from the Nilsens

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Psychology and Humor
by Don L. F. Nilsen and
Alleen Pace Nilsen

2. What is normal?
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5. Emotions: Anger & Fear
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6. Real Fear
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7. Surprise & Skepticism
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8. Curiosity
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9. Love
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10. Sadness
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11. Desire
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12. Smugness
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13. Anticipation: Birds & Snakes
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14. Coffee-Induced Emotions
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15. Android Emotions
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16. Happiness
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17. Happiness
The Happiness Machine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=lqT_dPApj9U
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18. Surprise
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19. Emotions: Narcicism & Sexy Face
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20. Goofiness (Allen Klein)
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21. But the important thing
is balance:
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22. 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
doesn’t 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 Behaviors
Seriousness 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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29. 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 people’s 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.

32. Children Smiling
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33. 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.
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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.

35. Tom Mullica: Smoking Magic Card Trick:
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/17251-Theres-A-Card-
Trick-In-There-Somewhere.-Lets-Smoke-It-Out.html
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36. 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.

39. Perspective
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40. Different Philosophers
Have 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

44. Psychology, Magic and Selective Attention
COLOR-CHANGING CARD TRICK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asxUtX8Hyd4&feature=related
Selective Attention Test # 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
Selective Attention Test # 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA
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45. James Agee classified laughter into six
categories
Incipient or Inner,
Inaudible Laugh
• THE SIMPER
• THE SMIRK
Loud and Unrestrained
• THE HOWL
• THE YOWL
• THE SHRIEK
• THE OLYMPIAN
LAUGH
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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 people’s minds, humor and
laughter are so closely associated.

49. Dark Psychology by “banksy”
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51. New Yorker Cartoonists Therapy Session
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdts_HG7e2Y
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52. A Rorschach Joke
• PSYCHIATRIST:
“What does this
picture remind you
of?”
• PATIENT:
• “Sex.”
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53. PSYCHIATRIST:
“And this picture?”
PATIENT:
“Sex.”
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54. • 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? You’re the guy with all of the
dirty pictures.”

57. Motivation: Profit vs. Purpose
Why Facebook, Google, Internet, Skype, Southwest Airlines and
Wikipedia are so Successful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=relmfu
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