by Scott Weems
I hope that you’ve received from this book an appreciation of our complex, modular minds. I also hope you agree that by thinking more deeply about humor we gain a better understanding of how our minds work. Before reading this book you probably knew that surprise is a big part of why jokes are funny. But I doubt you gave much thought to why being surprised by a punch line makes us laugh but being surprised by an intruder doesn’t. You probably didn’t know that the same chemical responsible for giving drug users a high after snorting cocaine helps us appreciate cartoons and one-liners. Or that simply watching a funny movie lowers stress, improves our immune system response, and even makes us smarter and better problem solvers.
So, the next time you hear a joke that isn’t particularly funny, please laugh anyway, knowing that everybody benefits. Not only will you enjoy a happier, healthier life, but others will likely laugh along with you. And it’s hard to be in a bad mood while you’re laughing.
Oh, and that last joke about the two hunters in the woods, the one I told as part of my comedy routine—it actually got a lot of laughs, more than any other part of my performance. Perhaps it’s because I practiced it dozens, maybe hundreds of times. Or maybe it really is the funniest joke in the world. I doubt it, but I recommend practicing it yourself anyway. It never hurts to have a joke or two in your back pocket, in case the occasion ever presents itself.
That’s not science, but I stand by the recommendation anyway.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Dan and Mary Weems, thank you for teaching me that nothing else is important if you can’t laugh.
Thank you to Laura for the constant good humor over twenty years of marriage, especially the last couple in which humor became more than just an outlook. Guess what? Chicken butt!
Special appreciation goes to my friends who attended my comedy performance described in the book’s conclusion: Jette Findsen, Brian Goddard, Dave and Roxy Holyoke, Andrew Oliver, and Charlotte Stewart. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad you got to see the massacre, but at least you know I tried. Thanks also to Magooby’s Joke House in Baltimore for not recording the evening.
Thank you to all the scientists who provided interviews and other useful thoughts regarding the book: Salvatore Attardo, Margaret Boden, Jeffrey Burgdorf, Seana Coulson, and Christie Davies. Also thanks to Jenna, who shared her personal stories of gelastic epilepsy. I am especially indebted to Eran Zaidel and James Reggia, who taught me that education, like humor, should continue throughout a lifetime.
Thanks to my agent Ethan Bassoff, who shepherded me through a foreign world, and to the folks at Basic Books for making it all possible.
Much appreciation to Steven Cramer, Leah Hager Cohen, Chris Lynch, and everybody else at Lesley University. You rock.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
On the frequency of laughter, see Rod Martin and Nicholas Kuiper, “Daily Occurrence of Laughter: Relationships with Age, Gender, and Type A Personality,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 12, no. 4 (1999): 355–384; also Dan Brown and Jennings Bryant, “Humor in the Mass Media,” in Handbook of Humor Research, Volume II: Applied Studies, eds. Paul McGhee and Jeffrey Goldstein (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983): 143–172.
On humor and intelligence, see Daniel Howrigan and Kevin MacDonald, “Humor as a Mental Fitness Indicator,” Evolutionary Psychology 6, no. 4 (2008): 652–666.
On the humor of Albert Camus, see Anne Greenfeld, “Laughter in Camus’ The Stranger, The Fall, and The Renegade,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 6, no. 4 (1993): 403–414.
On the origins of “Humorology,” see Mahadev Apte, “Disciplinary Boundaries in Humorology: An Anthropologist’s Ruminations,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 1, no. 1 (1988): 5–25.
CHAPTER 1: COCAINE, CHOCOLATE, AND MR. BEAN
Kagera
On the laughing epidemic in Kagera, see A. Rankin and P. Phillip, “An Epidemic of Laughing in the Bukoba District of Tanganyika,” Central African Journal of Medicine 9 (1963): 167–170; also Christian Hempelmann, “The Laughter of the 1962 Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 20, no. 1 (2007): 49–71.
What Is Humor?
For the interview with Conchesta, as well as an informative review of laughter in general, I recommend RadioLab’s excellent podcast titled “Laughter.”
On chimpanzee laughter, see Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes (New York: Harper & Row, 1982).
On dog laughter, see Patricia Simonet, Donna Versteeg, and Dan Storie, “Dog-Laughter: Recorded Playback Reduces Stress-Related Behavior in Shelter Dogs,” in Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Environmental Enrichment (New York, 2005).
