Wiki Loves Monuments: Photograph a monument, help Wikipedia and win!

Learn more

Laughter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

For other uses, see Laughter (disambiguation).

"Laugh", "Laughing", and "Giggle" redirect here. For other uses, see Laugh (disambiguation), Laughing (disambiguation), and Giggle (disambiguation).

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Image not available.

Workers laughing in a clothing factory

Laughter is a physical reaction in humans consisting typically of rhythmical, often audible contractions of the diaphragm and other parts of the respiratory system. It is a response to certain external or internal stimuli. Laughter can arise from such activities as being tickled,[1] or from humorous stories or thoughts.[2] Most commonly, it is considered a visual expression of a number of positive emotional states, such as joy, mirth, happiness, relief, etc. On some occasions, however, it may be caused by contrary emotional states such as embarrassment, apology, or confusion such as nervous laughter or courtesy laugh. Age, gender, education, language, and culture are all indicators[3] as to whether a person will experience laughter in a given situation. Some other species of primate (chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and orangutans) show laughter-like vocalizations in response to physical contact such as wrestling, play chasing or tickling.

Laughter is a part of human behavior regulated by the brain, helping humans clarify their intentions in social interaction and providing an emotional context to conversations. Laughter is used as a signal for being part of a group—it signals acceptance and positive interactions with others. Laughter is sometimes seen as contagious, and the laughter of one person can itself provoke laughter from others as a positive feedback.[4]

The study of humor and laughter, and its psychological and physiological effects on the human body, is called gelotology.

Nature

Laughter might be thought of as an audible expression or appearance of excitement, an inward feeling of joy and happiness. It may ensue from jokes, tickling, and other stimuli completely unrelated to psychological state, such as nitrous oxide. One group of researchers speculated that noises from infants as early as 16 days old may be vocal laughing sounds or laughter,[5] however the weight of the evidence supports its appearance at 15 weeks to four months of age.

Laughter researcher Robert Provine [es] said: "Laughter is a mechanism everyone has; laughter is part of universal human vocabulary. There are thousands of languages, hundreds of thousands of dialects, but everyone speaks laughter in pretty much the same way." Babies have the ability to laugh before they ever speak. Children who are born blind and deaf still retain the ability to laugh.[6]

Provine argues that "Laughter is primitive, an unconscious vocalization." Provine argues that it probably is genetic. In a study of the "Giggle Twins", two happy twins who were separated at birth and only reunited 43 years later, Provine reports that "until they met each other, neither of these exceptionally happy ladies had known anyone who laughed as much as they did." They reported this even though they had been brought together by their adoptive parents, who they indicated were "undemonstrative and dour." He indicates that the twins "inherited some aspects of their laugh sound and pattern, readiness to laugh, and maybe even taste in humor."[7]

Norman Cousins developed a recovery program incorporating megadoses of Vitamin C, along with a positive attitude, love, faith, hope, and laughter induced by Marx Brothers films. "I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep," he reported. "When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval."[8][9]

Scientists have noted the similarity in forms of laughter induced by tickling among various primates, which suggests that laughter derives from a common origin among primate species.[10][11]

A very rare neurological condition has been observed whereby the sufferer is unable to laugh out loud, a condition known as aphonogelia.[12]

The brain

Woman laughing in Laos

A man laughing

Neurophysiology indicates that laughter is linked with the activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, that produces endorphins.[13] Scientists have shown that parts of the limbic system are involved in laughter. This system is involved in emotions and helps us with functions necessary for humans' survival. The structures in the limbic system that are involved in laughter are the hippocampus and the amygdala.[14]

The December 7, 1984, Journal of the American Medical Association describes the neurological causes of laughter as follows:

"Although there is no known 'laugh center' in the brain, its neural mechanism has been the subject of much, albeit inconclusive, speculation. It is evident that its expression depends on neural paths arising in close association with the telencephalic and diencephalic centers concerned with respiration. Wilson considered the mechanism to be in the region of the mesial thalamus, hypothalamus, and subthalamus. Kelly and co-workers, in turn, postulated that the tegmentum near the periaqueductal grey contains the integrating mechanism for emotional expression. Thus, supranuclear pathways, including those from the limbic system that Papez hypothesised to mediate emotional expressions such as laughter, probably come into synaptic relation in the reticular core of the brain stem. So while purely emotional responses such as laughter are mediated by subcortical structures, especially the hypothalamus, and are stereotyped, the cerebral cortex can modulate or suppress them."

Some drugs are well known for their laughter-facilitating properties (e. g. ethanol and cannabis), while the others, like 

A research article was published December 1, 2000 on the psycho-evolution of laughter (Panksepp 2000).[16]

Health

A link between laughter and healthy function of blood vessels was first reported in 2005 by researchers at the University of Maryland Medical Center with the fact that laughter causes the dilatation of the inner lining of blood vessels, the endothelium, and increases blood flow.[17] Drs. Michael Miller (University of Maryland) and William Fry (Stanford), theorize that beta-endorphin like compounds released by the hypothalamus activate receptors on the endothelial surface to release nitric oxide, thereby resulting in dilation of vessels. Other cardioprotective properties of nitric oxide include reduction of inflammation and decreased platelet aggregation.[18]

Laughter has proven beneficial effects on various other aspects of biochemistry. It has been shown to lead to reductions in stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine. When laughing the brain also releases endorphins that can relieve some physical pain.[19] Laughter also boosts the number of antibody-producing cells and enhances the effectiveness of T-cells, leading to a stronger immune system.[20] A 2000 study found that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh and be able to recognize humor in a variety of situations, compared to people of the same age without heart disease.[21]

In interaction

A number of studies using methods of conversation analysis and discourse analysis have documented the systematic workings of laughter in a variety of interactions, from casual conversations to interviews, meetings, and therapy sessions.[22] Working with recorded interactions, researchers have created detailed transcripts that indicate not only the presence of laughter but also features of its production and placement.

These studies challenge several widely held assumptions about the nature of laughter. Contrary to notions that it is spontaneous and involuntary, research documents that laughter is sequentially organized and precisely placed relative to surrounding talk. Far more than merely a response to humor, laughter often works to manage delicate and serious moments. More than simply an external behavior “caused” by an inner state, laughter is highly communicative and helps accomplish actions and regulate relationships.

Causes

Laughter is a common response to tickling

See also: Theories of humor

Common causes for laughter are sensations of joy and humor; however, other situations may cause laughter as well.

A general theory that explains laughter is called the relief theory. Sigmund Freud summarized it in his theory that laughter releases tension and "psychic energy". This theory is one of the justifications of the beliefs that laughter is beneficial for one's health.[23] This theory explains why laughter can be used as a coping mechanism when one is upset, angry or sad.

Philosopher John Morreall theorizes that human laughter may have its biological origins as a kind of shared expression of relief at the passing of danger. Friedrich Nietzsche, by contrast, suggested laughter to be a reaction to the sense of existential loneliness and mortality that only humans feel.

For example: a joke creates an inconsistency and the audience automatically tries to understand what the inconsistency means; if they are successful in solving this 'cognitive riddle' and they realize that the surprise was not dangerous, they laugh with relief. Otherwise, if the inconsistency is not resolved, there is no laugh, as Mack Sennett pointed out: "when the audience is confused, it doesn't laugh." This is one of the basic laws of a comedian, referred to as "exactness". It is important to note that sometimes the inconsistency may be resolved and there may still be no laugh.[citation needed] Because laughter is a social mechanism, an audience may not feel as if they are in danger, and the laugh may not occur. In addition, the extent of the inconsistency (and aspects of its timing and rhythm) has to do with the amount of danger the audience feels, and how hard or long they laugh.

