Simply put, people like being around others who make them laugh. When humor is used in a spirit of goodness, it can bring people together which, Shirley helps point out, creates an external support system. As she reminds audiences, the beauty of that laughing support system is truly demonstrated when things aren’t so laughable. As she puts it, "We laugh together so we never have to cry alone."
One interesting observation Shirley has noted regarding the social benefits lies within the reality of family bonding over a period of time. She likens this benefit to the process of brain development.
(Anyone familiar with brain research understands the process of myelination, which protects the brain connections that have been made fairly secure. That is, those connections are protected with a myelin sheath, which protects the dendrite connections from a systematic "housecleaning" by a natural chemical bath. This housecleaning allows dendrites not being stimulated to be absorbed and disintegrated to allow room for the connections that are relevant to the individual’s experiences. (One of the most pronounced examples of this is in language development. While the child is born with the capability of learning ALL languages, by having certain phonemes of the native language being repeated over and over again, the child’s brain learns to identify those phonemes, while losing its ability to recognize those of non-native languages. The stimulated connections are then protected from housecleaning by the myelin sheath at a certain time in early childhood, thus allowing for further, age appropriate development to take place while building upon the child’s reinforced knowledge.)
In studying humor in the course of laughing at – or near – trauma, stressful situations, embarrassment, etc., the laughter is, in effect, creating an "emotional myelin sheath" around that event or situation. In so doing, the pain of the experience is softened as the memory of the experience is packaged in something pleasant (laughter), rather than pain, fear or humiliation.
With these life experiences so protected, the individual remains willing to look back at them (often in conjunction with a return to the laughter that was found near the time of the event). In that way, the experience can remain positioned as one of that individual’s (or group’s) personal stories. These stories, over the course of one’s lifetime, can be important teachers as they teach valuable life lessons, connect people across generations, and help individuals and groups put current or existing "problems" in perspective.
Shirley believes that humor’s most important contribution to the human experience may be this perspective-building outcome. With perspective, a person, group, and society can learn from today’s experiences and take appropriate actions to create an improved tomorrow.