 5 items, 7-point scale
from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree; Diener et al., 1985,
German version: Glaesmer et al., 2011), negative thinking (Habit Index of
Negative Thinking - HINT; 12 items, 5-point scale from 1 = strongly
disagree to 5 = strongly agree; Verplanken et al., 2007, German version:
Stieger et al., 2012), somatic symptoms (Somatic Symptom Scale - SSS–8;
8 items, 5-point scale from 1 = not at all to 5 = very strongly; German
version: Gierk et al., 2014), resilience (Resilienzskala [resilience scale] –
RS–11; 11 items, 7-point scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly
agree; German version: Schumacher et al., 2005), personality traits
(MINI-IPIP; 20 items, 5-point scale from 1 = does not apply to 5 = totally
applies; Donnellan et al., 2006, German version: Swami et al., 2012),
habits of watching humorous video clips on social media and on TV (“On
average, how long do you watch funny/humorous videos on social
media each day? [minutes per day]”; “How often do you watch TV
shows like ‘science of stupid’ or similar? [times per week]”), and the
consumption of humorous video clips during the COVID-19 pandemic
and their effects on participants’ mood but only at the end of the study
(“How did your consumption of funny/humorous videos change during
the COVID-19 crisis? VAS from 0 = greatly decreased to 100 = greatly
increased”; “How did watching funny/humorous videos affect your
mood during the COVID-19 pandemic? VAS from 0 = greatly decreased to
100 = greatly increased“; “How did you get the humorous/funny videos
during the COVID-19 pandemic? VAS from 0 = passively obtained via
social media or circle of friends and acquaintances to 100 = actively
searched for them”.
2.4. Statistical analyses
We used R (R Development Core Team, 2014) to conduct all statis­
tical analyses using the lme4 (Bates et al., 2015) and sjstats packages
(Lüdecke, 2019). Random-intercept, random-slope multi-level regres­
sion analyses were calculated in first place. Because nearly all models
resulted in a singular fit (i.e., some variances were close to zero), we
opted for a random-intercept, fixed-slope model. The design had
three-levels – short term retest (level 1) nested within measurement
occasions (level 2) nested within persons (level 3). Because we had no
hypotheses about the course of the short-term retests (i.e., linear growth
starting with the baseline measurement at the beginning of the video),
we first calculated unconditional growth curve models with the
sequence of measurements around each video session in order to see if
the association was linear, quadratic, or cubic. As can be seen in the
online supplement (Table S1), the association for stress reduction,
valence, and arousal was quadratic. Therefore, we opted for a 2-level
model by including the test points within a video session as dummy
variables. This has the further advantage that test points after the video
can be easily contrasted to the assessment before the video (base­
line/reference category). We first ran a baseline model without any
predictors to calculate intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) values.
Next, we ran a model with the dummy variables to analyze if the video
had any effects on the dependent measures and how long a possible
effect lasted. Then models were re-run by including demographics (age,
sex, highest educational level), which were all simultaneously entered
on level 2 (age was grand-mean centred: Enders & Tofighi, 2007; Nezlek,
2012). Next, further level 2 variables were added (those from the final
survey; all were grand-mean centred). For all the level 2 variables, only a
few reached statistical significance (for more details, see Tables S2–S7).
Therefore, for the sake of a parsimonious model, we did not include the
level 2 variables in the final multi-level model. This additionally raises
the power of the design, because some participants did not complete
either the demographic variables or the final survey. The final model is
displayed below:
Level 1 (within person): (Stress reduction, Valence, Arousal)ti = π0i
+ π1i Directly after the video (dummy-coded)ti + π2i First restest
(dummy-coded)ti + π3i Second retest (dummy-coded)ti + eti
