World Trivia

Resources

Laughter’s like a drugstore powered by giggles.

It slashes stress, boosts feel-good vibes, and even lights up the room—one chuckle can lift everyone’s mood, therapist included!

Serve Up Dinner and WordTeasers!

Teens who share family meals get better grades, bigger vocabularies, and stronger convo skills. It’s like a tutor… with gravy.

  • “The Role of Mealtimes in Fostering Language Development and Aligning Home and School Learning” (Zeidler et al., 2022) — PDF link:
  • “Correlations Between Family Meals and Psychosocial Well-Being Among Adolescents” (Eisenberg et al., 2004)
  • “Family Mealtimes: A Systematic Umbrella Review of Characteristics, Correlates, Outcomes and Interventions” (Snuggs & Harvey, 2023) — PDF link

Start a Convo with WordTeasers—Your Kids Will Love It!

Talking with them boosts their brains, builds their confidence, and helps them grow kinder, smarter, and stronger—one fun question at a time.

  • Talking to children matters: Early language experience and brain development — Weissleder & Fernald (2013) — “These studies show that children’s language outcomes are linked both to early experience with language …” PubMed Central
  • A Commentary on Parent–Child Cognitive Learning Interaction Research: What Have We Learned from Two Decades of Research? — Harris (2016) — Review of how parent-child cognitive learning interactions (talking, interplay) shape kids’ cognitive/learning outcomes. Frontiers
  • Parent child interactions support early language development in diverse families — (InfantStudies.org summary) — “Reciprocal interactions between parent and child are a strong predictor of children’s language skills.” Infant Studies Congress

 

WordTeasers Help Everyone Chill Out!

Laughter helps dial down stress hormones like cortisol, so your body can relax and reset. It’s like a built-in pressure release that leaves you feeling calm and at ease.

  • “Laughter as medicine: A systematic review and meta analysis of interventional studies evaluating the impact of spontaneous laughter on cortisol levels” — shows that spontaneous laughter interventions reduced cortisol levels by about 31.9% compared with controls. PubMed Central+1
  • “Laughter therapy: A humor induced hormonal intervention to enhance physical and psychological well being?” — discusses that laughter reduces bioactivities of cortisol and other stress hormones. PubMed Central+1
  • “UCLA Health – ‘Laugh it up! 5 benefits of laughter for older adults’” — states that laughter helps decrease cortisol (stress hormone) and relaxes muscles. uclahealth.org

 

WordTeasers Keep Your Brain Active.

Learning something new—especially weird or surprising facts—makes your brain light up and stay sharp!

  • The role of interest in memory for trivia questions (Fastrich et al., 2017) — “One way to induce interest … is to use trivia…” and they find interest improves memory for trivial facts. PubMed Central
  • Evaluating the effectiveness of a board game to learn … (Whitt et ., 2023) — Uses board-game/trivia-style format in learning and finds positive effects on cognition/motivation. ERIC
  • A Narrative Review of the Benefits of Board Games in Health (2025) — Reviews evidence that board/trivia-type games enhance logical thinking, verbal working memory, and social/interpersonal skills. Cureus
  • The effectiveness of intervention with board games (Noda et al., 2019) — Reviews 27 studies: board games improved educational knowledge, cognitive functions, interpersonal interactions. BioMed Central
  • The Effects of Different Feedback Types on Learning With Quiz Apps (Rüth et al., 2021) — Focuses on quiz apps (akin to trivia questions) and finds that immediate, engaging feedback improves learning outcomes. Frontiers

WordTeasers Make Learning Easy!

Research has shown that if you read a word, hear it in a context, and laugh about it, you’re more likely to learn and keep that word.

  • The Effect of Context (Humorous vs. Non humorous) on Vocabulary Acquisition and Retention of Iranian EFL Learners (Ghaffari & Mohamadi): shows that vocabulary items learned in a humorous context were retained significantly better than those in non-humorous contexts. AIAC Journals
  • The Use of Humourous Texts in Improving ESL Learners’ Vocabulary Comprehension and Retention (Zabidin): found that ESL learners exposed to humorous texts (with target words) had improved word comprehension and retention compared to non-humorous texts. ERIC

WordTeasers are Contagious

Just hearing someone laugh at a Dad Joke can make you laugh too. Your brain can’t help it!

  • Laughter is a sufficient stimulus for laughs and smiles (R. R. Provine, 1992) — one of the early experimental studies showing that hearing laughter alone (even via a “laugh‐box”) can trigger smiling or laughter in listeners. PDF
  • Modality Specific Contagion of Laughter and Yawning in Humans (M. De Weck et al., 2022) — found that laughter is more contagious than yawning and that the auditory modality (hearing laughter) triggers more contagious responses. Full text
  • Pre SMA activation and the perception of contagiousness and authenticity in laughter (Billing et al., 2021) — neuroimaging study showing that hearing laughter activates brain areas related to motor/mirroring and contagion (i.e., your brain gears up to respond when you hear laughter). PDF