1

Laughter

by Don L. F. Nilsen

and Alleen Pace Nilsen

Laughter

2

3

Modern Man

• Modern man in contrast to primitive man has been called:

• Homo Erectus (upright man)

• Homo Sapiens (thinking man)

• Homo Ridens (laughing man)

4

The Id, the Super Ego, and

Tendentious Jokes

• “The Id is a pool for desires and drives.

• As society and parental influence (represented in the super ego) do not allow the direct expression of sexual and hostile impulses, gratification can only be achieved in an indirect way.

• There, individuals repressing their sexuality or aggression should show a preference for sexual and aggressive jokes.” (Ruch [2008] 29)

5

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. (Ruch [2008] 32)

6

States

• Playful Mood– Cheerful mood

– Hilarious mood

• Serious Mood– Earnestness

– Pensiveness

– Soberness

• Bad Mood– Sadness

– Melancholy

– Ill-Humor (Adapted from Ruch [2008] 34)

7

Moods (States)

• “While an ill-humored person, like the serious one, may not want to be involved in humor, the person in a sad mood may not be able to do so even if he or she would like to.”

• “Also, while the sad person is not antagonistic to a cheerful group, the ill-humored one may be.”

• “Bad mood might also be a disposition facilitating certain forms of humor, such as mockery, irony, cynicism, and sarcasm.” (Ruch [2008] 34)

8

Types of Humor

• “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 a person allows himself to be the butt of other people’s jokes.

• (Ruch [2008] 38-39)

9

Smiles

• Willibald Ruch indicates that anatomically there are about 20

types of smiles, controlled by five facial muscles:

– Zygomatic Major

– Zygomatic Minor

– Levator Anguli Oris

– Buccinator

– Risorius (Ruch [2008] 21)

10

Enjoyment Smiles

• “When individuals genuinely enjoy humor they show the facial configuration named the Duchenne display, which refers to the joint contraction of the zygomatic major and the orbicularis oculi muscles (pulling the lip corners backwards and upwards and raising the cheeks) causing eye wrinkles, respectively.”

• (Ruch [2008] 21)

11

Non-Enjoyment Smiles

• “Smiles not following these definitions are unlikely to reflect genuine enjoyment of humor.”

• “There may be smiling involved in blends of emotions (e.g., when enjoying a disgusting or frightening film), smiles masking negative emotions (e.g., pretending enjoyment when actually sadness or anger is felt), miserable, flirting, sadistic, embarrassment, compliance, coordination, contempt, and phony etc. smiles.”

• (Ruch [2008] 22)

12

Humor StylesCraik, Lampert, Nelson, & Ware

Socially Warm

Reflective

Competent

Earthy

Benign

Vs. Socially Cold

Vs. Boorish

Vs. Inept

Vs. Repressed

Vs. Mean-Spirited

(Ruch [2008] 41-

42)

13

Laughter

• “Most laughter is not a response to jokes or other formal attempts at humor” (Provine [2001] 42).

• Laughter may be caused by all sorts of non-humorous stimuli (tickling, laughing gas, embarrassment) and can be triggered by imitation (watching other people laugh) (Attardo [2007] 117)

14

• Giles and Oxford (1970) list seven causes of

laughter: humorous, social, ignorance,

anxiety, derision, apologetic, and tickling.

• Olbrechts-Tyteca (1974) point out that

“laughter largely exceeds humor.”

• Jodi Eisterhold (2006) discussed the

“principle of least disruption,” which

“enjoins speakers to return to a serious

mode as soon as possible.”

15

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.

16

Laughter is an Invitation

• “To laugh, or to occasion laughter through humor and wit, is to invite those present to come closer.”

• “Laughter and humor are indeed like an invitation, be it an invitation for dinner, or an invitation to start a conversation: it aims at decreasing social distance.”

• (Coser 172)

• (Kuipers (2008): 366)

17

• Laughter is a social

phenomenon. That’s why

“getting the giggles” never

happens when we are alone.

