About a decade ago we edited The Psychology of Humor. Besides the summary chapter and bibliography of about 400 items, the book contained eleven original papers that represented the state of knowledge at that time. We confess that it was not easy to fill that volume with first-rate contributions. In a few instances we invited contributors only on the basis of having heard through the grapevine that they were doing interesting work on humor. Our sources proved reliable and we were pleased with the results. We even made new friends as a result of these blind invitations. But the fact remains...

Progress in understanding humor and developing a comprehensive, testable theory of humor has been slow in coming. Fortunately, we do not need to have at our command a thorough understanding of a phenomenon in order to make use of it. In Volume II, Applied Studies, of the Handbook of Humor Research, there is a movement away from theoretical issues that lay beneath humor and laughter as biological, psychological, and social acts. Rather than attempting to deal with the dynamics of humor-with why a particular situation or object elicits laughter-the chapters in Volume II explore humor and...