Jantje is sitting on the train, a man is sitting opposite him. The man peels a banana, puts salt and pepper on it and then throws the banana out the window. Jantje asks: “Why do you do that?” The man says: “I don’t like a banana with salt and pepper on it.” Did you not recover from this joke, or did the corners of your mouth only turn up slightly? What causes that? Does one person have more of a sense of humor than another? Not something you think about every day, but interesting enough to want to know the answers.
Humor from the past
Every now and then, programs that you found very funny years ago appear on television. When you look at it now, you might smile because of the nostalgic effect. You will no longer experience the same fun you had back then with these programs. What this boils down to is that the development of humor apparently has a relationship with age. Which doesn’t mean we’ll laugh less and less as we get older, but it does mean that humor is something that develops.
Unruliness
You just said that you are the only survivor of the ship that sank, how were you saved? That was simple, I had missed the boat.
After an exciting or unpleasant situation, people often become restless. Wry or lame jokes about horrible situations suddenly turn out to be very laughable. Often within hours of a disaster occurring somewhere, bitter and cruel jokes are being told. The reason for this is that humor apparently plays a major role in processing emotions.
Aspects that play a role in humor
To begin with, there must be a reason for someone to activate their laughing muscles. This is called the stimulus of humor. This reason can be a joke, but tickling someone can also stimulate the laughing muscles. All kinds of psychological processes also take place. A person must receive the stimulus, register it, and then find the comedic aspects funny. There are also special aspects, such as people who only have to step into something to make others laugh. There are also people who only have to look at each other and the giggles can no longer be stopped. The last aspect, the most important for psychologists, is the aspect of mental health. For this aspect, the reason why we laugh is not important, as long as there is laughter.
What is humor?
It’s green and it’s falling off the mountain? ………… A lettuce!
The word humor comes from Latin and means fluid or bodily fluid. In the Middle Ages it was thought that people had four humors that had to be in balance with each other. It was based on the idea that if these bodily fluids were in balance, the person was in balance, which led to a good mood (a good humor). When these juices were not in balance, it led to illness. Two thousand years ago, humor was already spoken of to refer to a certain mood. When someone’s juices were out of balance, this person was called humorous. Laughter was seen as a remedy to restore the balance of the body’s fluids.
Humour
The word humor has two meanings. Firstly it refers to the mood, i.e. the mood of someone and secondly to the mental appreciation, such as what do I think of the situation. Having a good sense of humor means perceiving a certain situation as humorous. The stimulus for the laughing muscles can therefore be found in the person himself and not in the situation. Humor is not an emotion, but it influences the emotion and humor is also not a behavior, but influences the behavior, such as smiling, laughing and all the contractions that can come with it. Here we have read everything that humor is not! But what exactly is humor?
Humor and its essence
People laugh for all kinds of reasons, not just jokes. Sometimes we laugh because of situations that play out in our minds, we call that a chuckle. We laugh through all kinds of events and situations. A stimulus can be anything, including a joke. The hallmark of a joke is its contradiction, in technical terms called incongruity. Incongruence refers to things that are not logical, to things that contradict the knowledge we have and what we expect. That is, anything weird, inappropriate, exaggerated, or inconsistent leads to incongruence.
It’s yellow on top, blue on the bottom and it’s on a bicycle. ………….. A banana wearing jeans.
This is a good example of an incongruous joke. The content of this joke does not fit at all with the expectations and existing knowledge we have about reality. A banana never sits on a bicycle and certainly doesn’t wear jeans. The essence of the humor present in a stimulus is therefore this incongruity. There is therefore always a comparison between the stimulus and what we expect based on our knowledge and experience. When this comparison produces a contradiction, there is incongruence and a stimulus can evoke humor (a humorous stimulus).
De stimulus in context
Now it is true that ambiguity, unpredictability and uncertainty are not exactly things we prefer. Most of the time, we like it when things go as we expect, so that we can get ahead of ourselves and maintain some sense of control over our lives. We actually like it when things are congruent, not contradictory. In general, however, we appreciate humor and find laughter very pleasant. How can this actually be explained, this contradiction in humans? Understanding the foregoing shows that incongruity, in addition to humor, can also lead to fear and uncertainty. When is incongruity experienced as humorous and when as threatening?
Imagine this question: What is purple, sparks and hums…and…why does it hum?
There is absolutely no need to worry if you don’t know the answer. What normal person would think of an electrically charged grape humming because it has lost its lines. Now that this question has been asked here, in this article, it will not cause tension in anyone. You saw a joke coming in advance (humorous incongruity) and this question did not raise any uncertainty. Now imagine the same question, but on an exam. Naturally, no questions will be asked on an exam that contradict knowledge and experience. It just indicates that the context in which one experiences incongruence determines how one responds to it. When someone walks with a limp, people will not laugh about it, but when the limp is re-enacted by a clown, they will. The context therefore determines whether a stimulus is humorous or serious.
Humor and its functions
You’ve probably met someone who is always smiling, whether appropriate or inappropriate. Or someone who is always serious and rarely laughs. Both types of people will not always behave appropriately in a given situation. There are situations where there is nothing to laugh about and sometimes there are. It turns out that a good mood and a humorous outlook on life is good for mental health. A person who has a humorous view of life is often more appreciated than someone who is pessimistic by nature. A person who feels socially valued will have more self-confidence and a positive self-image, so humor can positively contribute to self-image.
Discharge and control functions of humor
Aggressive and sexually explicit jokes and offensive language that we often encounter on toilet doors appear to regulate underlying impulses and energy. It is assumed that sexual and aggressive impulses have a socially accepted outlet through jokes and jokes. The suppressed energy is captured in words and then expressed through laughter. That is better than hitting or approaching another unwanted sexually, instead we laugh off the impulses or shyness. Humor therefore appears to be able to regulate socially unacceptable tendencies. Then there is the gallows humor, we often don’t want to laugh at these kinds of jokes, but that happens automatically anyway. This type of humor, which often surfaces when a disaster has just occurred, has the function of satisfying the need to control. Laughing at these types of jokes helps one deal with these types of emotions and regains a certain degree of control. Although gallows humor is usually not really fun and we often feel ashamed when we have to laugh at it, it is still better to laugh about it when it serves the management function.