• In contrast, people often smile

when they are reading or even

when they are having private

thoughts.

18

• Smiling is not contagious, but

laughter is contagious.

• That’s why radio and television

comedy performances often have

a laugh track.

19

PHILOSOPHERS’ STATEMENTS

ABOUT LAUGHTER

• Throughout time, philosophers have made many statements about laughter that are not true of smiling.

• These philosophers include Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, William Hazlitt, Arthur Schopenhauer, Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.

• Each of these philosophers defined laughter in a different way:

20

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)

21

IMMANUEL KANT

• “Laughter is an affection

arising from a strained

expectation being suddenly

reduced to nothing.”

• (The Critique of Judgment,

1790)

22

WILLIAM HAZLITT

• “The essence of the laughable is

the incongruous, the

disconnecting one idea from

another, or the jostling of one

feeling against another.”

• (Lecturers on the Comic Writers,

Etc. of Great Britain, 1819)

23

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)

24

HENRI BERGSON

• “Something mechanical

encrusted on the living

causes laughter.”

• (Laughter 1900)

25

SIGMUND FREUD

• Laughter arises from “the release of

previously existing static energy.”

• (Jokes and Their Relation to the

Unconscious, 1905)

26

THE PARADOXES OF LAUGHTER

• Although laughter is usually associated

with mirth and joy, perpetrators of

violent acts have also been known to

exhibit menacing smiles, or to laugh

demonically.

• The paradoxes of laughter have been

addressed by many laughter scholars:

27

JAMES AGEE

• James Agee classified the laughter of screen comedians into four categories: the titter, the yowl, the belly laugh, and the buffo.

• “which he organized into six categories ranging from the incipient or ‘inner and inaudible’ laugh (the simper and smirk) to the loud and unrestrained howl, yowl, shriek, and Olympian laugh.”

28

GARY ALAN FINE

• Gary Alan Fine has explained that a

smile in one society may portray

friendliness, in another

embarrassment, while in still another it

may be a warning of hostilities and

attack if tension is not reduced.

29

JACOB LEVINE

• “No pattern of human behavior is so full of paradoxes.”

• “We may laugh in sympathy, from anxiety or relief, from anger or affection, and from joy or frustration.”

• “Conditions that can evoke laughter include shyness, triumph, surprise, tickling, a funny story, an incongruous situation, a sense of well-being associated with good health, and a desire to conceal one’s inner thoughts.”

30

D. G. KEHL CITING JAMES THURBER

• There are a dozen different kinds of

laughter, from the inner and inaudible

to the guffaw, taking in such variants

as the laughter of shock,

embarrassment, the “she-laughed-so-I-

Iaughed-too,” and even the “he-

laughed-so-I-didn’t” laugh.

31

Del Kehl went on to divide laughter

into ascending degrees of intensity:

• There is the simper or smirk, the snicker or snigger, the titter, the giggle, the chuckle, the simple laugh, the cackle, the cachinnation, the chortle, the belly laugh, the horse laugh, the Olympian or Homeric laugh, the guffaw, the boff or boffo, the crack up, the roar, the yowl or howl, the bellow, the hoot, and the shriek.

32

TICKLING

• People who laugh from being tickled are

not necessarily put in a more receptive

mood for enjoying the humor in jokes.

• This is because laughing from being

tickled occurs in a part of the brain

different from where laughter that is

intellectually stimulated occurs.

33

• Furthermore, people

cannot tickle themselves

because the cerebelum in

the lower back of the

brain somehow sends an

interfering message to the

part of the brain that

controls laughter.

34

FINAL CONTRAST OF

HUMOR 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.

35

PARADOXICAL CONCLUSION

• Anthony Chapman concluded not only 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.

• That’s why humor and laughter are so closely associated.

36

LAUGHTER WEB SITESColor-Changing Card Trick:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asxUtX8Hyd4&feature=related

The Happiness Machine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=lqT_dPApj9U

Selective Attention Test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo