organ donation has come about somewhat indirectly. Initially our aim was to investigate coping responses to stress within the domain of death attitudes and to explore the relation between cognitions, affect, and behaviors that arise in deathsalient contexts. For example, based on results of an initial pilot study (Shepherd, 1988), we have hypothesized that higher levels of mood disturbance experienced in death-related situations are associated with a negative evaluation of death and with the avoidance of such death-salient contexts.Although we surmised that the stress of thinking about death does have an impact on subjects' feelings and behaviors, we realized that there exists a range of reactions that can be anticipated among different persons. It has long been known that the measurable effects of stress on feelings and behaviors are often less than impressive (Johnson & Sarason, 1979;Rabkin & Struening, 1976). Research on stress and coping has suggested a variety of subject characteristics that may influence the relation between stress and distress (i.e., Cohen & Syme, 1985;Kobasa, 1979;Lefcourt, Miller, Ware, & Sherk, 1981). Of particular relevance to our own research have been results from a series of studies by Lefcourt and Martin (1986), which provided evidence that humor is a valid coping response that appears to reduce the negative impact of stressful experi-50
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