Level 2 (between persons): π0i = β00 + r0i
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Computers in Human Behavior Reports 10 (2023) 100270
ICCs for the three dependent measures were: Stresslevel = 45.7%,
Arousal = 27.8%, and Valence = 41.7%, showing fairly high variation
within participants (54.3%–72.2%).
We used R2GLMM (Nakagawa et al., 2017; Nakagawa & Schielzeth,
2013) as a measure of explained variance, which can be interpreted like
the traditional R2 statistic in regression analyses. R2conditional represents
the proportion of variance explained by both fixed and random factors.
Additionally, following Nakagawa and Schielzeth (Nakagawa &
Schielzeth, 2013), we also included AIC and BIC as information criteria
indices.
To analyze the factor structure of the semantic differential of stress-
related items, a principal component analyses revealed a clear 1-factor
solution for all test points (single factor with eigenvalue >1; eigen­
values between 2.68 and 2.76). Therefore, a mean score was calculated.
Furthermore, for easier interpretation we reverse-scored this mean score
so that higher values reflect greater stress and lower values lower stress.
Aggregating the stress-related items into a single score also allowed us to
calculate within- and between-subject reliabilities. We applied Gener­
alizability Theory Analysis (GTA; Brennan, 2002; Shrout et al., 2012) by
using the multilevel. reliability function in the psych package in R (Revelle,
2021) to analyze the reliability and found very good within-person re­
liabilities (RC = .90 to .94) as well as between-person reliabilities (RkR =
.89 to .92) for all four time assessment points (before, directly after,
further two post assessments). This suggests reliable assessment of stress
for both within-person changes and inter-individual differences.
All data, analysis scripts, and material can be found online at htt
ps://osf.io/bwh2y/.
3. Results
3.1. Validity check and reliabilities
We requested demographic data at two points in the study, namely at
the beginning of the study and again in a final survey. All demographics
were highly consistent. Responses for data on sex and educational level
of the participants showed no inconsistencies. In terms of age, four
participants reported being one year older at the end of the 3-week time
frame than at the beginning. Responses concerning how long partici­
pants watch humorous video clips on social media per day and how
often they watch humorous TV series were highly consistent, with rsp =
.85 (p < .001) for both variables. Internal consistencies of all trait-level
instruments used (i.e., PSS-10, SCI, TICS, SWLS, MINI-IPIP, HINT, SSS-8,
RS-11) were good to excellent (see Table S8).
3.2. Descriptive statistics/preliminary analyses
As three humor categories of video clips were offered, 64.8% chose
the Comedy category, 22.2% watched Vines, and 11.1% preferred Fail
video clips (1.9% missing). In the final questionnaire participants were
asked several general questions how the COVID-19 pandemic has
changed their consumption of humorous video clips. Participants stated
that their consumption of humorous video clips remained stable during
the COVID–19 pandemic (M = 53.1, SD = 11.90; VAS: 0 = strongly
decreased; 100 = strongly increased). Furthermore, analyses showed that
watching humorous video clips during the COVID-19 pandemic was
associated with a slight increase in participants’ moods (VAS: 0 =
strongly decreased; 100 = strongly increased; M = 59.4, SD = 9.63). Being
asked about how participants came to watch the humorous video clips
during the COVID–19 pandemic, 74.1% stated that they received them
passively through social media or personal contacts, whereas 11.1%
actively searched for them (14.8% missings).
Based on a VAS (0 = not funny at all, 100 = very funny), the average
rating for the funniness of the utilized YouTube videos was M = 56.2
(SD = 28.23). The utilized preselection method, as well as the adaption
of the video clips due to the categorization of the humor styles, resulted
in the desired minimal variation of funniness across all the video clips
S. Stieger et al. Computers in Human Behavior Reports 10 (2023) 100270

