Ha!

by Scott Weems

  A. “Fine, then you won’t be needing your golf clubs. I’ll just borrow them.”

  B. “You know the grass is greener on the other side.”

  C. “Do you think I could use it when you’re done?”

  D. “Gee, if only I had enough money, I could buy my own.”

  Clearly, A is the right answer. The other three are valid, just not funny. The second is a non-sequitur ending, meaning that it includes an element of surprise (as a good joke should) but provides no coherence. The third ending doesn’t incorporate surprise and is also straightforward. The fourth ending is just sad.

  Gardner observed that the patients with right-brain damage had great difficulty finding the correct joke ending, identifying it barely over half the time. In addition, their errors weren’t randomly distributed among the other answers but, instead, favored the non-sequitur ending. In short, the right-hemisphere-damaged patients could identify that surprise was necessary but had trouble determining what made the joke actually funny.

  From Gardner’s study we see an important aspect of right-hemisphere loss—the inability to identify the meaning of jokes. As we discovered earlier, every joke involves both spoken and unspoken communication between teller and receiver. That unspoken communication is what we need our right hemisphere for. In the example joke above, the unspoken message is that nobody wants to lend something to a neighbor who never returns things—something the right-hemisphere-damaged patients missed.

  Scientists have been studying the differences between left-hemisphere and right-hemisphere loss for over a hundred years, but only recently have we begun to recognize their implications for humor. Damage to the left hemisphere typically leads to language deficits. If a stroke takes out the posterior section of our left superior temporal gyrus, we have difficulty understanding written or spoken language. Loss of the left inferior frontal gyrus leads to deficits in language production. These are very different from the effects of damage to our right hemisphere. Damage to that side of the brain doesn’t impair our ability to speak or understand, but it does affect our ability to connect with people. In some cases, we experience a muting of emotions. In others, we have a hard time following conversations or understanding complex aspects of language such as metaphors. In still others, we lose our ability to “get” jokes.

  Humor doesn’t reside solely in the right side of our brain, but it is certainly right-hemisphere-dominant. This laterality has a big impact on social interactions because the right hemisphere also helps us recognize the intent behind communication. The main difference between a lie and an ironic joke is the recognition that the ironic statement isn’t intended to deceive. Right-hemisphere-damaged patients struggle with ironic humor because they miss this unspoken aspect of the communication. Normally, we rely on a speaker’s gesture and tone to determine if a conversation is sarcastic or ironic. Right-hemisphere-damaged patients don’t do this. They function on a literal level, often missing the subtle emotional and nonverbal cues that would otherwise suggest that the conversation is humorous. It takes both hemispheres to fully understand and appreciate a good joke, though apparently they don’t need to be connected.

  “Humor is preserved in the split-brain patient because both sides remain intact, just separate,” says Eran Zaidel, one of the first neuroscientists to study the split brain. His graduate advisor, Roger Sperry, won the Nobel Prize for discovering that each hemisphere can “think” independently. “I’ve seen them [split-brain patients] display some marvelous senses of humor too, telling jokes all day,” Zaidel continues. “But because skills like maintaining social relations are specialized for the right hemisphere, while language is lateralized to the left, that makes humor sometimes harder to spot. It becomes very important how you look for it, and how you allow it to come out. You can’t look only at the words.”

  On one occasion, Zaidel counted fourteen different kinds of jokes told by Linda and a second split-brain patient, Philip. The difference between their jokes and those of the general public, however, is that theirs are less tied to language, which resides in the left hemisphere. This is especially true of the jokes told by Linda, who seldom uses puns or other wordplay. However, she excels in social humor, especially the kind that teases—including herself. “I told my husband I’m a lot smarter than him,” she once said. “I have two brains and he only has one.”

  We often don’t appreciate how much the hemispheres work together to provide us a full cognitive experience. This has implications not just for humor but for consciousness itself. Zaidel once asked Philip a series of questions directed to his left and right hemispheres and found that the two sides of his brain had different personalities and outlooks on life. His left hemisphere experienced relatively low self-esteem while his right hemisphere saw itself rather positively. The right side also experienced greater loneliness and sadness. Another split-brain patient’s right hemisphere was particularly influenced by childhood memories of being bullied, even though his left hemisphere denied finding such experiences disturbing. And then there was the split-brain patient who, when asked if he believed in God, responded “yes” with his left hemisphere and “no” with his right.

  This division of resources in the brain has strong implications for how we think. For example, though the left does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to language, the right contributes understanding in the form of recognizing subtleties, including those in jokes. This suggests that the right hemisphere is important for coming up with insightful connections. It’s also important for poetry. When poetic language in the form of creative metaphors is shown to the right hemisphere, we’re a lot better at processing that language than when it’s shown to the left. So, perhaps the right hemisphere is like our nonliteral friend, flitting from topic to topic, helping us with poetry, jokes, and other artistic endeavors. Alone it would be lost, but when paired with the stricter and more literal left hemisphere it provides us just the balance we need to remain insightful and creative. Without either hemisphere we might be lost, but with the two combined we have a powerful ability to understand and create.

