Psychology%20and%20Humor

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Psychology and Humor

• by Don L. F. Nilsen and
• Alleen Pace Nilsen

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What is normal?
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Emotions Anger Fear
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Real Fear
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Surprise Skepticism
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Curiosity
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Love
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Sadness
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Desire
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Smugness
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Anticipation Birds Snakes
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Coffee-Induced Emotions
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Android Emotions
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Happiness
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Happiness

• The Happiness Machine
• http//www.youtube.com/watch_popup?vlqT_dPApj9U

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Surprise
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Emotions Narcicism Sexy Face
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Goofiness (Allen Klein)
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But the important thingis balance
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Modern Humans

• Scholars separate modern humans from primitive
  humans by giving them these three
  characteristics
• Homo Erectus (upright human)
• Homo Sapiens (thinking human)
• Homo Ridens (laughing human)

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The Id, the Super Ego, and Tendentious Jokes

• Willibald Ruch says that the Id is a reflection
  of our desires and drives.
• The Super Ego is a reflection of society and
  parental influence. The Super Ego forces not to
  do things that are socially unacceptable. It
  doesnt allow allow the direct expression of
  sexual and hostile impulses.
• Ruch concludes that individuals repressing their
  sexuality or aggression should show a preference
  for sexual and aggressive jokes.

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Traits, States, and BehaviorsSeriousness vs.
Playfulness

• TRAITS A serious person wants to function
  exclusively in the bona fide mode of
  communication. This is not true for a playful
  person.
• STATES We can be in a serious or pensive mood,
  or a silly mood.
• BEHAVIORS We can tell a joke or clown
  around.

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States

• Playful Mood Cheerful, Hilarious
• Serious Mood Earnest, Pensive, Sober
• Bad Mood Sadness, Melancholy, Ill-Humor

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Moods (States)

• Willibald Ruch says that an ill-humored person,
  like a serious one, may not want to be involved
  in humor. However person in a sad mood may not
  be able to do so even if he or she would like to.
• While the sad person is not antagonistic to a
  cheerful group, the ill-humored one may be.
• Bad mood is also associated with certain forms of
  humor, such as mockery, irony, cynicism, and
  sarcasm.

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Salience
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Types of Humor

• Ruch says that Affiliative Humor involves the
  tendency to say funny things, to tell jokes, and
  to engage in spontaneous witty banter.
• Self-Enhancing Humor is a coping mechanism.
• Aggressive Humor involves sarcasm, teasing,
  ridicule, derision, put-downs or disparagement.
• Self-Defeating Humor is when people allow
  themselves to be the butt of other peoples
  jokes.

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Non-Enjoyment Smiles Differ in Appearance

• Ruch says that people smile for a variety of
  reasons, for example, when they are
• enjoying a disgusting or frightening film,
• masking negative emotions of sadness, anger, or
  fear,
• flirting,
• feeling sadistic pleasure,
• embarrassed,
• complying to something contemptuous,
• have mixed emotions,
• feel under social pressure.

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Children Smiling
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Ruch has described various Humor Styles.
Think about comedians you know. Tell us about a
comedian who fits the description on the left vs.
someone who fits into the right column.
Socially Warm vs. Reflective vs. Competent vs. Earthy vs. Benign vs. Socially Cold Boorish Inept Repressed Mean-Spirited
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Laughter

• Robert Provine says that most laughter is not a
  response to jokes or other formal attempts at
  humor.
• Salvatore Attardo adds that laughter may be
  caused by all sorts of non-humorous stimuli
  including tickling, laughing gas, and
  embarrassment.
• It can also be triggered by watching or hearing
  other people laugh, which is why sound tracks
  were invented to help radio audiences get into a
  laughing mood.

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• Tom Mullica Smoking Magic Card Trick
• http//maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/1725
  1-Theres-A-Card-Trick-In-There-Somewhere.-Lets-Smo
  ke-It-Out.html

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Laughter
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• People also laugh when they are in social
  situations that make them feel anxious, ignorant,
  or apologetic. It could be a sign of false
  bravado by people being teased who want to show
  they can take a joke.
• People never get the giggles, and seldom laugh,
  when they are alone. We are complimenting
  someone on e-mail if we tell them, You made me
  laugh out loud. In reality, we are more likely
  to have smiled.
• Jodi Eisterhold has discussed the principle of
  least disruption, which enjoins speakers to
  return to a serious mode as soon as possible.
  Nevertheless, public speakers like to make the
  audience laugh because it is an invitation to
  come closer in an emotional sense.