within each humor category (F [21,856] = 2.18, p = .002, η2p = 0.051; i. Table 2
e., small effect). Furthermore, for 18.7% of all video clips, participants Long-term effects of stress-related, well-being-related, and personality
indicated that the video clip was familiar to them, and 7 participants assessments.
claimed that they had seen a video clip twice during the study (due to an Pre- After 3 t Cohen’s d
update of the application). In 87.4% of all assessments, participants assessment weeks (45–47)
responded they had watched the previously displayed video clip in full M (SD) M (SD)
length, whereas only in 7.1% of all cases did participants state they had
Stress-related
watched approximately half of the video clips or did not watch it at all PSS Helplessness 2.97 (0.91) 3.05 (0.94) 0.94 0.09
(2.8%). Only 0.3% of the video clips could not be loaded due to technical PSS Self-efficacy 3.60 (0.73) 3.52 (0.71) -0.90 -0.11
issues. PSS Overall 2.75 (0.81) 2.85 (0.85) 1.18 0.11
Finally, during the 3-weeks of participating in the study, the average SCI Positive Thinking 2.82 (0.57) 2.93 (0.54) 1.56 0.20
SCI Alcohol/Cigarette 1.45 (0.63) 1.54 (0.66) 2.11* 0.15
consumption of humorous videos on social media did not significantly SCI Active Stress 2.87 (0.71) 2.97 (0.67) 1.40 0.14
change (Wilcoxon test: z = -1.71, p = .088) although descriptively was Coping
even 3.5 min lower (M = 17.9 min vs. 14.4 min). In a similar vein, also SCI Social Support 3.41 (0.57) 3.43 (0.48) 0.37 0.04
the consumption of humorous TV shows did not change during the 3- SCI Support in Faith 1.99 (0.71) 2.07 (0.62) 1.16 0.10
TICS 2.78 (0.78) 2.88 (0.84) 1.43 0.12
weeks’ time frame (M = 0.96 times per week vs. 0.51; Wilcoxon test: z =
-0.36, p = .722). Well-being-related
SWLS 5.25 (1.09) 5.44 (0.96) 2.56** 0.18
HINT 2.82 (1.07) 2.86 (1.07) 0.65 0.04
SSS–8 2.12 (0.63) 2.12 (0.68) -0.01 > -0.01
3.3. Hypothesis 1: regularly watching humorous video clips is associated RS–11 5.65 (0.63) 5.72 (0.56) 0.84 0.10
with reduced perceived stress
Personality (Exploratory Analysis)
Extraversion 3.36 (0.87) 3.43 (0.88) 1.12 0.08
3.3.1. Short-term: before and directly after the video Agreeableness 4.40 (0.66) 4.32 (0.79) -1.24 -0.11
As can be seen in Table 1, watching a humorous video clip was Conscientiousness 4.07 (0.74) 3.99 (0.78) -1.09 -0.10
associated with a significant instant decrease in stress-level by about 2 Neuroticism 3.03 (0.74) 2.86 (0.78) -2.55** -0.22
Openness 3.70 (0.78) 3.67 (0.89) -0.28 -0.03
points on the VAS.
Note: PSS = Perceived Stress Scale, SCI = Stress and Coping Inventar, TICS =
3.3.2. Medium-term: within 30 min after watching the video clip Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress, SWLS = Satisfaction With Life Scale, HINT =
As can be seen in Table 1, the medium-term effect, although atten­ Habit Index of Negative Thinking, SSS–8 = Somatic Symptom Scale–8, RS–11 =
uated as expected, was still prevalent at the first retest and also on the Resilience Scale–11, Cohen’s d values: small effect size d = 0.2, medium effect
second retest, both within a time-frame of 30 min. Although the effect size d = 0.5, large effect size d = 0.8. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 (one-
sided).
directly after watching the video was small (standardized B = 0.05), this
effect only slowly faded away during the following 30 min (from -2.04
points to -1.78 and -1.73 on the VAS respectively; see Table 1). than at the beginning, although this effect was of low effect size (d =
0.15). Furthermore, we analyzed if regularly watching videos gradually
3.3.3. Long-term: before and after the 3-week assessment phase declines the perceived stress over time during the 3 weeks assessment
As can be seen in Table 2, we did not find any substantial long-term phase. Calculating a random-intercept random-slope model with the day
stress reducing effects. On the contrary, using alcohol and cigarettes for of study as the predictor, we found a slight decrease in perceived stress
stress reduction was deemed more appropriate at the end of the study over time (standardized B =-− 0.07, p = .073; see Fig. S1 and Table S9),