The Elusive Concept of Mirth
On the Mirth Response Test, see Jacob Levine and Robert Abelson, “Humor as a Disturbing Stimulus,” in Motivation in Humor, ed. Jacob Levine (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1969), pp. 38–48.
On humorous cartoons and the dopamine reward circuit, see Dean Mobbs, Michael Greicius, Eiman Abdel-Azim, Vinod Menon, and Allan Reiss, “Humor Modulates the Mesolimbic Reward Centers,” Neuron 40 (2003): 1041–1048.
On musical chills, see Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre, “Intensely Pleasurable Responses to Music Correlate with Activity in Brain Regions Implicated in Reward and Emotion,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98, no. 20 (2001): 11818–11823.
On Mr. Bean and dopamine rewards, see Masao Iwase, Yasuomi Ouchi, Hiroyuki Okada, Chihiro Yokoyama, Shuji Nobezawa, Etsuji Yoshikawa, Hideo Tsukada, Masaki Takeda, Ko Yamashita, Masatoshi Takeda, Kouzi Yamaguti, Hirohiko Kuratsune, Akira Shimizu, and Yasuyoshi Watanabe, “Neural Substrates of Human Facial Expression of Pleasant Emotion Induced by Comic Films: A PET Study,” NeuroImage 17 (2002): 758–768.
On rat vocalizations, see Jeffrey Burgdorf, Paul Wood, Roger Kroes, Joseph Moskal, and Jaak Panksepp, “Neurobiology of 50-kHz Ultrasonic Vocalizations in Rats: Electrode Mapping, Lesion, and Pharmacology Studies,” Behavioral Brain Research 182 (2007): 274–283; also Jaak Panksepp and Jeff Burgdorf, “Laughing Rats and the Evolutionary Antecedents of Human Joy?” Physiology and Behavior 79 (2003): 533–547; also Jaak Panksepp and Jeffrey Burgdorf, “Laughing Rats? Playful Tickling Arouses High-Frequency Ultrasonic Chirping in Young Rodents,” in Toward a Science of Consciousness III: The Third Tucson Discussions and Debates, eds. Stuart Hameroff, Alfred Kaszniak, and David Chalmers (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999).
The Funniest Joke in the World
On the LaughLab experiment, see Richard Wiseman’s Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things (New York: Basic Books, 2008).
CHAPTER 2: THE KICK OF THE DISCOVERY
On explanation as a major drive, see Alison Gopnik, “Explanation as Orgasm,” Minds and Machines 8 (1998): 101–118.
On word triads and positive facial reactions, see Sascha Topolinski, Katja Likowski, Peter Weyers, and Fritz Strack, “The Face of Fluency: Semantic Coherence Automatically Elicits a Specific Pattern of Facial Muscle Reactions,” Cognition and Emotion 23, no. 2 (2009): 260–271.
On insight and positive mood, see Karuna Subramaniam, John Kounios, Todd Parrish, and Mark Jung-Beeman, “A Brain Mechanism for Facilitation of Insight by Positive Affect,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 21, no. 3 (2008): 415–432. For more on semantic associates, see Edward Bowden and Mark Jung-Beeman, “Normative Data for 144 Compound Remote Associate Problems,” Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 35, no. 4 (2003): 634–639.
Constructing and the Anterior Cingulate
On emotion and the Stroop task, see Julius Kuhl and Miguel Kazén, “Volitional Facilitation of Difficult Intentions: Joint Activation of Intention Memory and Positive Affect Removes Stroop Interference,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 128, no. 3 (1999): 382–399.
On weight judging and laughter, see Göran Nerhardt, “Humor and Inclination to Laugh: Emotional Reactions to Stimuli of Differen
t Divergence from a Range of Expectancy,” Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 11 (1970): 185–195; also Lambert Deckers, “On the Validity of a Weight-Judging Paradigm for the Study of Humor,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 6, no. 1 (1993): 43–56.
Reckoning in a Confusing World
On confidence and insight tasks, see Janet Metcalfe, “Premonitions of Insight Predict Impending Error,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 12, no. 4 (1986): 623–634.
On surprise and pleasure, see Craig Smith and Phoebe Ellsworth, “Patterns of Cognitive Appraisal in Emotion,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48, no. 4 (1985): 813–838.
On the pleasantness of surprise in music and architecture, see Rudolf Arnheim, The Dynamics of Architectural Form (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977).
