The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach

The Psychology of Humor

An Integrative Approach

Second Edition

Rod A. Martin

Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

Thomas E. Ford

Professor, Department of Psychology, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC, USA

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Introduction to the Psychology of Humor

Abstract

What Is Humor?

A Brief History of Humor-Related Concepts

The Psychological Approach

Trends in the Psychological Study of Humor

The Many Forms of Humor

Humor in Psychology Studies

Psychological Functions of Humor

Summary and Overview of This Book

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 2. Classic Theories of Humor

Abstract

Relief Theories

Superiority Theories

Incongruity Theories

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 3. Contemporary Theories of Humor

Abstract

Reversal Theory

Comprehension-Elaboration Theory

Benign Violation Theory

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 4. The Personality Psychology of Humor

Abstract

What Is Sense of Humor?

Individual Differences in Humor Appreciation

Individual Differences in the Use of Humor in Daily Life

How Many Different Senses of Humor Are There?

Personality Characteristics of Professional Comedians

Gelotophobia: Individual Differences in Perceptions of Laughter as Ridicule

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 5. The Cognitive Psychology of Humor

Abstract

Cognitive Methods in the Study of Humor

Cognitive Processes in Conversational Humor: Irony and Sarcasm

Linguistic Approaches to Humor

Computational Approaches to Humor

Effects of Humor on Cognition

Humor as a Cognitive Ability

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 6. The Physiological Psychology of Humor and Laughter

Abstract

The Nature of Laughter

Laughter in Animals

Where Does Humor Occur in the Brain?

Evolutionary Psychology of Humor and Laughter

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 7. The Developmental Psychology of Humor

Abstract

Smiling and Laughter in Infancy and Early Childhood

Humor and Play

Humor and Cognitive Development

Social Underpinnings of Humor in Children

Individual Differences in Children’s Sense of Humor

Humor and Aging

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 8. The Social Psychology of Humor

Abstract

Individual Social Psychological Processes

Interpersonal Relationships

Group Processes

Intergroup Relations

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 9. The Clinical Psychology of Humor: Humor and Mental Health

Abstract

Relationship Between Humor and Psychological Wellbeing

Humor in Psychotherapy and Counseling

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 10. The Health Psychology of Humor: Humor and Physical Health

Abstract

Humor and Pain Threshold and Tolerance

Humor and Immunity

Humor, Blood Pressure, and Heart Disease

Humor and Illness Symptoms

Humor and Longevity

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Chapter 11. Applications of Humor in Education and in the Workplace

Abstract

Humor in Education

Humor in the Workplace

Humor in Leadership

Summary and Conclusion

Key Concepts

Critical Thinking

Bibliography

Author Index

Subject Index

Copyright

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Preface

Humor is an ubiquitous human activity that occurs in all types of social interaction. Most of us laugh at something funny many times during the course of a typical day. Although it is a form of play, humor serves a number of serious cognitive, emotional, and social functions. Fascinating questions about humor touch on every area of psychology. Surprisingly, however, despite its obvious importance in human behavior, humor and related topics like laughter, irony, and mirth are hardly ever mentioned in psychology texts and other scholarly books. Although there is a sizable and continually expanding research literature on humor, most psychologists seem to have little systematic knowledge of it. Thus, the first edition of The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach was published in 2007 to provide a comprehensive review of theory and empirical research on humor in each of the disciplines of psychology as well as research in related disciplines that augments the work of psychologists.

However, the psychology of humor, as a field, has rapidly expanded in the intervening years. Scholars in diverse areas of psychology (i.e., personality, cognitive, physiological, developmental, social, clinical, health, industrial/organizational) are increasingly investigating questions about the role of humor in topics within their disciplines. Indeed, over 1000 theoretical and empirical research articles related to the psychology of humor have been published since 2007.

Moreover, humor is an interdisciplinary topic. Scholars from a number of other disciplines, including anthropology, biology, computer science, linguistics, literary and cultural studies, neuroscience, philosophy, religious studies, and sociology contribute to the advancement of humor studies. Indeed, the research contributing to the psychology of humor has become more widely dispersed in publication outlets within psychology as well as these other disciplines. Accordingly, the second edition consolidates this expansive and disparate literature, often touching on contributions of other disciplines to maintain an up-to-date, informed, comprehensive, integrative review of theory and research findings that contribute to our understanding of the psychology of humor.

Like the first edition, we designed the second to serve multiple purposes and audiences. First, we intend the book to serve as a textbook for upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level courses on the psychology of humor. To facilitate the use of The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach as a textbook, we have organized the chapters around different areas of psychology. We believe this will demonstrate to students how humor, a very intriguing, enjoyable, and personally relevant facet of human experience, can be approached from different psychological perspectives. Thus, like the first edition, the second covers the central research themes and questions across the different disciplines of psychology, highlighting key studies and integrating the findings from the most influential research to provide a comprehensive and compelling coverage of the psychology of humor.

Second, we intend the book to be useful as a research handbook for academic psychologists and scholars from other disciplines seeking to conduct their own research in this topic area. Therefore, in each chapter we note interesting, yet-unanswered questions, novel hypotheses derived from recent developments in various areas of psychology, and promising directions for future research. We hope that by making psychologists and other scholars aware of noteworthy research findings and intriguing questions that remain, this book will stimulate further interest in the psychology of humor as a research domain. To enhance the usefulness of the book as a reference guide, the second edition includes an extensive bibliography, with references to most of the important works in this literature as well as a comprehensive subject and author index.

Third, we hope this book will serve practitioners in health care, counseling, social work, education, and business, with an interest in potential applications of humor in their respective fields. By appealing to a broad audience of potential readers, we do not assume that readers have a strong background in psychology. For those who might be less familiar with the discipline, we try to provide enough information to make the theories and research findings accessible.