Laughter can also be brought on by tickling. Although most people find it unpleasant, being tickled often causes heavy laughter, thought to be an (often uncontrollable) reflex of the body.[24][25]

Types

Two laughing men by Hans von Aachen, circa 1574

Laughter can be classified according to:

intensity: the chuckle, the titter, the giggle, the chortle, the cackle, the belly laugh, the sputtering burst.[26][27]

the overtness: snicker, snigger, guffaw.

the respiratory pattern involved: snort.

the emotion it is expressed with: relief, mirth, joy, happiness, embarrassment, apology, confusion, nervous laughter, paradoxical laughter, courtesy laugh, evil laughter.

the sequence of notes or pitches it produces. It may be subjectively measured on the Andreoli scale for heartiness, with a higher measure denoting greater robustness, generally in a manly aspect.

There are 10 different types of laughter[28]:

Etiquette laughter: even when things aren't funny, people rely on laughter to get along with others.

Contagious laughter: a chain reaction of laughter.

Nervous laughter: anxiety can oftentimes trigger laughter in a subconscious attempt to reduce stress and calm down.

Belly laughter: when something is truly hilarious, people clutch their bellies and gasp for air.

Silent laughter: involves the same type of deep breathing that comes with belly laughter but it makes no noise.

Stress-relieving laughter: encompasses many forms, but occurs mostly in an outburst.

Pigeon laughter: laughing without opening your mouth with your lips sealed, producing a humming sound.

Snorting laughter: when laughter occurs through the nose.

Canned laughter: commonly referred to as the "laugh track," real laughter oftentimes heard in the background of TV sitcoms.

Cruel laughter: laughing at others' expense.

Human laugh structure and anatomy

A normal laugh has the structure of "ha-ha-ha" or "ho-ho-ho." It is unnatural, and one is physically unable, to have a laugh structure of "ha-ho-ha-ho." The usual variations of a laugh most often occur in the first or final note in a sequence- therefore, "ho-ha-ha" or "ha-ha-ho" laughs are possible. Normal note durations with unusually long or short "inter-note intervals" do not happen due to the result of the limitations of our vocal cords. This basic structure allows one to recognize a laugh despite individual variants.[29]

It has also been determined that eyes moisten during laughter as a reflex from the tear glands.[20]

Negative aspects

Laughter is not always a pleasant experience and is associated with several negative phenomena. Excessive laughter can lead to cataplexy, and unpleasant laughter spells, excessive elation, and fits of laughter can all be considered negative aspects of laughter. Unpleasant laughter spells, or "sham mirth," usually occur in people who have a neurological condition, including patients with pseudobulbar palsy, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. These patients appear to be laughing out of amusement but report that they are feeling undesirable sensations "at the time of the punch line."

Excessive elation is a common symptom associated with manic-depressive psychoses and mania/hypomania. Those who suffer from schizophrenic psychoses seem to suffer the opposite—they do not understand humor or get any joy out of it. A fit describes an abnormal time when one cannot control the laughter or one's body, sometimes leading to seizures or a brief period of unconsciousness. Some believe that fits of laughter represent a form of epilepsy.[30]

Laughter therapy

Laughter has been used as a therapeutic tool for many years because it is a natural form of medicine. Laughter is available to everyone and it provides benefits to a person's physical, emotional, and social well being. Some of the benefits of using laughter therapy are that it can relieve stress and relax the whole body.[31] It can also boost the immune system and release endorphins to relieve pain.[32] Additionally, laughter can help prevent heart disease by increasing blood flow and improving the function of blood vessels.[33] Some of the emotional benefits include diminishing anxiety or fear, improving overall mood, and adding joy to one's life. Laughter is also known to reduce allergic reactions in a preliminary study related to dust mite allergy sufferers.[34]

Laughter therapy also has some social benefits, such as strengthening relationships, improving teamwork and reducing conflicts, and making oneself more attractive to others. Therefore, whether a person is trying to cope with a terminal illness or just trying to manage their stress or anxiety levels, laughter therapy can be a significant enhancement to their life.[35][36]

Research

Late 19th-century or early 20th-century depiction of different stages of laughter on advertising cards

Laughter in literature, although considered understudied by some,[37] is a subject that has received attention in the written word for millennia. The use of humor and laughter in literary works has been studied and analyzed by many thinkers and writers, from the Ancient Greek philosophers onward. Henri Bergson's Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (Le rire, 1901) is a notable 20th-century contribution.

Ancient Greece

Herodotus

For Herodotus, laughers can be distinguished into three types:[38]

Those who are innocent of wrongdoing, but ignorant of their own vulnerability

Those who are mad

Those who are overconfident

According to Donald Lateiner, Herodotus reports about laughter for valid literary and historiological reasons. "Herodotus believes either that both nature (better, the gods' direction of it) and human nature coincide sufficiently, or that the latter is but an aspect or analogue of the former, so that to the recipient the outcome is suggested."[38] When reporting laughter, Herodotus does so in the conviction that it tells the reader something about the future and/or the character of the person laughing. It is also in this sense that it is not coincidental that in about 80% of the times when Herodotus speaks about laughter it is followed by a retribution. "Men whose laughter deserves report are marked, because laughter connotes scornful disdain, disdain feeling of superiority, and this feeling and the actions which stem from it attract the wrath of the gods."[38]

Modern laughter and humor

Comedian Harold Lloyd laughing

See also: Theories of humor

Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes understood the superiority of the laughter in a much wider sense than the aesthetic and quasi-moral sense of Aristotle, the seeds of the superiority theory are definitely Greek.[39] In Hobbes' own words: "The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly."

Schopenhauer

Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer devotes the 13th chapter of the first part of his major work, The World as Will and Representation, to laughter.

Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche distinguishes two different purposes for the use of laughter. In a positive sense, "man uses the comical as a therapy against the restraining jacket of logic, morality and reason. He needs from time to time a harmless demotion from reason and hardship and in this sense laughter has a positive character for Nietzsche."[40] Laughter can, however, also have a negative connotation when it is used for the expression of social conflict. This is expressed, for instance, in The Gay Science: "Laughter -- Laughter means to be schadenfroh, but with clear conscience."[41]

"Possibly Nietzsche's works would have had a totally different effect, if the playful, ironical and joking in his writings would have been factored in better"[42]

Bergson

In Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, French philosopher Henri Bergson, renowned for his philosophical studies on materiality, memory, life and consciousness, tries to determine the laws of the comic and to understand the fundamental causes of comic situations.[43] His method consists in determining the causes of comic instead of analyzing its effects. He also deals with laughter in relation to human life, collective imagination and art, to have a better knowledge of society.[44] One of the theories of the essay is that laughter, as a collective activity, has a social and moral role, in forcing people to eliminate their vices. It is a factor of uniformity of behaviours, as it condemns ludicrous and eccentric behaviours.[45]

Ludovici

Anthony Ludovici developed the thoughts of Hobbes and Darwin even further in The Secret of Laughter. His conviction is that there's something sinister in laughter, and that the modern omnipresence of humour and the idolatry of it are signs of societal weakness, as instinctive resort to humour became a sort of escapism from responsibility and action. Ludovici considered laughter to be an evolutionary trait and he offered many examples of different triggers for laughter with their own distinct explanations.[46]

See also

Agelast

Death from laughter

Evil laughter

Gelotology

Laughter in animals

Laughter Yoga

Nervous laughter

Paradoxical laughter

Pathological laughing and crying

References

 Stearns, Frederic Rudolph (1972). Laughing: Physiology, Pathology, Psychology, Pathopsychology and Development. pp. 59–65. ISBN 978-0398024208.

 Shultz, T. R.; Horibe, F. (1974). "Development of the appreciation of verbal jokes". Developmental Psychology. 10: 13–20. doi:10.1037/h0035549.

 Olmwake, Louise (1937). "A study of sense of humor: Its relation to sex, age and personal characteristics". Journal of Applied Psychology. 21 (6): 688–704. doi:10.1037/h0055199.

 Camazine, Deneubourg, Franks, Sneyd, Theraulaz, Bonabeau, Self-Organization in Biological Systems, Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-691-11624-5 – ISBN 0-691-01211-3 (pbk.) p. 18.

 Kawakami, Kiyobumi; Takai-Kawakami, Kiyoko; Tomonaga, Masaki; Suzuki, Juri; Kusaka, Tomiyo; Okai, Takashi (2006). "Origins of smile and laughter: A preliminary study" (PDF). Early Human Development. 82 (1): 61–66. doi:10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2005.07.011. PMID 16185829. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-28.

 Gervais, Matthew; Sloan Wilson, David (2005). "The Evolution and Functions of Laughter and Humor: A Synthetic Approach". Quarterly Review of Biology. 80 (4): 395–430. doi:10.1086/498281.

 "WebMD 2002". Men.webmd.com. Retrieved 2011-12-26.

 Cousins, Norman, The Healing Heart : Antidotes to Panic and Helplessness, New York : Norton, 1983. ISBN 0-393-01816-4.

 Cousins, Norman, Anatomy of an illness as perceived by the patient : reflections on healing and regeneration, introd. by René Dubos, New York : Norton, 1979. ISBN 0-393-01252-2.

 "Tickled apes yield laughter clue", News.BBC.co.uk, June 4, 2009.

 Davila Ross, Marina; j Owren, Michael; Zimmermann, Elke (2009). "Reconstructing the Evolution of Laughter in Great Apes and Humans". Current Biology. 19 (13): 1106–1111. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.028. PMID 19500987.

 Levin, Max (1930-07-16). "INABILITY TO LAUGH AUDIBLY: APHONOGELIA". Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry. 25 (1): 157. doi:10.1001/archneurpsyc.1931.02230010169012.

 Why Laughter Feels So Good 13 September 2011 New York Times science section.

 Cardoso, Silvia Helena. "laughter". www.cerebromente.org.br.

 Turner, D.M. (August 1996). "Effects and Experiences". S

 Jaak Panksepp - The Riddle of Laughter - Neural and Psychoevolutionary Underpinnings of Joy December 1, 2000 Sage Journals Accessed October 28th, 2017

 Miller, M; Mangano, C; Park, Y; Goel, R; Plotnick, GD; Vogel, RA (2005). "Impact of cinematic viewing on endothelial function". Heart. 92 (2): 261–2. doi:10.1136/hrt.2005.061424. PMC 1860773. PMID 16415199.

 Vlachopoulos, C; Xaplanteris, P; Alexopoulos, N; Aznaouridis, K; Vasiliadou, C; Baou, K; Stefanadi, E; Stefanadis, C (2009). "Divergent effects of laughter and mental stress on arterial stiffness and central hemodynamics". Psychosom. Med. 71 (4): 446–53. doi:10.1097/PSY.0b013e318198dcd4. PMID 19251872.

 Dunbar, R. I. M.; Baron, R.; Frangou, A.; Pearce, E.; van Leeuwen, E. J. C.; Stow, J.; Partridge, G.; MacDonald, I.; Barra, V.; van Vugt, M. (2011). "Social laughter is correlated with an elevated pain threshold". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279 (1731): 1161–1167. doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.1373. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 3267132. PMID 21920973.

 Smith Lee, B. (1990). Humor relations for nurse managers. Nursing Management, 21, 86.

 "Laughter is Good for Your Heart, According to a New UMMC Study". University of Maryland Medical Center.

 Glenn, P., & Holt, E. (Eds) (2013). Studies of Laughter in Interaction. London: Bloomsbury.

 M.P. Mulder, A. Nijholt (2002) "Humor Research: State of the Art", citeseer.ist.psu.edu

 "Physiology of laughter and tickling". www.tomveatch.com. Retrieved 2010-08-03.

 Robert R. Provine (1950-09-09). "Provine, Laughter". Cogweb.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2011-12-26.

 Drewniany and Jewler (2007) Creative Strategy in Advertising, 9th edition, ch.1 p.17

 Andreyev, Judith Wondering about Words: D'où Viennent Les Mots Anglais ? p.56

 "10 Different Types of Laughter". HowStuffWorks. 2009-06-04. Retrieved 2019-07-18.

 Provine, R (1996). "Laughter". American Scientist. 841: 38–47.

 Fry, W.F. (1963). Sweet Madness: A Study of Humor. Palo Alto, Ca: Pacific Books Publishers

 Berk, L. S.; Felten, D. L.; Tan, S. A.; Bittman, B. B.; Westengard, J. (2001-03-01). "Modulation of neuroimmune parameters during the eustress of humor-associated mirthful laughter". Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. 7 (2): 62–72, 74–76. ISSN 1078-6791. PMID 11253418.

 Bennett, Mary P.; Zeller, Janice M.; Rosenberg, Lisa; McCann, Judith (2003-04-01). "The effect of mirthful laughter on stress and natural killer cell activity". Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. 9 (2): 38–45. ISSN 1078-6791. PMID 12652882.

 "Humor helps your heart? How?". www.heart.org. Retrieved 2019-03-30.

 Kimata, H. (2001-02-14). "EFfect of humor on allergen-induced wheal reactions". JAMA. 285 (6): 738. doi:10.1001/jama.285.6.738. ISSN 0098-7484. PMID 11176910.

 "Laughter Therapy." Laughter Therapy: Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Cancer Treatment Centers of America, 1 January 2001. Web. accessed 28 February 2014.

 Smith, Melinda, and Jeanne Segal. "Laughter Is the Best Medicine." The Health Benefits of Humor, Helpguide.org, February 2014. Web. accessed 1 March 2014.

 Morreall, John. Taking Laughter Seriously (1983) p.ix.

 Lateiner, Donald. No laughing matter: a literary tactic in Herodotus, Transactions of the American Philological Association, Vol. 107. (1977), pp. 173-182.

 Heyd, David. The Place of Laughter in Hobbes's Theory of Emotions, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 43, No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1982), pp. 285-295.

 Kunnas, Tarmo. Nietzsches lachen: Eine studie über das Komische bei Nietzsche, Edition Wissenschaft & literatur, 1982, p. 42

 Nietzsche, KSA 3, p. 506

 Kunnas, Tarmo. Nietzsches lachen, p.149.

 Henri Bergson, Le Rire, Avant-Propos on Wikisource (in French)

 Bergson, Henri. Le Rire, "Préface" on Wikisource (in French)

 Bergson, Henri. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, Chapter I (II) - online version on Project Gutenberg

 "The Secret Of Laughter Preface, Introduction". www.anthonymludovici.com.

Further reading

Bachorowski, J.-A., Smoski, M.J., & Owren, M.J. The acoustic features of human laughter. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 110 (1581) 2001

Bakhtin, Mikhail (1941). Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34830-2.

Chapman, Antony J.; Foot, Hugh C.; Derks, Peter (editors), Humor and Laughter: Theory, Research, and Applications, Transaction Publishers, 1996. ISBN 1-56000-837-7. Books.google.com

Cousins, Norman, Anatomy of an Illness As Perceived by the Patient, 1979.

Davila-Ross, M., Allcock, B., Thomas, C., and Bard K.A. (2011) Aping expressions? Chimpanzees produce distinct laugh types when responding to laughter of others. Emotion doi:10.1037/a0022594

Fried, I., Wilson, C.L., MacDonald, K.A., and Behnke EJ. Electric current stimulates laughter. Nature, 391:650, 1998 (see patient AK)

Goel, V. & Dolan, R. J. The functional anatomy of humor: segregating cognitive and affective components. Nature Neuroscience 3, 237 - 238 (2001).

Greig, John Young Thomson, The Psychology of Comedy and Laughter, New York, Dodd, Mead and company, 1923.

Hennefeld, Maggie (December 2016). "Death from Laughter, Female Hysteria, and Early Cinema". differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. 27 (3): 45–92. doi:10.1215/10407391-3696631.

Knight, Chris, Does laughter hold the key to human consciousness? Aeon Magazine February 2019.

Marteinson, Peter, On the Problem of the Comic: A Philosophical Study on the Origins of Laughter, Legas Press, Ottawa, 2006. utoronto.ca

Miller, M; Mangano, C; Park, Y; Goel, R; Plotnick, GD; Vogel, RA (2006). "Impact of cinematic viewing on endothelial function". Heart. 92 (2): 261–2. doi:10.1136/hrt.2005.061424. PMC 1860773. PMID 16415199.

