Creating humor is a delicate operation built on layers of shared knowledge, assumptions and innuendo.

Remove one piece, and it all falls apart.

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. (E.B. White)
What people find funny varies widely depending on their background, gender and numerous other factors.
Humor is the clash of two mutually incompatible codes the fusion of two frames of reference that for the most
part have nothing to do with each other. (Arthur Koestler)
There is something almost akin to madness in how and when we laugh.
Men and women are far more alike than different in how they perceive, enjoy and create humor.
All over the world and through most of civilization, clowns, jesters, tricksters and picaros have stood apart from
the crowd, with full license to break all the rules.
Translating jokes from one language to another can be...far trickier than...translating a business memo or news
report.
Even if an ad is funny, if marketers arent careful, they could end up hurting the brand.
Humor and coping...seem to go hand in hand. Successful humor inspires all sorts of positive feelings and
emotions, which can act as a psychological buffer when things go wrong.
Laughter develops in infants far earlier than language, usually between just 10 and 20 weeks of age.
A sense of humor in men could be seen as a sign of intelligence, social desirability and overall genetic fitness.
In other words, good jokes are a guys version of colorful peacock plumes.
Laughter and humor are powerful social signals, indicating to the world in big, bold letters that things are okay.

Recommendation
Laughter is one of the most fundamental of human behaviors, but science has never explained
it. What makes something funny? Journalist Joel Warner and psychologist Peter McGraw
traveled to funny zones across five continents to discover if they could decipher the secret of
humor. They got up-to-date with the latest scientific inquiries into humor, joined Dr. Patch
Adamss clown brigade in a Peruvian slum, found humor amid the strife of the Intifada, and
investigated the hermetic aspect of Japanese humor. The answer they found is: Humor and
laughter are a mystery. Their adventures offer a highly entertaining narrative. Business readers
will find value in their brief section on funny ads and their insights into
psychology. getAbstract recommends this exploration of humor to marketing and PR
professionals seeking a deeper understanding of human behavior and the serious side of funny.

In this summary, you will learn

Why humanity evolved with a sense of humor,
How humor functions in social interactions and
What characteristics make a joke funny.

Take-Aways
People have tried to codify a theory of humor since the days of Plato.
 Humanity may have developed laughter as a signal that a situation was safe.
People laugh even amid wars and natural disasters.
Humor can ease tensions and increase trust.
Humor can divide groups of people and make bigotry more acceptable.
Appreciation of humor varies widely with age, gender and culture.
In 2008, US advertisers spent...between $20 and $60 billion on humorous marketing.
Humorous advertising grabs attention and generates buzz, but no conclusive evidence proves
that it increases sales.
Many believe laughter enhances physical health, but that notion has no scientific proof.
Something is funny when it contains a violation that is benign, such as a person falling
down stairs but landing unhurt.

A Humor Quest

Why do people laugh? Journalist Joel Warner and psychologist Peter McGraw set out on a
journey across five continents to answer that question. The two Americans traveled to
Tanzania, where they investigated an epidemic of contagious hysterical laughter; to Japan,
where they met the directors of a comedy conglomerate; to Los Angeles, where Warner
portrayed Boy Georges dog in an improv theater skit; and to Denmark, where they examined
the fallout from a series of newspaper cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammad. Along the
way, they interviewed comedians, comedy writers, and researchers in psychology, sociology
and linguistics.

Whats So Funny?

Laughter is one of humanitys most fundamental and most mysterious behaviors. Babies laugh
long before they can speak. Laughter pervades entertainment, marketing and daily life. It
survives amid natural disasters, wars and other dire circumstances. Yet, science has never
convincingly explained why laughter evolved or why people find certain things funny.

Creating humor is a delicate operation built on layers of shared knowledge, assumptions

and innuendo. Remove one piece, and it all falls apart.
Students of human behavior have theorized about humor since ancient Greek philosophers
Aristotle and Plato proposed the superiority theory, the notion that people laugh at the
misfortunes of others. The theory doesnt explain all jokes for instance, knock-knock jokes
dont rely on someone elses tough luck. Psychology pioneer Sigmund Freud theorized that
jokes and laughter serve as escape valves for repressed emotions, particularly sexual or violent
jokes. That concept accounts for the appeal of dirty jokes, but it doesnt explain why puns are
funny.
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. (E.B. White)
Most experts today favor some form of philosopher Blaise Pascals incongruity theory.
Nothing produces laughter more, he wrote, than a surprising disproportion between that
which one expects and that which one sees. Writer Arthur Koestler came up with a durable
variation of the incongruity theory. He believed that humor is a clash of two mutually
incompatible codes: A funny joke or incident juxtaposes two different perspectives such as
two meanings of a word that dont necessarily belong together. Koestlers theory explains
why the twist of a punch line or a play on words is funny, but it doesnt explain why people
laugh when you tickle them.