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LAUGHTER VS. SMILING

• Because smiles can sometimes evolve into laughs
  and laughs can taper off into smiles, some people
  think that laughter is merely a form of
  exaggerated smiling.
• However, smiles are more likely to express
  feelings of satisfaction or good will, while
  laughter comes from surprise or a recognition of
  an incongruity.
• Furthermore, laughter is basically a public event
  while smiling is basically a private event.

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Perspective
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Different PhilosophersHave Different Points of
View
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PHILOSOPHERS STATEMENTS ABOUT LAUGHTER

• Throughout time, philosophers have made many
  statements about laughter that are not true of
  smiling.
• Each one has defined laughter in a different way
  as shown in this chronological listing.
• THOMAS HOBBES Laughter is the sudden glory
  arising from the sudden conception of some
  eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the
  infirmity of others. Leviathan, 1651

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• IMMANUEL KANT Laughter is an affection arising
  from a strained expectation being suddenly
  reduced to nothing. The Critique of Judgment,
  1790
• WILLIAM HAZLITT The essence of the laughable is
  the incongruous, the disconnecting one idea from
  another, or the jostling of one feeling against
  another. Lecture on the Comic Writers, Etc. of
  Great Britain, 1819.
• ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER The phenomenon of laughter
  always signifies the sudden apprehension of an
  incongruity between a conception and the real
  object. The World as Will and Idea, 1844

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• Henri Bergson Something mechanical encrusted on
  the living causes laughter. Laughter, 1900
• Sigmund Freud Laughter arises from the release
  of previously existing static energy. Jokes and
  Their Relation to the Unconscious, 1905

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Psychology, Magic and Selective Attention

• COLOR-CHANGING CARD TRICK
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vasxUtX8Hyd4feature
  related
• Selective Attention Test 1
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vvJG698U2Mvo
• Selective Attention Test 2
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vubNF9QNEQLA

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James Agee classified laughter into six
categories

• Incipient or Inner, Inaudible Laugh

• Loud and Unrestrained

• THE HOWL
• THE YOWL
• THE SHRIEK
• THE OLYMPIAN LAUGH

• THE SIMPER
• THE SMIRK

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TICKLING

• People who laugh from being tickled are not
  necessarily put in a more receptive mood for
  enjoying the humor in jokes because laughing from
  being tickled occurs in a part of the brain
  different from where laughter that is
  intellectually stimulated occurs.
• People cannot tickle themselves because the
  cerebellum in the lower back of the brain somehow
  sends an interfering message to the part of the
  brain that controls laughter.

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FINAL CONTRAST OF LAUGHTER AND SMILING

• Anthony Chapman did a study in which he compared
  the actions of a group of children who knew they
  were being observed with a group who did not know
  they were being observed.
• The children who knew they were being watched
  laughed four times as often as did those in the
  other group.
• However, they smiled only half as much.

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A PARADOX

• Chapman concluded that laughter can be good or
  bad, depending on the situation.
• But he also concluded that humor is both the
  cause for laughter, and the result of laughter.
• This is why in peoples minds, humor and laughter
  are so closely associated.

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Dark Psychology by banksy
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New Yorker Cartoonists Therapy Session

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vWdts_HG7e2Y

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Mary Kay Morrison
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Elliott Oring
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Willibald Ruch
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A Rorschach Joke

• PSYCHIATRIST What does this picture remind you
  of?
• PATIENT
• Sex.

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• PSYCHIATRIST
• And this picture?
• PATIENT
• Sex.

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• PSYCHIATRIST
• And this picture?
• PATIENT
• Sex.

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• PSYCHIATRIST
• And these pictures?
• PATIENT
• Sex.

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• PATIENT
• What are you writing down.
• PSYCHIATRIST
• That you have many sexual fantasies?
• PATIENT
• Why me? Youre the guy with all of the dirty
  pictures.

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Motivation Profit vs. PurposeWhy Facebook,
Google, Internet, Skype, Southwest Airlines and
Wikipedia are so Successful

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vu6XAPnuFjJcfeature
  relmfu