Provine, R. R., Laughter. American Scientist, V84, 38:45, 1996. ucla.edu

Provine, Robert R. (2001). Laughter: A Scientific Investigation. ISBN 978-0141002255.

Quentin Skinner (2004). "Hobbes and the Classical Theory of Laughter" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-10-23. included in book: Sorell, Tom; Luc Foisneau (2004). "6" (PDF). Leviathan After 350 Years. Oxford University Press. pp. 139–66. ISBN 978-0-19-926461-2.

Raskin, Victor, Semantic Mechanisms of Humor (1985).

MacDonald, C., "A Chuckle a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: Therapeutic Humor & Laughter" Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services(2004) V42, 3:18-25. psychnurse.org

Kawakami, K., et al., Origins of smile and laughter: A preliminary study Early Human Development (2006) 82, 61-66. kyoto-u.ac.jp

Johnson, S., Emotions and the Brain Discover (2003) V24, N4. discover.com

Panksepp, J., Burgdorf, J.,"Laughing" rats and the evolutionary antecedents of human joy? Physiology & Behavior (2003) 79:533-547. psych.umn.edu

Milius, S., Don't look now, but is that dog laughing? Science News (2001) V160 4:55. sciencenews.org

Simonet, P., et al., Dog Laughter: Recorded playback reduces stress related behavior in shelter dogs 7th International Conference on Environmental Enrichment (2005). petalk.org

Discover Health (2004) Humor & Laughter: Health Benefits and Online Sources, helpguide.org

Klein, A. The Courage to Laugh: Humor, Hope and Healing in the Face of Death and Dying. Los Angeles, CA: Tarcher/Putman, 1998.

Ron Jenkins Subversive laughter (New York, Free Press, 1994), 13ff

Bogard, M. Laughter and its Effects on Groups. New York, New York: Bullish Press, 2008.

Humor Theory. The formulae of laughter by Igor Krichtafovitch, Outskitspress, 2006, ISBN 978-1-59800-222-5

Hans-Georg Moeller und Günter Wohlfart (Hrsg.): Laughter in Eastern and Western Philosophies. Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg / München 2010. ISBN 978-3-495-48385-5

Did laughter make the mind?, Aeon magazine

The Origins of Laughter,

Human laughter up to 16 million years old, 

Wiki Loves Monuments: Photograph a monument, help Wikipedia and win!

Learn more

Humour

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

For other uses, see Humour (disambiguation).

"Hilarity" and "Hilarious" redirect here. For the US Navy ship, see USS Hilarity (AM-241). For the stand-up special by Louis C.K., see Hilarious (film). For the Roman Catholic Pope Saint Hilarius, see Pope Hilarius.

"Funny" redirects here. For the 2015 Chase & Status song, see Funny (song).

From top-left to bottom-right or from top to bottom (mobile): various people laughing from Afghanistan, Tibet, Brazil, and Malaysia

Humour (British English), also spelt as humor (American English; see spelling differences), is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion.

People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny—and thus are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour inducing it to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by personal taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favour slapstick such as Punch and Judy puppet shows or the Tom and Jerry cartoons, whose physical nature makes it accessible to them. By contrast, more sophisticated forms of humour such as satire require an understanding of its social meaning and context, and thus tend to appeal to a more mature audience.

Theories

Main article: Theories of humour

Many theories exist about what humour is and what social function it serves. The prevailing types of theories attempting to account for the existence of humour include psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider humour-induced behaviour to be very healthy; spiritual theories, which may, for instance, consider humour to be a "gift from God"; and theories which consider humour to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience.[1]

The benign-violation theory, endorsed by Peter McGraw, attempts to explain humour's existence. The theory says 'humour only occurs when something seems wrong, unsettling, or threatening, but simultaneously seems okay, acceptable or safe'.[2] Humour can be used as a method to easily engage in social interaction by taking away that awkward, uncomfortable, or uneasy feeling of social interactions.

Others believe that 'the appropriate use of humour can facilitate social interactions'.[3]

Views

Some claim that humour should not be explained. Author E.B. White once said, "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."[4] Counter to this argument, protests against "offensive" cartoons invite the dissection of humour or its lack by aggrieved individuals and communities. This process of dissecting humour does not necessarily banish a sense of humour but begs attention towards its politics and assumed universality (Khanduri 2014).[5]

Arthur Schopenhauer lamented the misuse of humour (a German loanword from English) to mean any type of comedy. However, both humour and comic are often used when theorising about the subject. The connotations of humour as opposed to comic are said to be that of response versus stimulus. Additionally, humour was thought to include a combination of ridiculousness and wit in an individual; the paradigmatic case being Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff. The French were slow to adopt the term humour; in French, humeur and humour are still two different words, the former referring to a person's mood or to the archaic concept of the four humours.[citation needed]

Non-satirical humour can be specifically termed droll humour or recreational drollery.[6][7]

Sociological factors

As with any art form, the acceptance of a particular style or incidence of humour depends on sociological factors and varies from person to person. Throughout history, comedy has been used as a form of entertainment all over the world, whether in the courts of the Western kings or the villages of the Far East. Both a social etiquette and a certain intelligence can be displayed through forms of wit and sarcasm. Eighteenth-century German author Georg Lichtenberg said that "the more you know humour, the more you become demanding in fineness."[citation needed]

Ancient Greece

Western humour theory begins with Plato, who attributed to Socrates (as a semi-historical dialogue character) in the Philebus (p. 49b) the view that the essence of the ridiculous is an ignorance in the weak, who are thus unable to retaliate when ridiculed. Later, in Greek philosophy, Aristotle, in the Poetics (1449a, pp. 34–35), suggested that an ugliness that does not disgust is fundamental to humour.

India

In ancient Sanskrit drama, Bharata Muni's Natya Shastra defined humour (hāsyam) as one of the nine nava rasas, or principle rasas (emotional responses), which can be inspired in the audience by bhavas, the imitations of emotions that the actors perform. Each rasa was associated with a specific bhavas portrayed on stage.

In Arabic and Persian culture

Muhammad al-Baqir's Hadith about humour

The terms comedy and satire became synonymous after Aristotle's Poetics was translated into Arabic in the medieval Islamic world, where it was elaborated upon by Arabic writers and Islamic philosophers such as Abu Bischr, his pupil Al-Farabi, Persian Avicenna, and Averroes. Due to cultural differences, they disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation, and instead identified it with Arabic poetic themes and forms, such as hija (satirical poetry). They viewed comedy as simply the "art of reprehension" and made no reference to light and cheerful events or troublesome beginnings and happy endings associated with classical Greek comedy. After the Latin translations of the 12th century, the term comedy thus gained a new semantic meaning in Medieval literature.[8]

Caribbean

Mento star Lord Flea, stated in a 1957 interview that he thought that: "West Indians have the best sense of humour in the world. Even in the most solemn song, like Las Kean Fine ["Lost and Can Not Be Found"], which tells of a boiler explosion on a sugar plantation that killed several of the workers, their natural wit and humour shine though."[9]

China

Confucianist Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, with its emphasis on ritual and propriety, has traditionally looked down upon humour as subversive or unseemly. Humor was perceived as irony and sarcasm.[10] The Confucian "Analects" itself, however, depicts the Master as fond of humorous self-deprecation, once comparing his wanderings to the existence of a homeless dog.[11] Early Daoist philosophical texts such as "Zhuangzi" pointedly make fun of Confucian seriousness and make Confucius himself a slow-witted figure of fun.[12] Joke books containing a mix of wordplay, puns, situational humour, and play with taboo subjects like sex and scatology, remained popular over the centuries. Local performing arts, storytelling, vernacular fiction, and poetry offer a wide variety of humorous styles and sensibilities.

Famous Chinese humorists include the ancient jesters Chunyu Kun and Dongfang Shuo; writers of the Ming and Qing dynasties such as Feng Menglong, Li Yu,[13] and Wu Jingzi; and modern comic writers such as Lu Xun, Lin Yutang, Lao She, Qian Zhongshu, Wang Xiaobo, and Wang Shuo, and performers such as Ge You, Guo Degang, and Zhou Libo.

