Psychosocial Effects of Humor

This study addressed the use of humor as a means to improve the academic success of college student-athletes. Student-athletes are often mistakenly viewed as the “privileged few” and hence do not deserve to be treated as a typical student. Academically speaking, however, scores for student-athletes and their graduation rates tend to be lower than other students. Humor can have cognitive and physiological abilities that would be useful to student-athletes and individuals who work with them. Humor may also enhance the educational process by helping students retain lecture material and boosting self-esteem. To determine the effectiveness of humor as a teaching strategy, 38 studentathletes from a Research One, predominately White, NCAA Division- One University participated in a two-hour training session on mentoring. After random assignment, the control group received a strict lecture format.