On his journey with Warner, McGraw sought evidence to back up his benign violation theory
of humor: Something is funny when it seems wrong, unsettling or threatening (i.e., a
violation), but simultaneously seems okay, acceptable, or safe (i.e., benign). You are unlikely
to laugh if you see a guy tumbling down a flight of stairs, but if he pops up unhurt, youll
probably chuckle. The fall was unsettling, a violation of what youd expect. It became funny
when the violation proved benign.

What people find funny varies widely depending on their background, gender and numerous
other factors.
This theory, a variation on an idea proposed in 1998 by linguist Thomas Veatch, works on most
kinds of jokes. Dirty jokes violate social mores, puns flout semantic conventions, and sarcasm
upends the language by communicating a meaning thats the opposite of what is actually said.
Even tickling, a loose end in most humor theories is a violation of personal boundaries but
its done with benign intent and, therefore, its funny.

Humor is the clash of two mutually incompatible codes the fusion of two frames of
reference that for the most part have nothing to do with each other. (Arthur Koestler)

The Purpose of Humor

Why did human beings evolve with a sense of humor in the first place? What societal function
does humor serve now? People may have developed laughter as a signal that some novel
occurrence is safe. A laugh may be a refined version of primates panting when they play-fight.
Scientists believe that these animals pant to signal that a fight is not real.

The research of neuroscientist and psychologist Robert Provine backs up the notion of laughter
as a social signal. Provine and his fellow researchers recorded people laughing in real-life
situations. They discovered that more than 80% of the laughter in conversations had nothing
to do with jokes or humor. Most laughter occurred during natural pauses in the dialogues and
acted as punctuation. This suggests that laughter is part of the conversational repertoire, not
a spontaneous outburst. The logs of subjects who recorded their laugh episodes show that
people rarely laugh when they are alone.

There is something almost akin to madness in how and when we laugh.

Biologists Matthew Gervais and David Sloan Wilson believe that two different kinds of laughter
evolved at separate times in human history. The first, which appeared between two and four
million years ago, was a spontaneous reaction to events. It was related to primates panting and
served a similarly reassuring purpose. A second kind of laughter developed in the past two
million years. People began to imitate earlier spontaneous laughter intentionally, to take
advantage of its social-bonding effects.

Men and women are far more alike than different in how they perceive, enjoy and create
humor.

A Word from Our Sponsor: Funny Ads

Humor fosters positive feelings, which marketers try to exploit. In 2008, US businesses spent
upward of $60 billion on humorous ads. One out of four television commercials aims to be
funny. Humor does generate buzz, but no definitive evidence proves it motivates people to buy
the products being advertised, no matter how much they laugh.

Marketers face the danger that gags in their ads will keep viewers from taking their messages
seriously. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy ran a series of
humorous public-service announcements to promote the use of birth control. Test screenings
of the ads suggested that the element of comedy might signal to viewers that the subject was
not worth serious consideration. Subjects who watched a control version of the ad a straight
recitation of birth control facts were more likely to follow up and ask for more information.

All over the world and through most of civilization, clowns, jesters, tricksters and picaros
have stood apart from the crowd, with full license to break all the rules.
Instead of being funny throughout, humorous advertising should use a wedding toast
approach, that is, Start with attention-grabbing jokes, then put all kidding aside and make
your point.

Translating jokes from one language to another can be...far trickier than...translating a
business memo or news report.

Laughing Through the Tears

People laugh in good times and bad. They laughed in the middle of the Intifada, posted funny
tweets while Hurricane Sandy roared and cracked jokes in a North Korean POW camp. Amid
violence, destruction and despair, humor not only survives, it thrives. People need humor to
endure desperately difficult situations.

When the North Koreans captured the crew of the USS Pueblo, the sailors used humor to
survive their ordeal. For example, they posed for propaganda photos with their middle fingers
raised the US commander told their captors it was a Hawaiian good luck sign. Holocaust
survivor Gizelle Cycowycz says prisoners in Nazi concentration camps laughed over jokes. In
Palestine, one of the most popular TV shows is the satiric Watan ala Watar, which skewers
everyone from local leaders and Israeli negotiators to Barack Obama.
Even if an ad is funny, if marketers arent careful, they could end up hurting the brand.
Humor provides a momentary diversion from the horrors around you and functions as a
defense mechanism. By making fun of a situation, you inoculate yourself against further
trauma. This is an extension of the benign violation theory: You handle violations that are not
okay by trying to make them more benign or slightly less horrible. People in desperate
situations seem compelled to be humorous, even when it might get them in trouble.