Modern Chinese humor has been heavily influenced not only by indigenous traditions, but also by foreign humor, circulated via print culture, cinema, television, and the internet.[14] During the 1930s, the transliteration "youmo" (humour) caught on as a new term for humour, sparking a fad for humour literature, as well as impassioned debate about what type of humorous sensibility best suited China, a poor, weak country under partial foreign occupation.[15][16][17] While some types of comedy were officially sanctioned during the rule of Mao Zedong, the Party-state's approach towards humour was generally repressive.[18] Social liberalisation in the 1980s, commercialisation of the cultural market in the 1990s, and the advent of the internet have each—despite an invasive state-sponsored censorship apparatus—enabled new forms of humour to flourish in China in recent decades.[19]

Social transformation model

The social transformation model of humour predicts that specific characteristics, such as physical attractiveness, interact with humour.[20] This model involves linkages between the humorist, an audience, and the subject matter of the humour.[20] The two transformations associated with this particular model involves the subject matter of the humour, and the change in the audiences perception of the humorous person, therefore establishing a relationship between the humorous speaker and the audience.[20] The social transformation model views humour as adaptive because it communicates the present desire to be humorous as well as future intentions of being humorous.[20] This model is used with deliberate self-deprecating humour where one is communicating with desires to be accepted into someone else’s specific social group.[20] Although self-deprecating humour communicates weakness and fallibility in the bid to gain another's affection, it can be concluded from the model that this type of humour can increase romantic attraction towards the humorist when other variables are also favourable.[20] The social transformation model can also be followed in teaching and lecturing where humour is used to improve the cognitive capabilities of the students. Humour could create a positive and informal classroom environment that triggers students’ enthusiasm and interest.[21]

Physical attractiveness

90% of men and 81% of women, all college students, report having a sense of humour is a crucial characteristic looked for in a romantic partner.[22] Humour and honesty were ranked as the two most important attributes in a significant other.[23] It has since been recorded that humour becomes more evident and significantly more important as the level of commitment in a romantic relationship increases.[24] Recent research suggests expressions of humour in relation to physical attractiveness are two major factors in the desire for future interaction.[20] Women regard physical attractiveness less highly compared to men when it came to dating, a serious relationship, and sexual intercourse.[20] However, women rate humorous men more desirable than nonhumorous individuals for a serious relationship or marriage, but only when these men were physically attractive.[20]

Furthermore, humorous people are perceived by others to be more cheerful but less intellectual than nonhumorous people. Self-deprecating humour has been found to increase the desirability of physically attractive others for committed relationships.[20] The results of a study conducted by McMaster University suggest humour can positively affect one’s desirability for a specific relationship partner, but this effect is only most likely to occur when men use humour and are evaluated by women.[25] No evidence was found to suggest men prefer women with a sense of humour as partners, nor women preferring other women with a sense of humour as potential partners.[25] When women were given the forced-choice design in the study, they chose funny men as potential relationship partners even though they rated them as being less honest and intelligent.[25] Post-Hoc analysis showed no relationship between humour quality and favourable judgments.[25]

Psychological well-being

It is generally known that humour contributes to higher subjective wellbeing (both physical and psychological).[26] Previous research on humour and psychological well-being show that humour is in fact a major factor in achieving, and sustaining, higher psychological wellbeing.[26][27] This hypothesis is known as general facilitative hypothesis for humour.[26] That is, positive humour leads to positive health. Not all contemporary research, however, supports the previous assertion that humour is in fact a cause for healthier psychological wellbeing.[28] Some of the previous researches’ limitations is that they tend to use a unidimensional approach to humour because it was always inferred that humour was deemed positive. They did not consider other types of humour, or humour styles. For example, self-defeating or aggressive humour.[29] Research has proposed 2 types of humour that each consist of 2 styles, making 4 styles in total. The two types are adaptive versus maladaptive humour.[29] Adaptive humour consist of facilitative and self-enhancing humour, and maladaptive is self-defeating and aggressive humour. Each of these styles can have a different impact on psychological and individuals’ overall subjective wellbeing.[29]

Affiliative style humour. Individuals with this dimension of humour tend to use jokes as a means of affiliating relationships, amusing others, and reducing tensions.[29]

Self-enhancing style humour. People that fall under this dimension of humour tend to take a humorous perspective of life. Individuals with self-enhancing humour tend to use it as a mechanism to cope with stress.[29]

Aggressive humour. Racist jokes, sarcasm and disparagement of individuals for the purpose of amusement. This type of humour is used by people who do not consider the consequences of their jokes, and mainly focus on the entertainment of the listeners.[29]

Self-defeating humour. People with this style of humour tend to amuse others by using self-disparaging jokes, and also tend to laugh along with others when being taunted. It is hypothesised that people use this style of humour as a mean of social acceptance. It is also mentioned that these people may have an implicit feeling of negativity. So they use this humour as a means of hiding that inner negative feeling.[29]

In the study on humour and psychological well-being, research has concluded that high levels of adaptive type humour (affiliative and self-enhancing) is associated with better self-esteem, positive affect, greater self-competency, as well as anxiety control and social interactions.[30] All of which are constituents of psychological wellbeing. Additionally, adaptive humour styles may enable people to preserve their sense of wellbeing despite psychological problems.[27] In contrast, maladaptive humour types (aggressive and self-defeating) are associated with poorer overall psychological wellbeing,[30] emphasis on higher levels of anxiety and depression. Therefore, humour may have detrimental effects on psychological wellbeing, only if that humour is of negative characteristics.[30]

Physiological effects

Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton enjoying a joke, in spite of their language differences

Humour is often used to make light of difficult or stressful situations and to brighten up a social atmosphere in general. It is regarded by many as an enjoyable and positive experience, so it would be reasonable to assume that it humour might have some positive physiological effects on the body.

A study designed to test the positive physiological effects of humour, the relationship between being exposed to humour and pain tolerance in particular, was conducted in 1994 by Karen Zwyer, Barbara Velker, and Willibald Ruch. To test the effects of humour on pain tolerance the test subjects were first exposed to a short humorous video clip and then exposed to the Cold Press Test. To identify the aspects of humour which might contribute to an increase in pain tolerance the study separated its fifty-six female participants into three groups, cheerfulness, exhilaration and humour production. The subjects were further separated into two groups, high Trait-Cheerfulness and high Trait-Seriousness according to the State-Trait-Cheerfulness-Inventory. The instructions for the three groups were as follows: the cheerfulness group were told to get excited about the movie without laughing or smiling, the exhilaration group was told to laugh and smile excessively, exaggerating their natural reactions, the humour production group was told to make humorous comments about the video clip as they watched. To ensure that the participants actually found the movie humorous and that it produced the desired effects the participants took a survey on the topic which resulted in a mean score of 3.64 out of 5. The results of the Cold Press Test showed that the participants in all three groups experienced a higher pain threshold, a higher pain tolerance and a lower pain tolerance than previous to the film. The results did not show a significant difference between the three groups.[31]

There are also potential relationships between humour and having a healthy immune system. SIgA is a type of antibody that protects the body from infections. In a method similar to the previous experiment, the participants were shown a short humorous video clip and then tested for the effects. The participants showed a significant increase in SIgA levels.[32]

There have been claims that laughter can be a supplement for cardiovascular exercise and might increase muscle tone.[33] However an early study by Paskind J. showed that laughter can lead to a decrease in skeletal muscle tone because the short intense muscle contractions caused by laughter are followed by longer periods of muscle relaxation. The cardiovascular benefits of laughter also seem to be just a figment of imagination as a study that was designed to test oxygen saturation levels produced by laughter, showed that even though laughter creates sporadic episodes of deep breathing, oxygen saturation levels are not affected.[34]