In addition to updating and expanding our integrative review of theory and research on the psychology of humor and presenting it in a way that it is accessible to a wide scholarly audience, we have made a number of changes to the second edition to enhance all readers’ engagement with material in each chapter. The second edition includes more visual depictions of selected research findings (e.g., graphs, flowcharts, tables, and figures). We also have included pictures to illustrate and help us explain concepts, processes, theories, research settings, etc. throughout the book whenever relevant and useful. Moreover, the second edition highlights material in text boxes. For instance, we introduce readers to prominent scholars through short interviews that reveal insights into their careers as humor scholars and their perceptions of the pressing issues related to the psychology of humor in their particular disciplines. To increase the usefulness of the book as a textbook for students, in particular, we have included in the second edition at the end of each chapter a list of key concepts, and critical thinking questions.

Finally, it has often been noted that the academic study of humor is not in itself very funny, and that nothing kills a joke like analyzing it. As McComas (1923) observed, he who approaches laughter upon science bent will find it no laughing matter (p. 45). Similarly, journalists reporting on the annual conference of the International Society of Humor Studies (ISHS) often take delight in pointing out the apparent irony of scholars presenting very weighty and unfunny research papers on the subject of humor. There is no reason, though, why a scholarly work on humor needs to be funny any more than a book on depression research should, itself, make the reader feel gloomy, or than scholarly studies of human sexuality should be titillating. In keeping with a long-standing tradition of scholarly books on humor, we therefore warn the reader at the outset that you are not likely to find this book particularly funny. However, we do hope you will find it interesting and informative, and that it will pique your curiosity and eagerness to engage in further study of this intriguing topic.

Acknowledgments

Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2007, I have been extremely gratified by how well it has been received by readers throughout the world. I have received emails from many college and university professors telling me they have started teaching courses in the psychology of humor and have adopted this book as the text. Numerous students and academic researchers have also written to say they have been inspired by the book to begin conducting research of their own in this topic area. With successive translations of the book into Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and Korean, it has become accessible to an even broader international audience.

Over the intervening decade, the field of humor research in psychology and related disciplines has continued to flourish, with hundreds of new studies being published in academic journals, greatly expanding our knowledge and understanding. It became increasingly obvious that the book was in need of revision to keep abreast of these exciting new developments. However, as I was embarking on retirement from the university, I felt a need to recruit a colleague to take on this task. I was therefore delighted when Tom Ford, who has established himself as a highly productive and respected humor researcher, accepted my invitation to become coauthor of the second edition. Tom has very capably carried out the vast bulk of the job of revising and updating the book, integrating the many new developments in research and theory in this topic area. I wish to thank him for his tremendous contribution, and I trust that this second edition will continue to be a useful resource for students, teachers, and researchers with an interest in this fascinating and important aspect of human psychology.

Rod A. Martin

My interest in humor has defined my career as a social psychologist. Over the years, I have had the privilege of collaborating on a number of projects with great colleagues, most notably my good friend Julie Woodzicka from Washington and Lee University. I have also been blessed to work with a host of excellent graduate students: Mark Ferguson, Christie Boxer, Shane Triplett, Annie Kochersberger, Christopher Holden, Alyna Ohanmamooreni, Whitney Petit, Kyle Richardson, Christopher Breeden, Shaun Lappi, Sabrina Teeter, Olivia Muse, Emma O’Connor, Noely Banos, Riley McCallus, Hannah Buie, and Andrew Olah. I wish to thank all of you for your friendship, insights, inspiration, and hard work, and for making the challenging work of empirical research invigorating, exciting and, yes, funny. Working with you has absolutely been the most rewarding part of my career.

I am honored that Rod Martin invited me to coauthor the second edition of the book; it has been a privilege to contribute to such an influential resource for the field of humor studies. Thank you, Rod, for giving me this opportunity. I am grateful to Bob Mankoff for his contribution of satire and amusement to the second edition. Thank you, Bob, for supplying the New Yorker cartoons. I also thank fellow humor scholars, Nick Kuiper, Sven Svebak, and Sonja Heintz, for their helpful comments. Additionally, I thank my students, Andrew Olah, Riley McCallus, and Hannah Buie for tracking down relevant articles for selected chapters, proof reading, and giving helpful feedback and suggestions. I want to extend a special thank you to my former student, Olivia Muse, for her tireless work in obtaining copyright permissions for images and for proof reading and providing constructive feedback on each chapter. Finally, I want to recognize and thank my wife, Wendy, for letting me take over the home office and for amiably putting up with me for the duration of this project.

Thomas E. Ford

Chapter 1

Introduction to the Psychology of Humor

Abstract

This chapter introduces the psychology of humor and briefly outlines the content of the other book chapters. Humor is a universal human activity that most people experience many times over the course of a typical day. From a psychological perspective, humor is fundamentally a social phenomenon; it is a form of social play comprised of the perception of playful incongruity that induces the positive emotional response of mirth and the vocal-behavioral expression of laughter. In social interactions, humor takes on many different forms, including canned jokes, spontaneous witticisms, and unintentionally funny utterances and actions. There is a good deal of evidence suggesting that humor and laughter confer adaptive cognitive and social benefits for individuals, including a way to relieve tension, regulate emotions, and cope with stress. In addition, humor has important social–psychological consequences for interpersonal relationships and broader group processes. Humor can serve as both positive (adaptive) and negative (maladaptive) social functions; it can both unite people by solidifying bonds and the sense of belonging to a group, and divide people by establishing social boundaries and fostering discrimination.