Table 1
Results of the multi-level analyses.
Fixed Random

Coeff. B CI β SE t Coeff. SD

Stress-level

Intercept (Reference) β00 33.08 29.19–36.96 1.98 16.71*** r0i 13.99

Within-person
Immediately after video β10 -2.04 -3.46− -0.6 -0.05 0.73 -2.80**
First retest β20 -1.78 -3.38− -0.18 -0.04 0.82 -2.18**
Second retest β30 -1.73 -3.49–0.04 -0.03 0.90 -1.92*

R2conditional = 46%, AIC = 23,295, BIC = 23,331

Well-being (affect grid – arousal)

Intercept (Reference) β00 47.65 44.68–50.61 1.51 31.50*** r0i 10.16

Within-person
Immediately after video β10 3.55 1.63–5.47 0.09 0.98 3.63***
First retest β20 0.89 -0.94–2.72 0.02 0.94 0.95
Second retest β30 1.50 -0.55–3.55 0.03 1.04 1.44

R2conditional = 28%, AIC = 23,960, BIC = 23,996

Well-being (affect grid – valence)

Intercept (Reference) β00 66.26 62.37–70.15 1.98 33.41*** r0i 13.92

Within-person
Immediately after video β10 2.38 0.09–4.67 0.05 1.17 2.03**
First retest β20 2.27 0.53–4.02 0.04 0.89 2.55**
Second retest β30 2.52 0.61–4.43 0.04 0.97 2.59**

R2conditional = 42%, AIC = 23,724, BIC = 23,759

Note. Reference category was the assessment before watching the video. CI = 95% Confidence Interval; β = standardized B; *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 (one-sided).

