Why do people joke

It is a sign that elevates our social status and allows us to attract reproductive partners. In other words, a joke is to the sense of humor what a cannoli loaded with fat and sugar is to the sense of taste. And because grasping the incongruities requires a store of knowledge and beliefs, shared laughter signals a commonality of worldviews, preferences and convictions, which reinforces social ties and the sense of belonging to the same group.

As Hurly told psychologist Jarrett in , the theory goes beyond predicting what makes people laugh. And yet, as Greengross noted in a review of Inside Jokes, even this theory is incomplete. Other questions remain.

For instance, how can the sometimes opposite functions of humor, such as promoting social bonding and excluding others with derision, be reconciled? And when laughter enhances feelings of social connectedness, is that effect a fundamental function of the laughter or a mere by-product of some other primary role much as eating with people has undeniable social value even though eating is primarily motivated by the need for nourishment?

There is much evidence for a fundamental function. Robert Provine of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, showed in Current Directions in Psychological Science, for example, that individuals laugh 30 times more in the company of others than they do alone. In his research, he and his students surreptitiously observed spontaneous laughter as people went about their business in settings ranging from the student union to shopping malls.

Moreover, humor does not always make us laugh. In one view, knowing how to be funny is a sign of a healthy brain and of good genes, and consequently it attracts partners.

Researchers have found that men are more likely to be funny and women are more likely to appreciate a good sense of humor, which is to say that men compete for attention and women do the choosing. But views, of course, differ on this point.

Even the validity of seeking a unified theory of humor is debated. In fact, I always refer to it by describing it, never by defining it. Still, certain commonalities are now accepted by almost all scholars who study humor. One, Forabosco notes, is a cognitive element: perception of incongruity. To my mind, for example, the incongruity needs to be relieved without being totally resolved; it must remain ambiguous, something strange that is never fully explained. Other cognitive and psychological elements can also provide some punch.

These, Forabosco says, include features such as aggression, sexuality, sadism and cynicism. Laughing, Tickling, and the Evolution of Speech and Self. Robert R. Peter McGraw et al. Christian Jarrett in The Psychologist, Vol. Giovanni Sabato trained as a biologist and is now a freelance science writer based in Rome.

Beyond psychology, biology and medicine, he is interested in the links between science and human rights. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Researchers do not fully understand which aspects of a joke or situation make it seem funny.

Punching up is a way to critique harmful systems without harming those hurting most; punching down only reinforces existing inequities. If you are making a joke about a person or group of people, I encourage you to consider it through this lens. Content warning: some explicit and upsetting language. The vulnerability and accountability they model in doing so is admirable, and we can all learn from it. She has a background in equity and justice, adult learning and curriculum design, as well as a passion for storytelling as a powerful means to social change.

She is enthusiastic about the potential for education in its many forms to advance equity and justice. Specific interests include increasing accessibility of education to those most impacted by systems of oppression; promoting culturally-relevant learning as a tool for individual and community empowerment; and leveraging strong educational practices to design antiracism, equity and justice-related education that is accessible, impactful, and enduring.

Your email address will not be published. Why are you so upset? Post Views: 9, About The Author. Related Posts. Mar Wimm on November 30, at am. I loved this article. Great work just in time for holiday family gatherings Reply. Similarly, a recent study of jokes told by medical doctors in France showed that these often relied on pretty broad sweeping or down right offensive stereotypes — for example that surgeons are megalomaniac tyrants, that anaesthetists are lazy and that psychiatrists are mentally ill.

Within the workplace, especially in stressful jobs, humour is often used to encourage cohesion within a group in order to deal with stress in an acceptable way. But it also works to exclude outsiders, who can find such humour to be unpalatably dark. This last point is important — exclusion of others can help boost group cohesion. Read more: Is there such a thing as a national sense of humour?

We are all part of different social groups, and that will affect our approach to humour. Because as well as reflecting culturally shared values, comedy reflects our aspirations and our sense of what we would like to find funny. Even worse, one of the most successful comedians inspired by Chaplin, Benny Hill , is considered cringeworthy in the UK, despite him being one of the few UK comedians to break through in the USA.

And I suspect that if my generation found KSI hilarious, he would be less funny to young people. My son 13 is currently obsessed with watching YouTube compilations of Vines the now defunct short video social media site : he was horrified when I told him that I used to have a Vine account. Ugh, mum! So all this variation in what we find funny has much less to do with Vines, KSI and me, and more to do with something that happens as we all get older: younger people come along and they can have radically different ideas about what is musical, what is fashionable, and — critically for this article — what is funny.