On brain activation during cartoon viewing, see Karli Watson, Benjamin Matthews, and John Allman, “Brain Activation During Sight Gags and Language-Dependent Humor,” Cerebral Cortex 17 (2007): 314–324.
Resolving with Scripts
On scripts, see Salvatore Attardo, Christian Hempelmann, and Sara Di Maio, “Script Oppositions and Logical Mechanisms: Modeling Incongruities and Their Resolutions,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 15, no. 1 (2002): 3–46.
On the General Theory of Verbal Humor, see Salvatore Attardo and Victor Raskin, “Script Theory Revisited: Joke Similarity and Joke Representation Model,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 4, no. 3/4 (1991): 293–347.
On background incongruities in jokes, see Andrea Samson and Christian Hempelmann, “Humor with Background Incongruity: Does More Required Suspension of Disbelief Affect Humor Perception?” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 24, no. 2 (2011): 167–185.
On EEG responses to jokes and punch lines, see Peter Derks, Lynn Gillikin, Debbie Bartolome-Rull, and Edward Bogart, “Laughter and Electroencephalographic Activity,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 10, no. 3 (1997): 285–300.
Beyond the Stages
On ambiguity in headlines, see Chiara Bucaria, “Lexical and Syntactic Ambiguity as a Source of Humor: The Case of Newspaper Headlines,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 17, no. 3 (2004): 279–309.
On political orientation and the anterior cingulate, see Ryota Kanai, Tom Feilden, Colin Firth, and Geraint Rees, “Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults,” Current Biology 21 (2011): 677–680.
On brain activity and religious belief, see Michael Inzlicht and Alexa Tullett, “Reflecting on God: Religious Primes Can Reduce Neuro-physiological Response to Errors,” Psychological Science 21, no. 8 (2010): 1184–1190; also, interesting background in James Austin, Zen and the Brain (New York: MIT Press, 1998).
CHAPTER 3: STOPOVER AT THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
Humor Gets a Bad Rap
On humor and the Bible, see John Morreall, “Comic Vices and Comic Virtues,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 23, no. 1 (2010): 1–26; also John Morreall, “Philosophy and Religion,” in The Primer of Humor Research, ed. Victor Raskin (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009), pp. 211–228; also Jon Roeckelein, The Psychology of Humor: A Reference Guide and Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002).
On joke latencies following disasters, see Bill Ellis, “A Model for Collecting and Interpreting World Trade Center Disaster Jokes,” New Directions in Folklore 5 (2001): 1–9.
On insult humor, see Christie Davies’s “Undertaking the Comparative Study of Humor,” in The Primer of Humor Research, ed. Victor Raskin (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009), pp. 162–175; also Christie Davies, Ethnic Humor Around the World: A Comparative Analysis (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990); also Mirth of Nations (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2002). The quotations in the text are from personal interviews.
On jokes about the handicapped, see Herbert Lefcourt and Rod Martin, Humor and Life Stress: Antidote to Adversity (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986).
On humor and the recovery process, see Dacher Keltner and George Bonanno, “A Study of Laughter and Dissociation: Distinct Correlates of Laughter and Smiling During Bereavement,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, no. 4 (1997): 687–702; also Charles Carver, Christina Pozo, Suzanne Harris, Victoria Noriega, Michael Scheier, David Robinson, Alfred Ketcham, Frederick Moffat, and Kimberly Clark, “How Coping Mediates the Effect of Optimism on Distress: A Study of Women with Early Stage Breast Cancer,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65, no. 2 (1993): 375–390.
On the role of cruelty in humor, see Thomas Herzog and Beverly Bush, “The Prediction of Preference for Sick Humor,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 7, no. 4 (1994): 323–340; also Thomas Herzog and Joseph Karafa, “Preferences for Sick Versus Nonsick Humor,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 11, no. 3 (1998): 291–312; also Thomas Herzog and Maegan Anderson, “Joke Cruelty, Emotional Responsiveness, and Joke Appreciation,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 13, no. 3 (2000): 333–351.
On humor in the media following disasters, see Giselinde Kuipers, “Where Was King Kong When We Needed Him? Public Discourse, Digital Disaster Jokes, and the Functions of Laughter after 9/11,” Journal of American Culture 28, no. 1 (2005): 70–84.