5
S. Stieger et al.
Fig. 1. Heat map of the changes in the affect grid (valence, activation) for the four short- and medium-term time points. Panel A: Reference assessment before the
video. Panel B: Short-term assessment immediately after the video. Panel C and D: Medium term retests within 30 min after the video. (R-script, see on­
line supplement).
although not significant at a 5% level.
3.4. Hypothesis 2: regularly watching humorous video clips is associated
with increased well-being
3.4.1. Short-term: before and directly after the video
First, watching a video was associated with a raised arousal by about
4 points on the VAS (see Table 1), i.e., watching a video seems to have
raised the overall activation. Similar results were found regarding
valence, as watching a video was associated with a raised well-being (i.
e., valence) by 2.4 points.
3.4.2. Medium-term: within 30 min after watching the video clip
Arousal was only a very short-lived effect because at the first and
second retest no significant arousal effect could be found. However, the
effect on valence was different. The positive mood found directly after
the video seemed to be stable at least at the medium-term. Significant
effects of similar effect size were found for the first and second retests, all
within a 30-min time-frame (2.3 and 2.5 points respectively on the VAS).
The results from the affect grid can also be visualized on a 2D-grid
(see Fig. 1). Reflecting the findings above, before the video, the center
of ratings was very much in the center of the grid (Fig. 1, first panel).
After the video, some participants remained in the center (probably
those who found the video not as funny as assumed) and another center
appeared in the upper right quadrant with participants having a higher
activation and higher valence. At the first retest, some participants still
had a higher valence, but their activation dropped to the mean (= 50),
whereas another group stayed at the same level than directly after the
video. In the second retest, the second group in the upper right quadrant
was still prevalent (although the activation was not significant any
longer, see Table 1).
3.4.3. Long-term: before and after the 3-week assessment phase
As can be seen in Table 2, we did not find any substantial long-term
effects on our measures associated with well-being. Only for the satis­
faction with one’s life, a higher value after the 3-week time-frame was
found of low effect size (d = 0.18). Watching humorous videos on a daily
basis for three weeks was not associated with the habit of negative
thinking, resilience, or somatic symptoms. Furthermore, as with
perceived stress (see above), we analyzed if watching a video on a
particular day (t) was associated with the activation and valence
assessed before watching the video the next day (t + 1) and so forth. We
found no significant association with the day of assessment nor for
activation (standardized B = 0.04, p = .373; see Fig. S2) nor valence
(standardized B = 0.05, p = .145; see Fig. S3).
3.5. Exploratory analyses
For exploratory reasons, we also added a measure of personality to
our study. We assumed that emotional stability might be higher after
6
Computers in Human Behavior Reports 10 (2023) 100270
having seen about 21 humorous videos during the assessment phase
without having a particular theory or hypothesis in mind. Indeed,
neuroticism was significantly lower after three weeks, although again
the effect was of small size (d = -0.22; Table 2). Furthermore, Well­
enzohn et al. (Wellenzohn et al., 2018) found that a humor-based pos­
itive psychology intervention was more effective in extraverted people
than introverts. We could not find this effect in a multi-level model with
the difference score in valence between pre-video and post-video
assessment as the criterion and extraversion as the predictor (B =
-0.43, p = .726). Additionally, we could not find an association with the
difference score for stress level (B = 0.14, p = .897), but a slight one for
arousal (B = 1.84, p = .042), i.e., extraverted participants had a higher
arousal after watching a humorous video than introverted participants.
Furthermore, we recalculated the main analysis without the difference
score but included cross-level interactions between the time-points and
Extraversion. Again, all cross-level interactions were non-significant
except for valence after watching the video (B = 3.1, p < .001;
detailed results omitted for brevity).
4. Discussion
The results of the present field-based experiment using an ESM
design provides empirical evidence that watching humorous video clips
daily for three weeks went along with an instant stress reduction, which
very slowly faded away in the medium-term (within a 30-min time-
frame). Additionally, watching humorous video clips was associated
with an overall activation but seemed to be a very short-lived effect. In
contrast, the effect of higher well-being (i.e., valence) remained stable
again at least at the medium-term. In the long-term, watching humorous
video clips on a daily basis over three weeks was not associated with
stress-related constructs, such as perceived stress, coping with stress,
and chronic stress, except for a small effect on stress coping using
alcohol and/or cigarettes, which was counterintuitively higher at the
end of the study than expected. Furthermore, long-term effects were also
not found for the well-being related concepts, such as negative thinking,
somatic symptoms, and resilience, except for satisfaction with life which
was slightly higher at the end of the study, although of small effect size
(d = 0.18).
These findings are interesting in two respects. First, although
watching humorous video clips in our everyday life seems to have an
instant effect on stress reduction and raising well-being, the effective­
ness of this behavior is not comparable to specifically designed humor-
based positive interventions programs when it comes to the longevity of
the intervention effects (e.g., Ruch & Hofmann, 2017; Wellenzohn et al.,
2016a; Wellenzohn et al., 2016b). Although we found a positive effect
on satisfaction with life, which is in line with the found
enhanced-happiness-effect found by Wellenzohn et al. (Wellenzohn
et al., 2016b), our results should be replicated using a randomized
control-group design (Wellenzohn et al., 2016b) to rule out other pos­
sibilities, such as natural changes over time.