As humour is often used to ease tension, it might make sense that the same would be true for anxiety. A study by Yovetich N, Dale A, Hudak M. was designed to test the effects humour might have on relieving anxiety. The study subject were told that they would be given to an electric shock after a certain period of time. One group was exposed to humorous content, while the other was not. The anxiety levels were measured through self-report measures as well as the heart rate. Subjects which rated high on sense of humour reported less anxiety in both groups, while subjects which rated lower on sense of humour reported less anxiety in the group which was exposed to the humorous material. However, there was not a significant difference in the heart rate between the subjects.[35]

In the workplace

Humour is a ubiquitous, highly ingrained, and largely meaningful aspect of human experience and is therefore decidedly relevant in organisational contexts, such as the workplace.[36]

The significant role that laughter and fun play in organisational life has been seen as a sociological phenomenon and has increasingly been recognised as also creating a sense of involvement among workers.[37] Sharing humour at work not only offers a relief from boredom, but can also build relationships, improve camaraderie between colleagues and create positive affect.[36] Humour in the workplace may also relieve tension and can be used as a coping strategy.[36] In fact, one of the most agreed upon key impacts that workplace humour has on people’s well being, is the use of humour as a coping strategy to aid in dealing with daily stresses, adversity or other difficult situations.[36] Sharing a laugh with a few colleagues may improve moods, which is pleasurable, and people perceive this as positively affecting their ability to cope.[36] Fun and enjoyment are critical in people's lives and the ability for colleagues to be able to laugh during work, through banter or other, promotes harmony and a sense of cohesiveness.[36]

Humour may also be used to offset negative feelings about a workplace task or to mitigate the use of profanity, or other coping strategies, that may not be otherwise tolerated.[36] Not only can humour in the workplace assist with defusing negative emotions, but it may also be used as an outlet to discuss personal painful events, in a lighter context, thus ultimately reducing anxiety and allowing more happy, positive emotions to surface.[36] Additionally, humour may be used as a tool to mitigate the authoritative tone by managers when giving directives to subordinates. Managers may use self-deprecating humour as a way to be perceived as more human and "real" by their employees.[36] Furthermore, ethnography studies, carried out in a variety of workplace settings, confirmed the importance of a fun space in the workplace.[37] The attachment to the notion of fun by contemporary companies has resulted in workplace management coming to recognise the potentially positive effects of "workplay" and realise that it does not necessarily undermine workers’ performance.[37]

Laughter and play can unleash creativity, thus raising morale, so in the interest of encouraging employee consent to the rigours of the labour process, management often ignore, tolerate and even actively encourage playful practices, with the purpose of furthering organisational goals.[37] Essentially, fun in the workplace is no longer being seen as frivolous.[37] The most current approach of managed fun and laughter in the workplace originated in North America, where it has taken off to such a degree, that it has humour consultants flourishing, as some states have introduced an official "fun at work" day.[37] The results have carried claims of well-being benefits to workers, improved customer experiences and an increase in productivity that organisations can enjoy, as a result.[37] Others examined results of this movement while focusing around the science of happiness—concerned with mental health, motivation, community building and national well-being—and drew attention to the ability to achieve "flow" through playfulness and stimulate "outside the box" thinking.[37] Parallel to this movement is the "positive" scholarship that has emerged in psychology which seeks to empirically theorise the optimisation of human potential.[37] This happiness movement suggests that investing in fun at the workplace, by allowing for laughter and play, will not only create enjoyment and a greater sense of well-being, but it will also enhance energy, performance and commitment in workers.[37]

Studies

Main article: Humor research

Laughter

One of the main focuses of modern psychological humour theory and research is to establish and clarify the correlation between humour and laughter. The major empirical findings here are that laughter and humour do not always have a one-to-one association. While most previous theories assumed the connection between the two almost to the point of them being synonymous, psychology has been able to scientifically and empirically investigate the supposed connection, its implications, and significance.

In 2009, Diana Szameitat conducted a study to examine the differentiation of emotions in laughter. They hired actors and told them to laugh with one of four different emotional associations by using auto-induction, where they would focus exclusively on the internal emotion and not on the expression of laughter itself. They found an overall recognition rate of 44%, with joy correctly classified at 44%, tickle 45%, schadenfreude 37%, and taunt 50%.[38]:399 Their second experiment tested the behavioural recognition of laughter during an induced emotional state and they found that different laughter types did differ with respect to emotional dimensions.[38]:401–402 In addition, the four emotional states displayed a full range of high and low sender arousal and valence.[38]:403 This study showed that laughter can be correlated with both positive (joy and tickle) and negative (schadenfreude and taunt) emotions with varying degrees of arousal in the subject.

This brings into question the definition of humour, then. If it is to be defined by the cognitive processes which display laughter, then humour itself can encompass a variety of negative as well as positive emotions. However, if humour is limited to positive emotions and things which cause positive affect, it must be delimited from laughter and their relationship should be further defined.

Health

Humour has shown to be effective for increasing resilience in dealing with distress and also effective in undoing negative affects.

Madeljin Strick, Rob Holland, Rick van Baaren, and Ad van Knippenberg (2009) of Radboud University conducted a study that showed the distracting nature of a joke on bereaved individuals.[39]:574–578 Subjects were presented with a wide range of negative pictures and sentences. Their findings showed that humorous therapy attenuated the negative emotions elicited after negative pictures and sentences were presented. In addition, the humour therapy was more effective in reducing negative affect as the degree of affect increased in intensity.[39]:575–576 Humour was immediately effective in helping to deal with distress. The escapist nature of humour as a coping mechanism suggests that it is most useful in dealing with momentary stresses. Stronger negative stimuli requires a different therapeutic approach.[citation needed]

Humour is an underlying character trait associated with the positive emotions used in the broaden-and-build theory of cognitive development.

Studies, such as those testing the undoing hypothesis,[40]:313 have shown several positive outcomes of humour as an underlying positive trait in amusement and playfulness. Several studies have shown that positive emotions can restore autonomic quiescence after negative affect. For example, Frederickson and Levinson showed that individuals who expressed Duchenne smiles during the negative arousal of a sad and troubling event recovered from the negative affect approximately 20% faster than individuals who didn’t smile.[40]:314

Using humour judiciously can have a positive influence on cancer treatment.[41]

Humour can serve as a strong distancing mechanism in coping with adversity. In 1997 Kelter and Bonanno found that Duchenne laughter correlated with reduced awareness of distress.[42] Positive emotion is able to loosen the grip of negative emotions on peoples’ thinking. A distancing of thought leads to a distancing of the unilateral responses people often have to negative arousal. In parallel with the distancing role plays in coping with distress, it supports the broaden and build theory that positive emotions lead to increased multilateral cognitive pathway and social resource building.

Ageing

Humour has been shown to improve and help the ageing process in three areas. The areas are improving physical health, improving social communications, and helping to achieve a sense of satisfaction in life.

Studies have shown that constant humour in the ageing process gives health benefits to individuals. Such benefits as higher self-esteem, lower levels of depression, anxiety, and perceived stress, and a more positive self-concept as well as other health benefits which have been recorded and acknowledged through various studies.[43][44] Even patients with specific diseases have shown improvement with ageing using humour.[45] Overall there is a strong correlation through constant humour in ageing and better health in the individuals.

Another way that research indicates that humour helps with the ageing process, is through helping the individual to create and maintain strong social relationship during transitory periods in their lives.[45] One such example is when people are moved into nursing homes or other facilities of care. With this transition certain social interactions with friend and family may be limited forcing the individual to look else where for these social interactions. Humour has been shown to make transitions easier, as humour is shown reduce stress and facilitate socialisation and serves as a social bonding function.[46] Humour may also help the transition in helping the individual to maintain positive feelings towards those who are enforcing the changes in their lives. These new social interactions can be critical for these transitions in their lives and humour will help these new social interactions to take place making these transitions easier.

Humour can also help ageing individuals maintain a sense of satisfaction in their lives. Through the ageing process many changes will occur, such as losing the right to drive a car. This can cause a decrease in satisfaction in the lives of the individual. Humour helps to alleviate this decrease of satisfaction by allowing the humour to release stress and anxiety caused by changes in the individuals life.[45] Laughing and humour can be a substitute for the decrease in satisfaction by allowing individuals to feel better about their situations by alleviating the stress.[43] This, in turn, can help them to maintain a sense of satisfaction towards their new and changing life style.

