The Psychology of Humor

An Integrative Approach

Rod A. Martin, Thomas Ford

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780128135099
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Personality in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Most of us laugh at something funny multiple times during a typical day. Humor serves multiple purposes, and although there is a sizable and expanding research literature on the subject, the research is spread in a variety of disciplines. The Psychology of Humor, 2e reviews the literature, integrating research from across subdisciplines in psychology, as well as related fields such as anthropology, biology, computer science, linguistics, sociology, and more. This book begins by defining humor and presenting theories of humor. Later chapters cover cognitive processes involved in humor and the effects of humor on cognition. Individual differences in personality and humor are identified as well as the physiology of humor, the social functions of humor, and how humor develops and changes over the lifespan. This book concludes noting the association of humor with physical and mental health, and outlines applications of humor use in psychotherapy, education, and the workplace.

In addition to being fully updated with recent research, the second edition includes a variety of new materials. More graphs, tables, and figures now illustrate concepts, processes, and theories. It provides new brief interviews with prominent humor scholars via text boxes. The end of each chapter now includes a list of key concepts, critical thinking questions, and a list of resources for further reading.

• Covers research on humor and laughter in every area of psychology
• Integrates research findings into a coherent conceptual framework
• Includes brain imaging studies, evolutionary models, and animal research
• Integrates related information from sociology, linguistics, neuroscience, and anthropology
• Explores applications of humor in psychotherapy, education, and the workplace
• Provides new research, plus key concepts and chapter summaries

Chapter 1

Introduction to the Psychology of Humor

Abstract

This chapter introduces the psychology of humor and briefly outlines the content of the other book chapters. Humor is a universal human activity that most people experience many times over the course of a typical day. From a psychological perspective, humor is fundamentally a social phenomenon; it is a form of social play comprised of the perception of playful incongruity that induces the positive emotional response of mirth and the vocal-behavioral expression of laughter. In social interactions, humor takes on many different forms, including canned jokes, spontaneous witticisms, and unintentionally funny utterances and actions. There is a good deal of evidence suggesting that humor and laughter confer adaptive cognitive and social benefits for individuals, including a way to relieve tension, regulate emotions, and cope with stress. In addition, humor has important social–psychological consequences for interpersonal relationships and broader group processes. Humor can serve as both positive (adaptive) and negative (maladaptive) social functions; it can both unite people by solidifying bonds and the sense of belonging to a group, and divide people by establishing social boundaries and fostering discrimination.

Keywords

Behavior; function; humor; laughter; psychology

We all know what it is like to experience humor. Someone tells a joke, relates an amusing personal anecdote, or makes a witty comment or an inadvertent slip of the tongue, and we are suddenly struck by how funny it is. Depending on how amusing we perceive the event to be, it might cause us to smile, to chuckle, or to burst out in peals of convulsive laughter. Our response is accompanied by pleasant feelings of emotional wellbeing or mirth. Most of us have this sort of experience many times during the course of a typical day.

Humor and laughter are universal and fundamental human experiences, occurring in all cultures and virtually all individuals throughout the world, and in nearly every type of interpersonal relationship (Apte, 1985; Lefcourt, 2001). Although different cultures have their own norms concerning the suitable subject matter of humor and the types of situations where laughter is considered appropriate, the sounds of laughter are indistinguishable from one culture to another (Sauter, Eisner, Ekman, & Scott, 2010). Developmentally, laughter is one of the first social vocalizations (after crying) emitted by human infants (McGhee, 1979). Infants begin to laugh in response to the actions of other people at about 4 months of age, and cases of gelastic (i.e., laughter-producing) epilepsy in newborns indicate that the brain mechanisms for laughter are already present at birth (Sher & Brown, 1976). The fact that even children born deaf and blind laugh without having perceived the laughter of others further demonstrates the innateness of laughter (Black, 1984).

Indeed, there is evidence of specialized brain circuits for humor and laughter in humans that researchers are beginning to identify in neural imaging studies (e.g., Yamao et al., 2015). Thus, the ability to enjoy humor and express it through laughter seems to be an essential part of human experience. Accordingly, humor and laughter are topics of popular interest that have captured the imagination and critical attention of scholars from multiple disciplines dating back to the writings of the classical Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle.

People often mock scholarly attempts to study humor; it seems that humor must naturally elude explanation by “serious” scientific methods. By putting humor under the “scientific microscope,” the humorless scholar misses the point and fails to appreciate its essence. This incredulity has been humorously and famously expressed by Elwyn B. White who quipped in the preface of the 1941 book, A Subtreasury of American Humor, “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.” However, As H. J. Eyesenck noted in Goldstein and McGhee’s (1972) edited volume, The Psychology of Humor, we can confidently dismiss such commonplace renunciations as they have been encountered by every scientist attempting to extend the scope of their inquiries into new fields.

Common sense and folk wisdom explanations for many psychological phenomena have proven to be overly simplistic or simply wrong. Indeed, it is only through rigorous scientific investigation of humor that psychologists have been able to address a diversity of issues and questions. For instance, what are the mental processes involved in “getting a joke” or perceiving something to be funny? How is humor processed in the brain and what effects does it have on our bodies? What is laughter and why do we laugh in response to humorous things? What roles does humor play in interactions with other people? What is a “sense of humor” and how does it develop in children? Is a good sense of humor beneficial for mental and physical health? By subjecting such questions to rigorous scholarly inquiry, psychologists and other scholars have illuminated the integral role that humor plays in the human experience.

