Class 14' Humor Psychology

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Class 14. Humor Psychology

• The elicitation of humor what makes it funny?

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Theories

• Motivation
• Arousal reduction
• Freud sex related
• Berlyne punch line
• Superiority and disparagment theories
• Downward social comparision
• Incongruity resolution

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Theories

• Reversal theory (Apter, 1982)
• Nonreplacement
• Diminshment

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Theories

• Comprehension-elaboration theory (Wyer
  Collins)
• Basic information processing
• Memory
• Encoding
• Forming expectations
• Incongruity resolution
• Pragmatic meaning

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Theories

• Comprehension-elaboration theory
• Humor elicitation
• Comprehension difficulty
• Cognitive elaboration

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Examples

• Incongruity resolution
• A blind man enters a department store, picks up
  his dog and begins swinging it over his head. A
  clerk hurries over and says Can I help you,
  sir? No thanks, the man replies, Im just
  looking around. (Wyer Collins, 1992)

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Examples

• Incongruity resolution
• Twelve convicts chained together as the ankle
  escape, getting by the guards by posing as an
  immense charm bracelet. (Woody Allen, cited in
  Suls (1983)

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Examples

• Nondisplacement
• A young Catholic priest is walking through town
  when he is accosted by a prostitute. How about a
  quickie for twenty dollars? she asks. The
  priest, puzzled, shakes her off and continues on
  his way, only to be stopped by another
  prostitute. Twenty dollars for a quickie, she
  offers. Again, he breaks free and goes on up the
  street.
• Later, as he is nearing his home in the country,
  he meets a nun. Pardon me sister, he asks, but
  whats a quickie? Twenty dollars, she says,
  The same as it is in town.

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Examples

• Comprehension difficulty
• John ordered a whole pizza for dinner. When the
  waiter asked if he wanted it cut into six or
  eight pieces, John replied, Better make it six,
  I could never eat eight. (McGhee 1976)

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Examples

• Comprehension difficulty
• Q. What did Adam say to Eve in the Garden of
  Eden?
• A. Stand back! I dont know how big this
  thing gets. (Wyer Collins 1992)

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Examples

• Cognitive elaboration
• A Texas Aggie and two friends are marooned on
  a desert island without food or water. Suddenly,
  the sky opens and a voice says, Each of you may
  have one wish.
• One friend says, I wish I were in the arms of
  my loved one. Immediately he is gone. The
  second friend says, I wish I were in the bosom
  of my family. Immediately he is also gone. The
  Texas Aggie thinks for a moment and says, Gee,
  I wish my friends were with me now.

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Recommanded reading

• Wyer, R.S. Collins, J.E. (1992). A theory of
  humor elicitation. Psychological Review, 99
  663-688.
• International Society for Humor Studies.
• See also REDES site.
• Atkinson, R. Laughing Matters The Visual Comedy.
  A Lecture of Rowan Atkinson (1994)

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