Physiology

In an article published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, it is reported that a study's results indicate that humour is rooted in the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The study states, in part:

"Humour seems to engage a core network of cortical and subcortical structures, including temporo-occipito-parietal areas involved in detecting and resolving incongruity (mismatch between expected and presented stimuli); and the mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic system and the amygdala, key structures for reward and salience processing."[47]

Formula

Surprise is a component of humour.

Humour can be verbal, visual, or physical. Non-verbal forms of communication–for example, music or visual art–can also be humorous.

Root components

Being reflective of or imitative of reality

Surprise/misdirection, contradiction/paradox, ambiguity.

A beer glass made by Camden Town Brewery (London). The physical presence of beer in the glass's lower part, exactly where the inscription is: 'HALF EMPTY', sets a collision between two frames of reference. This incongruity results in a humorous effect at the moment of its realization.

Methods

Farce

Hyperbole

Metaphor

Pun

Reframing

Timing

Behaviour, place and size

Forced perspective used for comic effect in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Rowan Atkinson explains in his lecture in the documentary Funny Business[48] that an object or a person can become funny in three ways:

by behaving in an unusual way,

by being in an unusual place,

by being the wrong size.

Most sight gags fit into one or more of these categories.

Exaggeration

Main article: Exaggeration

Some theoreticians of the comic consider exaggeration to be a universal comic device.[49] It may take different forms in different genres, but all rely on the fact that the easiest way to make things laughable is to exaggerate to the point of absurdity their salient traits.[50]

Taxonomy

There are many taxonomies of humor; the following is used to classify humorous tweets in (Rayz 2012).[51]

Anecdotes

Fantasy

Insult

Irony

Jokes

Observational

Quote

Role play

Self-deprecation

Vulgarity

Word play

Other

Culture

Different cultures have different typical expectations of humour so comedy shows are not always successful when transplanted into another culture. For example, a 2004 BBC News article discusses a stereotype among British comedians that Americans and Germans do not understand irony, and therefore UK sitcoms are not appreciated by them.[52]

See also

British humour

Deadpan

Form-versus-content humour

Gelotology, the study of laughing and laughter

Humour in translation

Humour styles

List of humorists

Surreal humour

Theories of humour

References

 Raymond Smullyan, "The Planet Without Laughter", This Book Needs No Title

 Peter McGraw, "Too close for Comfort, or Too Far to care? Finding Humor in Distant Tragedies and Close Mishaps"

 Nicholas Kuiper, "Prudence and Racial Humor: Troubling Epithets"

 "The Quotations Page: Quote from E.B. White". Retrieved 26 August 2018.

 Ritu Gairola Khanduri. 2014. Caricaturing Culture in India: Cartoons and History of the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 Seth Benedict Graham A cultural analysis of the Russo-Soviet Anekdot 2003 p. 13

 Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World [1941, 1965]. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press p. 12

 Webber, Edwin J. (January 1958), "Comedy as Satire in Hispano-Arabic Spain", Hispanic Review, 26 (1): 1–11, doi:10.2307/470561, JSTOR 470561

 Michael Garnice (11 March 2012). "Mento Music Lord Flea". Retrieved 14 April 2013.

 Xiao, Dong Yue (2010). "Exploration of Chinese humor: Historical review, empirical findings, and critical reflections". Humor. 23 (3). doi:10.1515/HUMR.2010.018.

 C. Harbsmeier, "Confucius-Ridens, Humor in the Analects." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 50. 1: 131–61.

 Jocelyn Chey and Jessica Milner Davis, eds. "Humour in Chinese Life and Letters: Classical and Traditional Approaches" (HKUP, 2011)

 "The Invention of Li Yu – Patrick Hanan – Harvard University Press". www.hup.harvard.edu. Retrieved 26 August 2018.

 "Comic Visions of Modern China": http://u.osu.edu/mclc/files/2014/09/intro20.2-158jzq5.pdf

 Christopher Rea, "The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China" (University of California Press, 2015)

 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-10-02. Retrieved 2016-09-30.

 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-10-02. Retrieved 2016-09-30.

 David Moser, "Stifled Laughter": http://www.danwei.org/tv/stifled_laughter_how_the_commu.php

 Jessica Milner Davis and Jocelyn Chey, eds. "Humour in Chinese Life and Culture: Resistance and Control in Modern Times" (HKUP, 2013): http://www.hkupress.org/Common/Reader/Products/ShowProduct.jsp?Pid=1&Version=0&Cid=16&Charset=iso-8859-1&page=-1&key=9789888139248

 Lundy, Tan, Cunningham (1998). "Heterosexual romantic preferences: The importance of humor and physical attractiveness for different types of relationships". Personal Relationships. 5 (3): 311–325. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.1998.tb00174.x.

 Nasiri, F.; Mafakheri, F. (2015). "Higher Education Lecturing and Humor: From Perspectives to Strategies". Higher Education Studies. 5 (5): 26–31. doi:10.5539/hes.v5n5p26.

 Hewitt, L (1958). "Student perceptions of traits desired in themselves as dating and marriage partners". Marriage and Family Living. 20 (4): 344–349. doi:10.2307/348256. JSTOR 348256.

 Goodwin, R (1990). "Sex differences among partner preferences: Are the sexes really very similar?". Sex Roles. 23 (9–10): 501–513. doi:10.1007/bf00289765.

 Kenrick, Sadalla, Groth, Trost (1990). "Evolution, traits, and the stages of the parental investment model". Journal of Personality. 58 (1): 97–116. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1990.tb00909.x. PMID 23750377.

 Bressler, Balshine (2006). "The influence of humour on desirability". Evolution and Human Behavior. 27: 29–39. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2005.06.002.

 Kuiper & Martin (1993). "Humor and self-concept". Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. 6 (3). doi:10.1515/humr.1993.6.3.251.

 Bos, E.H.; Snippe, E.; de Jonge, P.; Jeronimus, B.F. (2016). "Preserving Subjective Wellbeing in the Face of Psychopathology: Buffering Effects of Personal Strengths and Resources". PLOS ONE. 11 (3): e0150867. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1150867B. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150867. PMC 4786317. PMID 26963923.

 Kuiper & Martin (1998). "Laughter and stress in daily life: Relation to positive and negative affect". Motivation and Emotion.

 Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray., & Weir (2003). "Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the humor styles questionnaire". Journal of Research in Personality. 37: 48–75. doi:10.1016/s0092-6566(02)00534-2.

 Kuiper, Grimshaw, Leite., & Kirsh (2004). "Humor is not always the best medicine: Specific components of sense of humor and psychological well-being". Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. 17 (1–2). doi:10.1515/humr.2004.002.

 "Do cheerfulness, exhilaration, and humor production moderate pain tolerance? A FACS study". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2015-08-11.

 Bennett, Mary Payne; Lengacher, Cecile (2009). "Humor and Laughter May Influence Health IV. Humor and Immune Function". Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 6 (2): 159–164. doi:10.1093/ecam/nem149. PMC 2686627. PMID 18955287.

 Bennett, Mary Payne; Lengacher, Cecile (2008). "Humor and Laughter May Influence Health: III. Laughter and Health Outcomes". Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 5 (1): 37–40. doi:10.1093/ecam/nem041. PMC 2249748. PMID 18317546.

 Fry, W.F.; Stoft, P.E. (1971). "Mirth and oxygen saturation levels of peripheral blood". Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. 19 (1): 76–84. doi:10.1159/000286308. PMID 5146348.

 Yovetich, N.A.; Dale, J.A.; Hudak, M.A. (1990). "Benefits of humor in reduction of threat-induced anxiety". Psychological Reports. 66 (1): 51–58. doi:10.2466/pr0.1990.66.1.51. PMID 2326429.

 Plester, Barbara (2009-01-01). "Healthy humour: Using humour to cope at work". Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online. 4 (1): 89–102. doi:10.1080/1177083X.2009.9522446.