Scary Movies and Relief
On emotional experience during horror movies, see Eduardo Andrade and Joel Cohen, “On the Consumption of Negative Feelings,” Journal of Consumer Research 34 (2007): 283–300.
On Great Humor, see Hans Vejleskov, “A Distinction Between Small Humor and Great Humor and Its Relevance to the Study of Children’s Humor,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 14, no. 4 (2001): 323–338.
On prisoner-of-war humor, including the story of Gerald Santo Venanzi, see Linda Henman, “Humor as a Coping Mechanism: Lessons from POWs,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 14, no. 1 (2001): 83–94.
Jokes with a Target
For a general overview on spindle cells, see John Allman, Atiya Hakeem, and Karli Watson, “The Phylogenetic Specializations in the Human Brain,” The Neuroscientist 8, no. 4 (2002): 335–346; also Karli Watson, T. K. Jones, and John Allman, “Dendritic Architecture of the Von Economo Neurons,” Neuroscience 141 (2006): 1107–1112.
On the Emotional Stroop task, see John Allman, Atiya Hakeem, Joseph Erwin, Esther Nimchinsky, and Patrick Hof, “The Anterior Cingulate: The Evolution of an Interface Between Emotion and Cognition,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 935 (2001): 107–117.
On David Levy jokes, see Hagar Salamon, “The Ambivalence over the Levantinization of Israel: David Levi Jokes,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 20, no. 4 (2007): 415–442.
On elephant jokes and latent racism, see Roger Abrahams and Alan Dundes, “On Elephantasy and Elephanticide,” Psychoanalysis Review 56 (1969): 225–241.
On lawyer jokes, see Christie Davies, “American Jokes About Lawyers,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21, no. 4 (2008): 369–386; also Marc Galanter, “The Great American Lawyer Joke Explosion,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21, no. 4 (2008): 387–413.
On the Dyak tribes of Borneo, see V. I. Zelvys, “Obscene Humor: What the Hell?” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 3, no. 3 (1990): 323–332.
CHAPTER 4: SPECIALIZATION IS FOR INSECTS
A.K.
On patient A.K., see Itzhak Fried, Charles Wilson, Katherine MacDonald, and Eric Behnke, “Electric Current Stimulates Laughter,” Nature 391 (1998): 650.
On gelastic epilepsy, see R. Garg, S. Misra, and R. Verma, “Pathological Laughter as Heralding Manifestation of Left Middle Cerebral Artery Territory Infarct: Case Report and Review of the Literature,” Neurology India 48 (2000): 388–390; also Mario Mendez, Tomoko Nakawatase, and Charles Brown, “Involuntary Laughter and Inappropriate Hilarity,” Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 11, no. 2 (1999): 253–258.
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p; States and Traits
On Peter Derks’s humor formula, see Antony Chapman and Hugh Foot, Humor and Laughter: Theory, Research, and Applications (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996).
On humor and religiosity, see Vassilis Saroglou, “Being Religious Implies Being Different in Humour: Evidence from Self- and Peer Ratings,” Mental Health, Religion, and Culture 7 ,no. 3 (2004): 255–267.
On the personality characteristics of cartoonists, see Paul Pearson, “Personality Characteristics of Cartoonists,” Personality and Individual Differences 4, no. 2 (1983): 227–228.
On gender differences for Eysenck’s personality traits, see R. Lynn and T. Martin, “Gender Differences in Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism in 37 Nations,” Journal of Social Psychology 137, no. 3 (1997): 369–373.
On the personality characteristics of creative people, see Giles Burch, Christos Pavelis, David Hemsley, and Philip Corr, “Schizotypy and Creativity in Visual Artists,” British Journal of Psychology 97 (2006): 177–190; also Gregory Feist, “A Meta-Analysis of Personality in Scientific and Artistic Creativity,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 2, no. 4 (1998): 290–309; also Karl Gotz and Karin Gotz, “Personality Characteristics of Successful Artists,” Perceptual and Motor Skills 49 (1979): 919–924; also Cary Cooper and Geoffrey Wills, “Popular Musicians Under Pressure,” Psychology of Music 17, no. 1 (1989): 22–36.
On Willibald Ruch’s large-scale study of sense of humor and personality characteristics, see Gabrielle Köhler and Willibald Ruch, “Sources of Variance in Current Sense of Humor Inventories: How Much Substance, How Much Method Variance?” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 9, no. 3/4 (1996): 363–397.