Keywords

Behavior; function; humor; laughter; psychology

We all know what it is like to experience humor. Someone tells a joke, relates an amusing personal anecdote, or makes a witty comment or an inadvertent slip of the tongue, and we are suddenly struck by how funny it is. Depending on how amusing we perceive the event to be, it might cause us to smile, to chuckle, or to burst out in peals of convulsive laughter. Our response is accompanied by pleasant feelings of emotional wellbeing or mirth. Most of us have this sort of experience many times during the course of a typical day.

Humor and laughter are universal and fundamental human experiences, occurring in all cultures and virtually all individuals throughout the world, and in nearly every type of interpersonal relationship (Apte, 1985; Lefcourt, 2001). Although different cultures have their own norms concerning the suitable subject matter of humor and the types of situations where laughter is considered appropriate, the sounds of laughter are indistinguishable from one culture to another (Sauter, Eisner, Ekman, & Scott, 2010). Developmentally, laughter is one of the first social vocalizations (after crying) emitted by human infants (McGhee, 1979). Infants begin to laugh in response to the actions of other people at about 4 months of age, and cases of gelastic (i.e., laughter-producing) epilepsy in newborns indicate that the brain mechanisms for laughter are already present at birth (Sher & Brown, 1976). The fact that even children born deaf and blind laugh without having perceived the laughter of others further demonstrates the innateness of laughter (Black, 1984).

Indeed, there is evidence of specialized brain circuits for humor and laughter in humans that researchers are beginning to identify in neural imaging studies (e.g., Yamao et al., 2015). Thus, the ability to enjoy humor and express it through laughter seems to be an essential part of human experience. Accordingly, humor and laughter are topics of popular interest that have captured the imagination and critical attention of scholars from multiple disciplines dating back to the writings of the classical Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle.

People often mock scholarly attempts to study humor; it seems that humor must naturally elude explanation by serious scientific methods. By putting humor under the scientific microscope, the humorless scholar misses the point and fails to appreciate its essence. This incredulity has been humorously and famously expressed by Elwyn B. White who quipped in the preface of the 1941 book, A Subtreasury of American Humor, 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. However, As H. J. Eyesenck noted in Goldstein and McGhee’s (1972) edited volume, The Psychology of Humor, we can confidently dismiss such commonplace renunciations as they have been encountered by every scientist attempting to extend the scope of their inquiries into new fields.

Common sense and folk wisdom explanations for many psychological phenomena have proven to be overly simplistic or simply wrong. Indeed, it is only through rigorous scientific investigation of humor that psychologists have been able to address a diversity of issues and questions. For instance, what are the mental processes involved in getting a joke or perceiving something to be funny? How is humor processed in the brain and what effects does it have on our bodies? What is laughter and why do we laugh in response to humorous things? What roles does humor play in interactions with other people? What is a sense of humor and how does it develop in children? Is a good sense of humor beneficial for mental and physical health? By subjecting such questions to rigorous scholarly inquiry, psychologists and other scholars have illuminated the integral role that humor plays in the human experience.

In this chapter we define humor, discussing the essential elements of the humor experience. Next, we summarize the history of the study of humor, examining the way popular conceptions and assumptions about humor and laughter have changed dramatically over the centuries. We then discuss the psychological approach to the study of humor and describe current trends in the psychological study of humor. We then present a survey of the many different forms of humor that we encounter in daily life, and then some of the psychological functions of humor and laughter. Finally, we present an overview of the rest of this book.

What Is Humor?

As psychologist Willibald Ruch proposed in the 2008 volume, The Primer of Humor Research, the perception that something is funny seems to be fundamental in defining humor. However, scholars and laypeople alike use the term humor in a variety of contexts to mean different things. Indeed, scholars have operationally defined and measured humor in terms of different facets of the humor experience that are relevant to specific research questions. As a result, the term humor has come to represent all phenomena related to the humor experience (Ruch, 1998, 2001). Thus, we offer the following definition of humor:

Humor is a broad, multifaceted term that represents anything that people say or do that others perceive as funny and tends to make them laugh, as well as the mental processes that go into both creating and perceiving such an amusing stimulus, and also the emotional response of mirth involved in the enjoyment of it.

It is important to recognize that humor is fundamentally a social phenomenon; other people provide the context in which we experience humor. As mentioned above, humor occurs in nearly every type of interpersonal relationship. We laugh and joke much more frequently when we are with other people than when we are by ourselves (R. A. Martin & Kuiper, 1999; Provine & Fischer, 1989). People do occasionally laugh when they are alone, such as while watching a comedy show on television, reading a humorous book, or remembering a funny personal experience. However, these instances of laughter are still social in that they involve the imagined or implied presence of other people (Allport, 1954). One is still responding to people as characters in the television program or the book, or reliving in memory an event that involved other people. Humor essentially is a way for people to interact in a playful manner.

From a psychological perspective, therefore, humor represents a form of social play. Max Eastman (1936) stated, "humor is play… Therefore, no definition of humor, no theory of wit, no explanation of comic laughter, will ever stand up, which is not based upon the distinction between playful and serious" (p. 15). He pointed out that, from reading the serious-sounding descriptions of humor written by many of the past theorists, one would not know that humor is a playful, lighthearted activity. More recently, Berlyne (1969) noted the close connection between humor and play, and Gruner (1997) emphasized the playful nature of humorous aggression. William Fry (1963) also viewed humor as essentially a form of play. Finally, Michael Apter (1982) incorporated the idea of humor as play as a central assumption in his reversal theory of humor (discussed in Chapter 3: Contemporary Theories of Humor).

Humor, as a form of social play, can be divided into three essential psychological elements related to cognition, emotion, and behavior. As depicted in Fig. 1.1, the person experiences (1) cognitive-perceptual processes underlying the perception of something as funny, which triggers (2) a unique emotional response of mirth and (3) the vocal-behavioral expression of laughter. Further, each element of humor, and therefore its overall experience, is fundamentally dependent on and affected by the social context.