 Bolton, Sharon C.; Houlihan, Maeve (2009-10-02). "Are we having fun yet? A consideration of workplace fun and engagement". Employee Relations. 31 (6): 556–568. doi:10.1108/01425450910991721. ISSN 0142-5455.

 Szameitat, Diana P., et al. Differentiation of Emotions in Laughter at the Behavioural Level. 2009 Emotion 9 (3).

 Strick, Madelijn; et al. (2009). "Finding Comfort in a Joke: Consolatory Effects of Humor Through Cognitive Distraction". Emotion. 9 (4): 574–578. doi:10.1037/a0015951. PMID 19653782.

 Fredrickson, Barbara L. (1998). "What Good Are Positive Emotions?". Review of General Psychology. 2 (3): 300–319. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.300. PMC 3156001. PMID 21850154.

 "Humor in Cancer Treatment". Retrieved 22 January 2017.

 Keltner, D.; Bonanno, G.A. (1997). "A study of laughter and dissociation: Distinct correlates of laughter and smiling during bereavement". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 73 (4): 687–702. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.73.4.687. PMID 9325589.

 Abel, M (2002). "Humor, stress, and coping strategies". International Journal of Humor Research. 15 (4): 365–381. doi:10.1515/humr.15.4.365.

 Kupier, N.A.; Martin, R.A. (1993). "Humor and self-concept". International Journal of Humor Research. 6 (3): 251–270.

 Crew Solomon, Jennifer (January 1996). "American Behavioral Scientist". Humor and Aging Well: A Laughing Matter or a Matter of Laughing?. 3. 39 (3): 249–271. doi:10.1177/0002764296039003004.

 Shelley A. Crawford & Nerina J. Caltabiano (2011): Promoting emotional well-being through the use of humour, The Journal of Positive Psychology: Dedicated to furthering research and promoting good practice, 6: 3, 237–252

 Vrticka, Pascal; Black, Jessica M.; Reiss, Allan L. (30 October 2013). "The neural basis of humour processing". Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 14 (12): 860–868. doi:10.1038/nrn3566. PMID 24169937.

 Rowan Atkinson/David Hinton, Funny Business (tv series), Episode 1 – aired 22 November 1992, UK, Tiger Television Productions

 Emil Draitser, Techniques of Satire (1994) p. 135

 M. Eastman/W. Fry, Enjoyment of Laughter (2008) p. 156

 "Automatic Humor Classification on Twitter" (PDF). 2012.

 "Do the Americans get irony?". BBC News. 27 January 2004. Retrieved 2 April 2012.

Further reading

Alexander, Richard (1984), Verbal humor and variation in English: Sociolinguistic notes on a variety of jokes

Alexander, Richard (1997), Aspects of verbal humour in English

Basu, S (December 1999), "Dialogic ethics and the virtue of humor", Journal of Political Philosophy, 7 (4): 378–403, doi:10.1111/1467-9760.00082, retrieved 2007-07-06 (Abstract)

Billig, M. (2005). Laughter and ridicule: Towards a social critique of humour. London: Sage. ISBN 1-4129-1143-5

Bricker, Victoria Reifler (Winter, 1980) The Function of Humor in Zinacantan Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 411–418

Buijzen, Moniek; Valkenburg, Patti M. (2004), "Developing a Typology of Humor in Audiovisual Media", Media Psychology, 6 (2): 147–167, doi:10.1207/s1532785xmep0602_2(Abstract)

Carrell, Amy (2000), Historical views of humour, University of Central Oklahoma. Retrieved on 2007-07-06.

García-Barriocanal, Elena; Sicilia, Miguel-Angel; Palomar, David (2005), A Graphical Humor Ontology for Contemporary Cultural Heritage Access (PDF), Ctra. Barcelona, km.33.6, 28871 Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), Spain: University of Alcalá, archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-05-23, retrieved 2007-07-06

Goldstein, Jeffrey H., et al. (1976) "Humour, Laughter, and Comedy: A Bibliography of Empirical and Nonempirical Analyses in the English Language." It's a Funny Thing, Humour. Ed. Antony J. Chapman and Hugh C. Foot. Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press, 1976. 469–504.

Hurley, Matthew M., Dennet, Daniel C., and Adams, Reginald B. Jr. (2011), Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01582-0

Holland, Norman. (1982) "Bibliography of Theories of Humor." Laughing; A Psychology of Humor. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 209–223.

Martin, Rod A. (2007). The Psychology Of Humour: An Integrative Approach. London, UK: Elsevier Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-372564-6

McGhee, Paul E. (1984) "Current American Psychological Research on Humor." Jahrbuche fur Internationale Germanistik 16.2: 37–57.

Mintz, Lawrence E., ed. (1988) Humor in America: A Research Guide to Genres and Topics. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988. ISBN 0-313-24551-7; OCLC 16085479.

Mobbs, D.; Greicius, M.D.; Abdel-Azim, E.; Menon, V.; Reiss, A.L. (2003), "Humor modulates the mesolimbic reward centres", Neuron, 40 (5): 1041–1048, doi:10.1016/S0896-6273(03)00751-7, PMID 14659102.

Nilsen, Don L.F. (1992) "Satire in American Literature." Humor in American Literature: A Selected Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1992. 543–48.

Pogel, Nancy, and Paul P. Somers Jr. (1988) "Literary Humor." Humor in America: A Research Guide to Genres and Topics. Ed. Lawrence E. Mintz. London: Greenwood, 1988. 1–34.

Roth, G.; Yap, R; Short, D. (2006). "Examining humour in HRD from theoretical and practical perspectives". Human Resource Development International. 9 (1): 121–127. doi:10.1080/13678860600563424.

Smuts, Aaron. "Humor". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Wogan, Peter (Spring 2006), "Laughing At First Contact", Visual Anthropology Review (published 12 December 2006), 22 (1): 14–34, doi:10.1525/var.2006.22.1.14 (Abstract)

External links

Look up humor or humour in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to humor and humor photos.

Humor at Curlie

International Society for Humor Studies

vte

Aesthetics topics

Philosophers

AbhinavaguptaTheodor W. AdornoLeon Battista AlbertiThomas AquinasHans Urs von BalthasarAlexander Gottlieb BaumgartenClive BellBernard BosanquetEdward BulloughR. G. CollingwoodAnanda CoomaraswamyArthur DantoJohn DeweyDenis DiderotHubert DreyfusCurt John DucasseThierry de DuveRoger FryNelson GoodmanClement GreenbergGeorg HegelMartin HeideggerDavid HumeImmanuel KantPaul KleeSusanne LangerTheodor LippsGyörgy LukácsJean-François LyotardJoseph MargolisJacques MaritainThomas MunroFriedrich NietzscheJosé Ortega y GassetDewitt H. ParkerStephen PepperDavid PrallJacques RancièreAyn RandGeorge Lansing RaymondI. A. RichardsGeorge SantayanaFriedrich SchillerArthur SchopenhauerRoger ScrutonIrving SingerRabindranath TagoreGiorgio VasariMorris WeitzJohann Joachim WinckelmannRichard Wollheimmore...

Theories

ClassicismEvolutionary aestheticsHistoricismModernismNew ClassicalPostmodernismPsychoanalytic theoryRomanticismSymbolismmore...

Concepts

Aesthetic emotionsAesthetic interpretationArt manifestoAvant-gardeAxiologyBeautyBoredomCampComedyCreativityCutenessDisgustEcstasyEleganceEntertainmentEroticismGazeHarmonyJudgementKamaKitschLife imitating artMagnificenceMimesisPerceptionQualityRasaReverenceStyleSublimeTasteWork of art

Related

Aesthetics of musicApplied aestheticsArchitectureArtArts criticismFeminist aestheticsGastronomyHistory of paintingHumourJapanese aestheticsLiterary meritMathematical beautyMathematics and architectureMathematics and artMedieval aestheticsMusic theoryNeuroestheticsPaintingPatterns in naturePhilosophy of designPhilosophy of filmPhilosophy of musicPoetrySculptureTheory of paintingTheory of artTragedyVisual arts