Humor and coping...seem to go hand in hand. Successful humor inspires all sorts of positive
feelings and emotions, which can act as a psychological buffer when things go wrong.
Some experts worry that having such an escape is not always a good idea in the long run. The
theory goes that people who use humor to cope with difficulties might be less inclined to fight
for social change. The example of the laughtivists in Serbia suggests this isnt always true. In
the late 1990s, a group of activists called Outpour! launched a humor offensive against the
dictator Slobodan Miloevi. The group mocked the tyrant with pranks and street theater. Its
antics reduced the fear barrier that kept citizens from protesting. Eventually, a half-million
people joined the revolt, and Miloevi resigned.

Culture Shock

What people find funny varies widely from culture to culture. Translating a joke into a different
language is difficult you must convey the words and the cultural context of the joke, including
its background of social mores, assumptions, history and taboos. For example, Japanese
humor has its own rules about whats funny and when and where laughing is acceptable.
Japanese jokes usually contain scant context Japans culture is so homogeneous that jokes
require little explanation or setup. Foreigners often find Japanese humor incomprehensible.

Laughter develops in infants far earlier than language, usually between just 10 and 20
weeks of age.
East Asia is unique in that it eschews an otherwise universal form of humor the stupidity
joke. Researcher Christie Davies found that most cultures have a tradition of making fun of
some outsider group. Yet the Japanese dont laugh at any native groups or ridicule their
neighboring countries.

A sense of humor in men could be seen as a sign of intelligence, social desirability and overall
genetic fitness. In other words, good jokes are a guys version of colorful peacock plumes.

The Dark Side of Humor

Humor is a double-edged sword. It eases tensions and brings people together, but it also can
divide them and stir up conflict. In 2005, for example, a Danish newspaper set off an
international firestorm when it published cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammad. Violent
protests in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan led to hundreds of deaths. All too often jokes
divide and conquer, separate the haves from the have-nots.
Racist, sexist and homophobic jokes underscore differences, validate negative stereotypes and
ostracize whole groups of people. Such jokes are particularly harmful, because the targets have
no graceful way to respond, if they have a way to respond at all. If you ignore the jibes, you may
feel you are surrendering your dignity. If you object, you might seem to have no sense of humor.
If youre the butt of a joke, its difficult to respond without making the situation worse.

Laughter and humor are powerful social signals, indicating to the world in big, bold letters
that things are okay.

Humor in Medicine

In 1979, Norman Cousins published his bestseller, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the
Patient, which described how he used comedy films as part of his treatment for a degenerative
joint disease. The idea that humor can boost health caught on. Therapeutic clowning, as
portrayed by Robin Williams in the biopic Patch Adams, has become common in hospitals.

Groups such as the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor train health professionals
in various ways to infuse treatment time with humor. People in 72 countries practice laughter
yoga laughter exercises intended to promote health. Proponents of therapeutic tomfoolery
claim it can boost immune-system function, stave off various illnesses and decrease heart-
disease risk.

But researchers havent found definitive evidence that humor confers physiological benefits. A
decade ago, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology addressed this question with
a public-health survey that was groundbreaking in its scale and scope. The researchers found
no connection between humor and any objective health measures.

If humor offers physical, medicinal benefits, they are not objectively measurable. Patch Adams
says that he has never seen humor as medicine. Instead, he argues, health depends on human
connection, and humor is an essential tool for forging such bonds. Adams now co-directs the
Gesundheit Global Outreach, which sends clown brigades to trouble spots around the globe.

Psychologist Steve Wilson founder of the World Laughter Tour, a therapeutic laughter
program sees humor as an adjunctive therapy. Laughter, he says, wont cure you of a
condition, but it can help your main therapy work better.

Humor can enhance emotional health. In one study of widowers, researchers found that
subjects who could laugh about memories of their marriages coped better with grief and
sadness. As the benign violation theory notes, humor can make difficulties seem less weighty.
For example, consider humorous complaining. When you gripe with humor about your
troubles or dissatisfactions, you boost your own mood and help those who listen to you feel
better, too.

The world is full of difficulties from parking tickets to war. Humor gives you a perspective on
your troubles and helps you see the whimsical side of life.

About the Authors

Peter McGraw, is a professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and directs the
universitys Humor Research Lab. Journalist Joel Warner has written for Bloomberg
Businessweek.