Figure 1.1 The essential cognitive, emotional, and behavioral elements of humor.

Cognitive-Perceptual Processes in Humor

The experience of humor appears to be predicated on two cognitive-perceptual processes activated by characteristics of a humor stimulus and the social context in which it is encountered: (1) perception of incongruity and (2) appraisal of incongruity in a nonserious humor mindset. As we will see Chapter 2, Classic Theories of Humor, scholars have debated over the characteristics that cause one to perceive a stimulus as funny; however, most contemporary investigators would agree that the perception of incongruity is at the heart of the humor experience (e.g., Carrell, 2008; Forabosco, 1992; Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Ruch, 2001). That is, humor involves an idea, image, text, or event that is in some sense incongruous, odd, unusual, unexpected, surprising, or out-of-the-ordinary. In addition, the humor stimulus must be accompanied by cues that signal us to appraise the stimulus in a playful, nonserious, nonliteral frame of mind in which people temporarily abandon rules of logic and expectations of common sense and congruity (e.g., Apter, 1982; Berlyne, 1972; Cohen, 1999; Cundall, 2007; McGhee, 1972; Morreall, 1987; Mulkay, 1988). Thus, in the humorous mode of thinking, contrary to the rational logic of normal, serious thought, a thing can be both X and not-X at the same time (Mulkay, 1988).

The cartoon depicted in Fig. 1.2 joins the two essential cognitive elements by presenting an incongruity to be interpreted in a playful, humor mindset.

Figure 1.2 Cartoon depicting playful incongruity. Source: Copyright John Jonik/Published in The New Yorker Magazine.

The funeral scene presents a set-up for the punch line. It provides an initial schema or set of logical expectations about the situation. The image of the people all laughing is the punch line that creates an incongruous violation of expectations (people don’t normally laugh at funerals). Because the incongruity appears in the context of a cartoon, people appraise it in a playful, humor mindset and thus interpret it as funny.

The perception of incongruity in a playful, humor mind set illustrated by this cartoon appears to characterize all forms of humor, including jokes, teasing, and witty banter, unintentional types of humor such as amusing slips of the tongue or the proverbial person slipping on the banana peel, the laughter-eliciting peek-a-boo games and rough-and-tumble play of children, and even the humor of chimpanzees and gorillas (Wyer & Collins, 1992). As we will see in later chapters, a great deal of theoretical discussion and research on the psychology of humor has focused on exploring in greater detail the cognitive processes underlying the perception and appreciation of humor.

The word humor is sometimes used in a narrow sense to refer specifically to these cognitive processes that go into perceiving something as funny. We also will occasionally use it in this narrow sense, since there does not seem to be another word to denote this cognitive process. It is important to bear in mind, though, that in a broader sense, humor refers to the experience of the psychological elements collectively, and an integrated psychological study of humor should address all of them.

Mirth: The Emotional Response to Perceptions of Humor

Our response to humor is not just an intellectual one. The perception of humor invariably also evokes a pleasant emotional response, at least to some degree. Psychological studies have shown that exposure to humorous stimuli produces an increase in positive affect and mood (Szabo, 2003). Just as other emotions like joy, jealousy, or fear occur in response to specific types of appraisals of the social and physical environment (Lazarus, 1991), humor comprises an emotional response that is elicited by the appraisal that an event or situation is incongruously funny. The pleasant emotion associated with humor, which is familiar to all of us, is a unique feeling of wellbeing described by such terms as amusement, mirth, hilarity, cheerfulness, and merriment. It is closely related to joy, and contains an element of exultation and a feeling of invincibility, a sense of expansion of the self, which the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes referred to as sudden glory.

Surprisingly, although the emotional response to humor is a feeling that is familiar to everyone, scholars have not yet settled on an agreed-upon technical term to denote this particular emotion. Researchers have specific terms to denote emotions like joy, love, fear, anxiety, depression, and so forth, but there is no common name for the emotion elicited by humor. This is because it is so closely aligned with laughter that, until recently, theorists and researchers have tended to focus on the more obvious behavior of laughter instead of the emotion that underlies it. Some researchers have used the expressions humor appreciation (e.g., Weisfeld, 1993) or amusement (e.g., Shiota, Campos, Keltner, & Hertenstein, 2004) to denote this feeling, but these terms seem to be too cognitive and do not fully capture the emotional experience. Psychologist Willibald Ruch (1993) has proposed the word exhilaration (related to hilarity, from Latin hilaris, meaning cheerful) as a technical term for this emotion. While exhilaration, in its common English meaning, contains a sense of excitement in addition to cheerfulness, Ruch suggested that this use of the term would deemphasize the excitement component, underscoring instead the emotional quality of cheerfulness, amusement, and funniness. However, this term does not seem to have caught on with researchers, who likely have difficulty shedding the connotation of excitement.

To denote the emotional response to humor, we need a term that is clearly emotion-related, i.e., associated with humor and laughter without being synonymous with either, and that can have a range of intensities. In our view, the term mirth works very well for this purpose. The 2016 Oxford English dictionary defines mirth as amusement especially expressed in laughter, which seems to be exactly the required meaning. However, researchers have used mirth to refer to smiling and laughter, which are facial and vocal expressions of the emotion rather than the emotion itself, and therefore should be kept distinct. Mirth is the distinctive emotion that is elicited by the perception of humor. Like other emotions (e.g., joy, love, sadness, fear), mirth can vary in intensity, ranging from mild feelings of amusement to very high levels of hilarity (Ruch, 1993).

Neurological studies support the distinction among the cognitive and emotional elements of the humor process, indicating that each involves different, but interconnected, regions of the brain (e.g., Marinkovic et al., 2011; Samson, Zysset, & Huber, 2008; Vrticka, Black, & Reiss, 2013). The cognitive processes of perceiving and resolving incongruity seem to primarily occur in the temporo-parietal junction and the temporo-occipito-parietal junction. In contrast, the mirth response involves the insula, the ventral anterior cingulate cortex, the amygdala, and the medial prefrontal cortex.