  FUNNY RELATIONSHIPS

  As a social phenomenon, humor has a direct impact on our relationships. As we’ve seen, being around laughing people increases the chance we’ll find a joke funny. But the influence works in reverse, too: enjoying a humorous attitude improves the quality of our social relationships. This reveals something important not only about humor—that it brings us closer together by providing shared experiences—but also about relationships themselves. We bond with people who share similar perspectives toward life. Humor is the best way to uncover what those perspectives are.

  We don’t need to look hard to find scientific proof that humor is important to romance. Numerous researchers have asked people what traits they most desire in a partner, and one trait is always near the top of the list: sense of humor. A 2007 study published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior found that sense of humor was the second most desired trait, behind only intelligence. Women ranked it first. For men it was number three, after intelligence and good looks.

  However, this affinity for humor hasn’t always been so strong. In a similar survey taken in 1958, humor ranked much lower among women’s preferred traits for mates, after such characteristics as “well groomed,” “ambitious,” and “makes sensible decisions about money.” In 1984 it ranked behind intelligence and sensitivity. And in 1990 it was number two—again, behind sensitivity.

  One possible reason for this shift in priorities is that women, because they’re no longer confined to a limited number of jobs, have begun to expect different things from their men. Ambition and money management abilities are important in a partner, but they become a lot less relevant when these responsibilities are shared in the partnership. A strong and ambitious man is nice, but better still to find one who is funny too! But this still doesn’t answer: What’s so special about humor?

  Before exploring that question, we need to recognize that affinity
for humor isn’t universal; it’s part of our culture. For example, humor almost never fares as well in other countries. In a survey of Siberian women, humor didn’t appear even among the top-ten most important traits in a partner. In fact, it was closer to twentieth. Perhaps this says something about women in Siberia, but I think it says more about women in the United States. In the United States, we want to have fun, to enjoy ourselves, and be entertained. This desire isn’t superficial but an important part of relationship building. In Siberia people also want to have fun, but faithfulness (#2), reliability (#4), and love for children (#9) are all more important because life in Siberia is hard. Russians are a jovial, generous people, but let there be no mistake—when food is scarce and snow and vodka are plentiful, having a spouse you can depend on to help maintain the home is invaluable.

  Perhaps humor is so important, especially to American women, because it evolved to be over time. It helps us convey our thoughts and values, two important goals for identifying compatibility, and it also helps build social bonds. From an evolutionary standpoint, these benefits raise some interesting questions. For example, could humor have evolved to predict quality of mates? Is there something special about humor that singles out funny males as especially good partners?

  Understanding how natural selection brings about any complex behavior, including humor, is difficult because it involves speculative story telling. It’s like seeing a pool table filled with moving balls and guessing the direction and velocity of the strike that got things going. Yet, it’s still useful to guess why humor became so important for our species. We’ll never know for sure why it evolved the way it did, but scientists have some good theories, and they say a lot about humor differences between the genders.

  The evolutionary argument starts with the premise that women have more at stake in procreation because they have so few opportunities to birth children. Each attempt, if successful, requires at least a dozen years of nurturing. Their opportunities also end late in middle age, meaning that a woman might not get many tries, so each one has to count. By contrast, men can father multiple children simultaneously, almost up until death, and they don’t have to stick around after their initial contribution. So while men can be less discriminating, women must be selective and use subtle lures to attract only the best of mates. Laughter is one of those lures, just as sense of humor is one of the ways males show their suitability. The argument makes at least two predictions: that women should laugh more (indeed, as we’ve seen, they laugh roughly 125 percent more than men) and that humor should play different roles for men than for women. For men, the ability to be funny and make a partner laugh should be the most important consideration. For women, it should be the ability to appreciate humor.

  Indeed, these predictions appear to be true. One study conducted by the psychologist Eric Bressler at Westfield State College in Massachusetts asked male and female subjects what was more important: having a partner who’s funny and produces quality humor, or having a partner who appreciates one’s own jokes. This question was asked as it applied to several kinds of relationships, ranging from one-night stands to long-term romances. The results were clear—in almost every relationship category, women preferred men who were funny, and men preferred women who appreciated their own humor. The sole exception was platonic friendships, the only kind for which offspring are impossible (assuming they remain platonic). For that category, men didn’t care whether they were the funny ones or not.

  Regardless of what we believe about its evolutionary history, humor keeps us healthy—both mentally and physically. It makes us more desirable by revealing either our openness to laugh or our dedication to bring out laughter in others. This may explain why people who rate high on tests of intimacy also have a good sense of humor. The same goes for trust, dependability, and kindness.

  In short, humor is key not only in mate selection but for maintaining healthy partnerships too. Relationships take work, and an excellent way to spot a mind willing to put in the effort is to look for a good sense of humor. Nine out of ten couples say that humor is an important part of their relationship. Compared to those in dysfunctional marriages, couples in strong ones also say that they value and appreciate their partner’s humor more. Indeed, studies examining long-term couples—those who have remained together for forty-five years or more—have found that laughing together is essential for marital success.