In this chapter we define humor, discussing the essential elements of the humor experience. Next, we summarize the history of the study of humor, examining the way popular conceptions and assumptions about humor and laughter have changed dramatically over the centuries. We then discuss the psychological approach to the study of humor and describe current trends in the psychological study of humor. We then present a survey of the many different forms of humor that we encounter in daily life, and then some of the psychological functions of humor and laughter. Finally, we present an overview of the rest of this book.

What Is Humor?

As psychologist Willibald Ruch proposed in the 2008 volume, The Primer of Humor Research, the perception that something is funny seems to be fundamental in defining humor. However, scholars and laypeople alike use the term humor in a variety of contexts to mean different things. Indeed, scholars have operationally defined and measured humor in terms of different facets of the humor experience that are relevant to specific research questions. As a result, the term humor has come to represent all phenomena related to the humor experience (Ruch, 1998, 2001). Thus, we offer the following definition of humor:

Humor is a broad, multifaceted term that represents anything that people say or do that others perceive as funny and tends to make them laugh, as well as the mental processes that go into both creating and perceiving such an amusing stimulus, and also the emotional response of mirth involved in the enjoyment of it.

It is important to recognize that humor is fundamentally a social phenomenon; other people provide the context in which we experience humor. As mentioned above, humor occurs in nearly every type of interpersonal relationship. We laugh and joke much more frequently when we are with other people than when we are by ourselves (R. A. Martin & Kuiper, 1999; Provine & Fischer, 1989). People do occasionally laugh when they are alone, such as while watching a comedy show on television, reading a humorous book, or remembering a funny personal experience. However, these instances of laughter are still “social” in that they involve the imagined or implied presence of other people (Allport, 1954). One is still responding to people as characters in the television program or the book, or reliving in memory an event that involved other people. Humor essentially is a way for people to interact in a playful manner.

From a psychological perspective, therefore, humor represents a form of social play. Max Eastman (1936) stated, “humor is play… Therefore, no definition of humor, no theory of wit, no explanation of comic laughter, will ever stand up, which is not based upon the distinction between playful and serious” (p. 15). He pointed out that, from reading the serious-sounding descriptions of humor written by many of the past theorists, one would not know that humor is a playful, lighthearted activity. More recently, Berlyne (1969) noted the close connection between humor and play, and Gruner (1997) emphasized the playful nature of humorous aggression. William Fry (1963) also viewed humor as essentially a form of play. Finally, Michael Apter (1982) incorporated the idea of humor as play as a central assumption in his reversal theory of humor (discussed in Chapter 3: Contemporary Theories of Humor).

Humor, as a form of social play, can be divided into three essential psychological elements related to cognition, emotion, and behavior. As depicted in Fig. 1.1, the person experiences (1) cognitive-perceptual processes underlying the perception of something as funny, which triggers (2) a unique emotional response of mirth and (3) the vocal-behavioral expression of laughter. Further, each element of humor, and therefore its overall experience, is fundamentally dependent on and affected by the social context.

Figure 1.1 The essential cognitive, emotional, and behavioral elements of humor.

Cognitive-Perceptual Processes in Humor

The experience of humor appears to be predicated on two cognitive-perceptual processes activated by characteristics of a humor stimulus and the social context in which it is encountered: (1) perception of incongruity and (2) appraisal of incongruity in a nonserious humor mindset. As we will see Chapter 2, Classic Theories of Humor, scholars have debated over the characteristics that cause one to perceive a stimulus as funny; however, most contemporary investigators would agree that the perception of “incongruity” is at the heart of the humor experience (e.g., Carrell, 2008; Forabosco, 1992; Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Ruch, 2001). That is, humor involves an idea, image, text, or event that is in some sense incongruous, odd, unusual, unexpected, surprising, or out-of-the-ordinary. In addition, the humor stimulus must be accompanied by cues that signal us to appraise the stimulus in a playful, nonserious, nonliteral frame of mind in which people temporarily abandon rules of logic and expectations of common sense and congruity (e.g., Apter, 1982; Berlyne, 1972; Cohen, 1999; Cundall, 2007; McGhee, 1972; Morreall, 1987; Mulkay, 1988). Thus, in the humorous mode of thinking, contrary to the rational logic of normal, serious thought, a thing can be both X and not-X at the same time (Mulkay, 1988).

The cartoon depicted in Fig. 1.2 joins the two essential cognitive elements by presenting an incongruity to be interpreted in a playful, humor mindset.

Figure 1.2 Cartoon depicting playful incongruity. Source: Copyright John Jonik/Published in The New Yorker Magazine.

The funeral scene presents a “set-up” for the punch line. It provides an initial schema or set of logical expectations about the situation. The image of the people all laughing is the punch line that creates an incongruous violation of expectations (people don’t normally laugh at funerals). Because the incongruity appears in the context of a cartoon, people appraise it in a playful, humor mindset and thus interpret it as funny.

The perception of incongruity in a playful, humor mind set illustrated by this cartoon appears to characterize all forms of humor, including jokes, teasing, and witty banter, unintentional types of humor such as amusing slips of the tongue or the proverbial person slipping on the banana peel, the laughter-eliciting peek-a-boo games and rough-and-tumble play of children, and even the humor of chimpanzees and gorillas (Wyer & Collins, 1992). As we will see in later chapters, a great deal of theoretical discussion and research on the psychology of humor has focused on exploring in greater detail the cognitive processes underlying the perception and appreciation of humor.

The word “humor” is sometimes used in a narrow sense to refer specifically to these cognitive processes that go into perceiving something as funny. We also will occasionally use it in this narrow sense, since there does not seem to be another word to denote this cognitive process. It is impo...