In addition to involving particular parts of the brain, mirth is accompanied by a range of biochemical changes in the brain, autonomic nervous system, and endocrine system, involving a variety of molecules, including neurotransmitters, hormones, opioids, and neuropeptides (Panksepp, 1993). From other research we know that these biochemical changes underlie pleasurable emotional states associated with a variety of activities including eating, listening to music, sexual activity, and even ingestion of mood-altering drugs. This explains why people enjoy humor so much and go to such lengths to experience it as often as they can: whenever we laugh at something funny we are experiencing an emotional high that is rooted in the biochemistry of our brains. Moreover, this neurochemical cocktail affects many parts of the body, including the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, digestive, and immune systems (W. F. Fry, 1994). The biological concomitants of the emotion of mirth form the basis of claims that have been made in recent years about the potential health benefits of humor and laughter.

Laughter: The Behavioral Response to Perceptions of Humor

Like other emotions, the mirthful pleasure accompanying humor also has an expressive component, namely laughter. Laughter is a distinctive, stereotyped pattern of vocalization that is easily recognized and quite unmistakable (Provine & Yong, 1991). At low levels of intensity, this emotion is expressed by a faint smile, which turns into a broader grin and then audible chuckling and laughter as the emotional intensity increases. At very high intensities, it is expressed by loud guffaws, often accompanied by a reddening of the face as well as bodily movements such as throwing back the head, rocking the body, slapping one’s thighs, and so on. Thus, laughter is essentially a way of expressing or communicating to others the fact that one is experiencing the emotion of mirth, just as frowning, scowling, yelling, and clenching one’s fists communicate the emotion of anger. Laughter is therefore fundamentally a social behavior: if there were no other people to communicate to, we would not need laughter. This is no doubt why it is so loud, why it comprises such a distinctive and easily recognized set of sounds, and why it rarely occurs in social isolation.

Although different cultures have their own norms concerning the suitable subject matter of humor and the types of situations where laughter is considered appropriate, the sounds of laughter are indistinguishable from one culture to another. Developmentally, laughter is one of the first social vocalizations (after crying) emitted by human infants (McGhee, 1979). Infants begin to laugh in response to the actions of other people at about 4 months of age, and cases of gelastic (i.e., laughter-producing) epilepsy in newborns indicate that the brain mechanisms for laughter are already present at birth (Sher & Brown, 1976). The innateness of laughter is further demonstrated by the fact that even children born deaf and blind have been reported to laugh appropriately without ever having perceived the laughter of others (Provine, 2001). Indeed, there is evidence of specialized brain circuits for humor and laughter in humans, which researchers are beginning to identify by means of neural imaging studies. Thus, the ability to enjoy humor and express it through laughter seems to be an essential part of what it means to be human.

Many theorists have suggested that the main function of laughter is to signal to others that one is engaging in play, rather than being serious (e.g., van Hooff, 1972). That is, people use laughter to communicate positive emotion and to signal friendliness and playful intentions, indicating that one is in a nonserious frame of mind. The laughter accompanying friendly teasing, for example, signals that one should not take a seemingly insulting message seriously.

More recently, researchers have suggested that the purpose of laughter is not just to communicate that one is in a playful state, but to actually induce this state in others as well (Owren & Bachorowski, 2003; Russell, Bachorowski, & Fernandez-Dols, 2003). According to this view, the peculiar sounds of laughter have a direct effect on the listener, inducing positive emotional arousal that mirrors the emotional state of the laugher, perhaps by activating certain specialized brain circuits (Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Provine, 2001). In this way, laughter may serve an important biosocial function of coupling together the positive emotions of members of a group and thereby coordinating their activities. This would explain why laughter is so contagious; when we hear someone laughing, it is almost impossible not to feel mirthful and begin laughing too. Yet another potential social function of laughter is to motivate others to behave in particular ways (Shiota et al., 2004). For example, laughter can be a method of positively reinforcing others for desirable behavior (laughing with), as well as a potent form of punishment directed at undesirable behaviors (laughing at).

A Brief History of Humor-Related Concepts

As mentioned above, laypeople and contemporary scholars alike use the term humor very broadly to refer to anything people say or do that is perceived to be funny and evokes mirth and laughter in others. Interestingly, this broad meaning of humor has developed only quite recently. Indeed, the word has a very interesting and complex history, starting out with an entirely different meaning and gradually accumulating new connotations over the centuries. Cultural historian Daniel Wickberg (1998) has provided a detailed and fascinating analysis of the history of humor, from which we have drawn much of what follows (see also Ruch, 1998a).

Etymology of Humor

Humor began as a Latin word (humorem) meaning fluid or liquid. It still retains this meaning in physiology in reference to bodily fluids, such as the aqueous and vitreous humors of the eye. The Greek physician Hippocrates (4th century BC), who is considered to be the father of medicine, believed that good health depends on the proper balance of four fluids, or humors, of the body, namely blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Later, the Greek physician Galen (2nd century AD), who lived in Rome, introduced the idea that these four fluids possessed particular psychological qualities such that an excess of any one of them in an individual created a certain kind of temperament or character. A predominance of blood caused one to have a sanguine or cheerful temperament, too much black bile produced a melancholic or depressive personality, and so on.

Besides seeing body fluids as the basis of relatively enduring character traits, physicians began to view fluctuations in these humors as the cause of temporary mood states. The dual meanings of humor as an enduring character trait or temporary mood are still present today when we speak of someone being a good-humored person or in a bad humor. Thus, having originally referred to a physical substance, humor gradually developed psychological connotations relating to both enduring temperament and temporary mood. Until the 16th century, however, humor still did not have any connotation of funniness or association with laughter.

In the English language, the word humor (which had been borrowed from the French humeur) continued to evolve. In the 16th century the idea of humor as an unbalanced temperament or personality trait led to its use to refer to any behavior that deviates from social norms. Thus, a humor came to mean an odd, eccentric, or peculiar person (cf. Ben Johnson’s Every man out of his humour, 1598). Because such people were often viewed as ridiculous, or objects of laughter and ridicule, it was a small step from there to the association of humor with funniness and laughter, and its entry into the field of comedy (Ruch, 1998a).

Eventually, the odd or peculiar person who was the object of laughter became known as a humorist, whereas a man of humor was someone who took pleasure in imitating the peculiarities of a humorist (e.g., Corbyn Morris in An essay toward fixing the true standard of wit, humour, raillery, satire, and ridicule, 1744). Thus, humor came to be seen as a talent involving the ability to make others laugh. It was not until the mid to late 19th century, however, that the term humorist took on the modern meaning of someone who creates a product called humor in order to amuse others (Wickberg, 1998). Mark Twain is viewed by many scholars as one of the first humorists in this modern sense.

Changing Views of Laughter

At the same time that the meaning of the word humor was evolving in the English language, popular conceptions of laughter and the laughable were also changing (Wickberg, 1998). Prior to the 18th century, laughter was viewed by most authors almost entirely in negative terms. No distinction was made between laughing with and laughing at, since all laughter was thought to arise from making fun of someone. Most references to laughter in the Bible, for example, are linked with scorn, derision, mockery, or contempt (Koestler, 1964). The philosophical conception of laughter as essentially a form of aggression can be traced to Aristotle, who believed that it was always a response to ugliness or deformity in another person, although he thought it would not occur if the object of laughter aroused other strong emotions such as pity or anger. Following in the long tradition of Aristotle, the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes linked laughter with a feeling of superiority, or sudden glory, resulting from some perception of inferiority in another person.

During the 18th century, the word ridicule (from Latin ridiculum = joke and ridiculus = laughable) was used in much the same way that we use the word humor today, i.e., as a generic term for anything that causes laughter and mirth. However, while laughter was a passive response, ridicule was seen as active and aggressive, a form of attack. Throughout Europe during this time, ridicule became a popular debating technique for outwitting and humiliating adversaries by making them laughable to others. It also grew into a socially accepted conversational art form for entertaining others in social gatherings. The person who was adept at generating clever remarks to skewer others and thereby provoke laughter was seen as a particularly desirable dinner guest. Other words that were commonly used during this time along with ridicule were raillery and banter. While both of these terms referred to aggressive forms of witty repartee used in conversation, banter was seen as a coarser, more impolite, and low-class type of ridicule, whereas raillery was more refined and socially pleasing.

With the growing view of ridicule as a socially acceptable verbal art form and a desirable part of amiable conversation, the idea of laughter as an expression of contempt and scorn gradually gave way to a view of it as a response to cleverness and gamesmanship. The sense of superiority inherent in laughter was now downplayed and seen as secondary, and the intellectual aspects were elevated over the emotional. Laughter was associated with a game of wits, a way of showing off one’s cleverness by creating intellectual surprise in novel relationships between ideas, rather than an expression of contempt, scorn, superiority, and aggression. By the early 19th century, Hobbes’ superiority theory was being replaced by theories that viewed incongruity as the essence of laughter. William Hazlitt, an English writer of the early 19th century, epitomized this theory in his statement, the essence of the laughable is the incongruous (quoted by Wickberg, 1998, p. 56).

The shift from an essentially aggressive view of laughter was motivated also by a new sensibility among middle-class British society in the 18th century which emphasized the importance of benevolence, kindness, civility, and sympathy in people of refinement. As reflected, for example, in the writings of Adam Smith (e.g., Theory of moral sentiments, 1759), a new set of humanitarian values elevated emotional discernment above cold rational logic. In keeping with this general outlook, social reformers began to argue in favor of a more humanitarian form of laughter based on sympathy rather than aggression. This led to the need for a new word to describe this benevolent basis of laughter, and humor was coopted to serve this purpose. In contrast, the word wit (from Old English witan = to know) began to be used to refer to the more aggressive types of laughter-evoking behaviors that had previously been described by the generic term ridicule. Thus, by the early 19th century, the umbrella term ridicule had been replaced by the two contrasting words, wit and humor.

Wit Versus Humor

Both wit and humor were based on the notion that incongruity provoked laughter, but they were thought to do so in radically different ways. In theories of dramatic comedy, wit represented comedy based on intellect, while humor represented comedy based on character (Wickberg, 1998). Over time, wit became associated with ridicule, referring to aggressive cleverness and word play, whereas humor emphasized sympathy and benevolence, a more positive and desirable basis for laughter. Wit was intellectual, sarcastic, and related to antipathy; humor was emotional, congenial, and related to fellow-feeling.

The two words also had different social class connotations. Wit was associated with the aristocracy and elitism. Humor was a more bourgeois, middle-class concept associated with universality and democracy. Wit was also considered to be artificial, something that could be acquired through learning and practice, whereas humor was viewed as natural, an inborn talent of the individual. Thus, the modern distinction between laughing at and laughing with was captured by wit and humor, respectively.

Not surprisingly, people began to view humor as more socially desirable than wit, and many writers described it in glowing terms. For example, one 19th-century author identified humor as the combination of the laughable with an element of love, tenderness, sympathy, warm-heartedness, or affection (quoted by Wickberg, 1998, p. 65). The association between humor and democratic values (as opposed to the elitism and snobbery of wit) made humor a very popular concept in the egalitarian culture of the United States, particularly after the Civil War. Sigmund Freud and most of his psychology contemporaries made the distinction between humor as benevolent and psychologically healthy and wit as aggressive and of questionable psychological value (Freud, 1960 [1905]).

Over the course of the 20th century, the distinction between wit and humor gradually diminished, and humor became the umbrella term for all things laughable. Many theorists in the early 1900s also suggested that laughter almost always contained an element of sympathy. Thus from the 17th to the 20th centuries, popular conceptions of humor and laughter underwent a remarkable transformation, shifting from the aggressive antipathy of superiority theory, to the neutrality of incongruity theory, to the view that laughter could sometimes be sympathetic, to the notion that sympathy is a necessary condition for laughter (Wickberg, 1998). These changing views reflected the prevailing social norms. As recently as the 1860s, it was considered impolite to laugh in public in the United States. Even in the early 20th century, some spheres of social activity (e.g., religion, education, and politics) were considered inappropriate for humor and laughter. Today, humor and laughter are not only considered acceptable, but are actively encouraged in virtually every social setting.

Evolution of the Concept of Sense of Humor

Along with changes in the meaning of humor and attitudes toward laughter, the concept of sense of humor has also evolved over the past two centuries (Wickberg, 1998). In the 18th and early 19th centuries, British philosophers developed the notion of various aesthetic and moral senses, which were seen as refined sensitivities or abilities to discern or judge the quality of certain things. Thus, they spoke of a sense of beauty, a sense of honor, a sense of decency, moral sense, and common sense. The sense of the ridiculous was an early expression to describe sensitivity to laughable things. By the mid-19th century, however, this phase had been replaced by sense of humor.

Although it began as a purely descriptive term, the sense of humor quickly became a highly valued virtue, taking on the positive connotations that were associated with humor (as opposed to wit) during that time. By the 1870s, the sense of humor acquired the very desirable meaning that it has today. Indeed, a sense of humor came to be one of the most important characteristics a person could have and no one wanted to admit that they did not have a sense of humor.

Over the course of the 20th century, the concept of sense of humor became increasingly vague and undefined. While it always retained some notion of the ability to make others laugh or the enjoyment of amusement and laughter, it took on the added meaning of a more general set of desirable personality characteristics. What it meant to have a sense of humor came to be defined in large part by what it meant not to have one. Saying that someone lacked a sense of humor came to mean that he or she was excessively serious, fanatical, or egotistical. Indeed, the lack of a sense of humor was viewed as a defining characteristic of some forms of mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, and denoted instability and paranoia (Wickberg, 1998).

In the latter half of the 20th century, psychologists increasingly defined sense of humor as an essential ingredient of mental health. For example, Gordon Allport (1961) associated a sense of humor with self-awareness, insight, and tolerance, and viewed it as a characteristic of the mature or healthy personality. It is important to note, however, that he distinguished between this mature type of humor, which he saw as quite rare, and the less healthy sense of the comic, or laughter at absurdities, puns, and the degradation of others, which he saw as much more common. In sum, having a sense of humor became synonymous with being stable and well-adjusted, able to adapt to stress, affable, easy-going, and not prone to anger.

During the 20th century, sense of humor also took on sociopolitical connotations for propaganda purposes. In the United States, it was seen as a distinctly American virtue, associated with tolerance and democracy, in contrast to those living in dictatorships, such as the Germans under Nazism or the Russians during the Communist era, who were thought to be devoid of humor. After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, many American commentators expressed the opinion that Al Qaeda terrorists, and perhaps even all Muslims, lacked a sense of humor.

By the mid-20th century a sense of humor became a necessary characteristic in a politician, especially someone aspiring to be president. A popular way for both liberals and conservatives to disparage one another was to claim the other lacked a sense of humor. For years, a sense of humor also was viewed as a masculine characteristic. For instance, many writers commonly assumed that women generally lacked a sense of humor (Wickberg, 1998).

The positive qualities associated with the concept of sense of humor influenced popular connotations of humor and laughter more generally. By the end of the 20th century, humor and laughter were not only seen as a socially desirable personality characteristic, but as an important factor in mental and physical health. This view gained greater prominence following the publication of a book by Norman Cousins (1979), a well-known magazine editor, describing how he supposedly cured himself of a painful and debilitating disease by means of hearty laughter (along with massive doses of vitamin C). This book appeared at a time of growing disenchantment with traditional Western approaches to medicine and the rising popularity of alternative or complementary medicines.

The Psychological Approach

Psychology is often defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes (e.g., Myers, 2013). Thus, psychology is a very broad discipline that subjects all facets of the human experience to scientific inquiry, including all kinds of overt actions, speech, and social interactions, as well as less easily observed processes such as thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and the biological mechanisms underlying all of these in the brain and nervous system. As scientists, psychologists derive knowledge about people from direct, systematic, objective observation using predominantly empirical, quantitative research methods. Psychological research methods include controlled laboratory experiments in which one variable is manipulated to observe its effect on other variables, as well as correlational approaches in which variables are operationally defined and quantified, and their association across individuals is assessed.

Psychologists engage in both basic and applied research. The goal of basic research is to make new discoveries about people, to contribute new knowledge to our understanding of behavior and mental processes. In contrast, the goal of applied research is to solve specific, practical problems by conducting research in real-world settings or applying findings derived from basic research to real-world situations.

The centrality of humor to the human experience makes the study of humor applicable to disciplines of psychology that emphasize basic research as well as those that have a more applied focus (R. A. Martin, 2000). Basic researchers in the area of cognitive psychology may be interested in the mental processes involved in the perception, comprehension, appreciation, and creation of humor. The functions of humor in interpersonal relationships and in broader social contexts are topics that interest social psychologists. Developmental psychologists may focus on the way humor and laughter develop from infancy into childhood and throughout the lifespan. Personality researchers might examine individual differences in sense of humor and their relation to other traits and behaviors. Biological psychology can shed light on the physiological bases of laughter and the brain regions underlying the comprehension and appreciation of humor. Similarly, psychologists in applied disciplines such as clinical, health, educational and industrial-organizational psychology conduct and apply research to address real-world problems relating to mental health and psychotherapy, physical health, teaching and education, and workplace productivity, respectively. In sum, researchers from nearly every branch of psychology potentially could make interesting contributions to the study of humor. Indeed, a complete understanding of the psychology of humor requires an integration of findings from all these areas. Table 1.1 provides a summary of the study of humor across different disciplines of psychology.

Table 1.1

Trends in the Psychological Study of Humor

Despite the integral and obvious role that humor plays in many different areas of human experience and its relevance to all branches of psychology, psychologists have been slow to devote much research attention to humor. Nonetheless, they have produced a sizable body of research over the past 50 years. Fig. 1.3 presents the results of a PsycINFO search on the number of peer-reviewed journal articles with the words humor, humour, or laughter in their titles published by decade across the nine branches of psychology that we depicted in Table 1.1.

Figure 1.3 The number of peer-reviewed psychology journal articles with the words, humor, humour, or laughter in their titles by decade.

As you can see in Fig. 1.3, psychology has a long history of studying humor. However, psychology experienced a dramatic surge of humor research in the 1970s. Indeed, the 184 humor articles published in the 1970s represents a whopping 349% increase over the 41 from the prior decade and a 50% increase over the total number of articles on humor appearing from 1900 through 1969. The sudden interest in humor in the 1970s is reflected most strongly in the basic research disciplines of personality, developmental and social psychology. Collectively, those three disciplines accounted for half of the peer-reviewed research articles published in that decade. Most strikingly, 39 social psychology articles were published in the 1970s, an increase of 875% over the four published in the previous decade.

The growth of humor research in the 1970s was sustained throughout the 1980s; however, the emphasis shifted from social and developmental psychology to the applied research of clinical and educational psychology. Together, personality, clinical and educational psychology accounted for 62% of the humor research published in the 1980s.

Psychology experienced a second surge of humor research in the 1990s. Not coincidentally, this coincided with the formation of the International Society of Humor Studies (ISHS) founded in 1988 by English literature professors Alleen Pace Nilsen and Don Nilsen (Fig. 1.4). ISHS is a multidisciplinary organization of humor scholars that holds annual conferences and publishes a quarterly scholarly journal entitled Humor: International Journal of Humor Research (HUMOR; for more information, see the ISHS website at www.hnu.edu/ishs). Thus, as the 1990s began, psychologists and other humor scholars had a publication outlet available to them that was devoted solely to humor research. Indeed, HUMOR published 90 (33%) of the 271 psychology articles that appeared in the 1990s.

Figure 1.4 Alleen Pace Nilsen and Don Nilsen, cofounders of the International Society of Humor Studies. Source: Image courtesy of Don Nilsen.

There appears to be a third wave of humor research in the 2000s that has continued to the present time. Each of the nine disciplines depicted in Table 1.1 is responsible for this third wave; however, the greatest number of research articles from 2000 to the present appeared in personality psychology (272 articles), social psychology (133 articles), and clinical psychology (129 articles).

Jon Roeckelein (2002) noted that one of the curiosities of the psychology of humor is that, although it comprises quite a sizable research literature, it remains on the fringe of the discipline as a topic of peripheral rather than central importance. Roeckelein (2002) examined 136 introductory psychology texts published between 1885 and 1996 and found only three—all published before 1930—that made any reference to humor or humor-related topics. In preparing the 2nd edition of this book we searched the subject index of 10 introductory psychology textbooks published between 2010 and 2016. The terms humor or laughter appeared in only three. Each of the three textbooks briefly mentioned humor as it related to coping with stress and only two alluded to empirical research findings. Similarly, as Roeckelein also observed, humor appears to receive only rare and cursory mention in scholarly reference works. For instance, the recent 2016 APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, a major reference work for social psychologists spanning more than 2700 pages, included only six sentences about sense of humor and cited only six empirical studies.

We propose that psychologists tend to relegate humor to secondary importance for two reasons. First, because of its nonserious nature and association with fun and mirth, many psychologists view it as too frivolous for serious academic study. In his 2010 book, Humor: The Lighter Path to Resilience and Health, Paul McGhee concluded from personal conversation with research psychologists that most are simply interested in more serious topics. Fortunately, the idea that psychologists should concentrate only on serious topics like psychopathology and human deficits seems to be waning in recent years, as demonstrated by an increased interest in positive psychology, with its emphasis on the study of human strengths and positive emotions (Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). However, even within the field of positive psychology, humor receives relatively little attention. As McGhee (2010) noted, major books by acknowledged leaders in the field do not include the word humor in the subject index—let alone devote a chapter to it (p. xix). McGhee further noted, "Among the 64 chapters in the latest (2009) Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, none of the 131 contributors to the volume saw any basis for including humor or laughter in their discussion of the field" (p. xx).

Second, as Dixon (1980) suggested, humor is an elusive phenomenon that is difficult to study in part because it historically lacked a precise definition that lent itself to clear operational definitions. Once again, however, we propose that the complexity of humor is all the more reason for researchers to apply their efforts, skills, and ingenuity to an understanding of it. Furthermore, as we will try to demonstrate in this book, the cumulative efforts of many researchers over the past few decades have brought increasing focus to the field, generating new theories with testable hypotheses and developing practical and reliable research methods for investigating them. Thus, although it certainly continues to pose interesting challenges for researchers to tackle, humor no longer seems to be such an intractable topic of study (Box 1.1).

Box 1.1

A conversation with Dr. Rod Martin

After completing a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Waterloo