  Humor appears to be as important for establishing healthy relationships as it is for maintaining healthy bodies and minds. Just as a humorous attitude signals an engaged mind, a shared appreciation for humorous living signals a fit partnership or marriage. A good sense of humor is more than a perspective or outlook. It’s a means of sharing expectations with someone close to us.

  So, humor dances—and there’s no better way to build a solid relationship than finding somebody who dances to the same rhythm.

  8

  OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO

  Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How any of them will own up to a lack of humour?

  —FRANK MOORE COLBY

  THIS FINAL CHAPTER OPENS WITH A STORY, AND AN UNUSUAL one at that. It’s the tale of an arm-wrestling match between two CEOs, held in front of a huge audience to determine the ownership of an advertising slogan. It’s an unusual turn for a book on humor, but it shows how humor is everywhere.

  It isn’t every day that major companies settle legal disputes over an arm-wrestling match, but Stevens Aviation and Southwest Airlines aren’t your typical companies. The event in question started when Southwest began using the phrase “Just Plane Smart” in its advertising campaign. The slogan matched Southwest’s smart and irreverent personality and was a big success, except for one problem. Stevens Aviation, an aircraft maintenance firm based in South Carolina, was already using it. Actually, Stevens Aviation was using “Plane Smart,” but the two slogans were close enough that lawyers quickly became involved. Disputes like this are common and usually end with one side giving up its slogan, but Southwest’s CEO Herb Kelleher had another idea—he personally challenged Stevens’s CEO Kurt Herwald to an arm-wrestling match. Company employees would be the spectators, and all money raised by the event would go to charity. The winner of the match would keep the slogan, while the loser would explain to his board of directors why he lost the rights. It was the kind of challenge no smart businessman turns down—especially one like Herwald, who was young, athletic, and an avid body builder.

  To appreciate the audacity of the challenge, you should know that Kelleher is the opposite of a body builder. In training videos he flaunted his pudgy, nearly forty-year-old body, softened by alcohol and tobacco. Cigarette in mouth, he trained for the match by lifting bottles of Wild Turkey whiskey. It took three stewardesses to help Kelleher complete a sit-up in his videotaped preparation for the match.

  The “Malice in Dallas,” as it came to be known, was held on a sunny morning in late March 1992 at the Dallas Sportatorium, in front of hundreds of fans. Crowds chanted “Herb! Herb! Herb!” as Kelleher arrived, his gut barely covered by a poorly tied bathrobe. Kelleher’s right arm hung in a sling due to an injury he got “while saving a little girl from being hit while running across the I-35 freeway.” He also complained of suffering from a weeklong cold, as well as athlete’s foot, but this didn’t stop him from lunging at Herwald as he entered the ring. Officials had to restrain both CEOs.

  “We don’t need no stinkin’ lawyers, we’re going to do this like real men. In the ring,” called the announcer. The fight was on.

  In a business world where publicity can be a company’s biggest asset, the event was already gold. Hundreds of people had come to watch the event, and so had dozens of television stations, including CNN and the BBC. Making sure to put on a show, Kelleher started by presenting a substitution order from the supreme court of Texas. In his place would be Texas professional arm-wrestling champion J. R. Jones. Herwald objected, but officials ignored his complaints—and Southwest wo
n the first of three matches. At this point, Herwald announced, “If they can bring in a ringer, I can bring in a ringer,” and brought out his own substitute. But instead of calling upon a professional, Herwald introduced “Killer” Annette Coats, a tiny Stevens Aviation customer representative who weighed maybe half as much as Kelleher. Still, she won the second match handily.

  By this time the event had turned into mayhem. Herwald ended up beating Kelleher in the third and final match, but not surprisingly Kelleher protested and things started to get strange. For reasons not entirely clear, a professional wrestler jumped into the ring and began choking Kelleher, and as Kelleher fell to the ground Herwald returned to the ring to defend him from the muscle-bound man in tights. A brief scuffle ensued, and in the end Kelleher and Herwald chased away the spandexed intruder, finally ending the dispute with a shake of the hands.

  “Just to show there’s no hard feelings, or to be accused of taking advantage of senior citizens,” Herwald announced as things settled down. “We’ve decided to allow Southwest Airlines to continue the use of our slogan. Our slogan. In exchange for a $5,000 contribution to the Ronald McDonald house, which needs the money more than Southwest Airlines does.”

  The event was indeed a publicity coup. It made Southwest and Stevens appear hip and funny and established Kelleher and Herwald as confident managers, willing to play the fool for the sake of their companies. When Kelleher was interviewed after the event—while sitting on an ambulance stretcher, of course—he was asked how much Southwest would normally have paid for such advertising exposure. “Why, I never even thought about it in those terms,” he replied tongue-in-cheek. The president of the United States wrote Kelleher two days later to congratulate him on the brilliant idea. BusinessWeek and the Chicago Tribune wrote that Kelleher and Herwald’s willingness to set aside stuffy business images to provide entertainment was one of the things that made Southwest so special. In fact, it was the only airline to make a profit in every one of its thirty-one years.