S. Stieger et al.
Second, although the effectiveness seems to be not comparable with
well-developed programs, watching humorous video clips on YouTube is
easily feasible and accessible and could be used for short-term in­
teractions. This could be why many people watch humorous videos, that
is, to get instant relief, and could be seen as a strategy for psycho-
hygiene and adaptive coping. This might also be a possible explana­
tion for the popularity of this social media platform and the high number
of users watching humorous videos on YouTube (see Introduction; top
genre is comedy-related: Global Media Insight, 2022). From a clinical
point of view, watching humor-related videos casually in our everyday
life cannot alleviate stress-related symptoms or heal psychological ill­
nesses, but it could be used as an easy strategy to complement other
forms of therapies from classical psychotherapeutic interventions to
pharmacological ones (e.g., Akimbekov & Razzaque, 2021).
Taking our descriptive analyses into account, it would be interesting
for future research to provide a larger pool and variety of video clips in
order to avoid participants viewing video clips they had already
watched. That said, it could be of scientific interest to examine whether
the effects would be larger and last longer if the video clips were
perceived as funnier. Although we wanted to be as close as possible to a
real field-like setting, we had to preselect videos in order to reduce the
influence of other variables (e.g., length of the video, humor content).
Nevertheless, we tried to reduce the impact of these strict specifications
by conducting a pre-study to select videos for their funniness and by
letting participants choose their individual humor style preference
(satire/comedy, fail videos, vine videos). Future research could try to in­
crease the perceived funniness by additionally individualizing video
clips according to participant’s sex/gender, age, profession, or hobbies,
as these social coordinates contribute to the identity of participants and
may therefore increase the perceived funniness of video clips. Another
approach to reach increases in effect sizes would be to use longer video
clips. However, it is uncertain if longer video clips would decrease
participant motivation and commitment and would therefore bias the
effects. Furthermore, the overall time-frame of three weeks could be
lengthened, but might also come at the cost of higher dropout.
Another improvement of the design might be to ask about the
number of watched humorous video clips at the start of the study in
order to see if the overall amount has raised at the end of the study. If
not, participants might have compensated the additional video clips
watched in the study by reducing the amount of video clips watched
independent from the study. In this case, one would not expect any long-
term effect. Secondly, in future studies the design would also benefit
from introducing a control group to control for other long-term effects
which might have canceled-out effects from the videos (e.g., national
lockdown restrictions during the 3-weeks). This would also have the
advantage to control for intervention or reactivity effect (Eisele et al.,
2023) elicited by the study design itself (i.e., changes in the stress level
due to frequent bings). Finally, future research might consider a more
reliable measure of personality. Although the MINI-IPIP only has 20
items, test-retest reliabilities were acceptable (see Table S8; .74 to .89),
but internal consistency values were rather low for certain subdomains
(e.g., neuroticism: .60).
Furthermore, the sample included predominantly female partici­
pants and age ranged from 18 to 58 years. In this regard, it would be
interesting to conduct a similar study with children and adolescents, as
well as with an elderly population, as their social media usage patterns
and digital literacy may differ. Moreover, it has to be pointed out that
other social media platforms that focus on video clips, like TikTok, have
increased in popularity and could be used for further research, too
(TikTok, 2022).
As already mentioned above, we cannot entirely rule out unintended
intervention effects occurred during the 3-week assessment phase,
which influenced a possible long-term intervention effect (e.g.,
cancelled each other out). Future research should use a randomized
control-group design.
The present research is important because it flags up a potential
7
Computers in Human Behavior Reports 10 (2023) 100270
adaptive coping strategy which is easily accessible, mostly free-of-
charge, and widely used. The findings underpin the effectiveness of
watching humorous video clips in order to reduce stress and foster well-
being. However, as detailed effect size and effect course analyses
revealed, the health-enhancing effects are short-lived and of small effect
size. Taking this into consideration, a combination of the examined
adaptive coping strategy with other positive psychological interventions
and strategies (e.g., self-affirmations, practice of gratefulness, humor-
related intervention programs) may attain longer lasting and stronger
effects. This could, in turn, be used in the context of psycho-hygiene
applications or could be applied supportively and prophylactically in
(sub-) clinical settings as well as a prevention tool in the healthy
population.
Author contributions
Stefan Stieger: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Methodology;
Project administration; Supervision; Visualization; Writing - original
draft; Writing - review & editing Irina Schmid: Conceptualization;
Methodology; Investigation; Data curation; Project administration;
Writing - original draft; Writing - review & editing Philip Altenburger:
Conceptualization; Methodology; Investigation; Data curation; Project
administration; Writing - review & editing David Lewetz: Methodology;
Software; Resources; Writing - review & editing.
Preregistration
https://osf.io/8793a.
Material and data
https://osf.io/bwh2y/.
Funding
Austrian Science Fund, grant number P31800-N38.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest.
Data availability
Materials, data, and analyses code is available at https://osf.
io/bwh2y/
Acknowledgments
We thank Viren Swami for his useful comments.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.chbr.2023.100270.
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