What makes a joke funny? Part 2 (SciU blog)
Note: I had written this blog for SciU which is a science communication platform run by students at IU Bloomington, USA. It can be found at https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/2023/03/11/what-makes-a-joke-funny-part-2/ Following is taken verbatim from my blog at SciU.
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Making others laugh is a tough job, but surely there are a few who have mastered it. So, what is the secret of their success? Is there a formula or a trick to being funny? This blog post tries to answer this question by discussing what psychologists and cognitive scientists (who take humor very seriously :p) have found out.
In part 1 of “What makes a joke funny?”, I discussed the superiority and relief theories of humor. These are called ‘motivation-based’ theories because their explanation of humor relies on the audience’s motivation to find humor in something. However, these theories are insufficient because they do not explain why people don’t find humor in everything that makes them feel superior or relieve their repressed emotions or why they find humor in content that does not possess the above qualities. Additionally, these theories do not specify anything about the joke’s content and structure, that would qualify one material as funnier than the other, despite the materials similarly satisfying the requirements of the above theories.
Incongruity
This brings us to Arthur Koesther’s 1964 incongruity theory, in which he proposes that the structure of the joke is assumed to have a setup and a punchline. According to this theory, the content of the joke must lead the audience to sense some disparity or incongruity between the setup and the punchline. In other words, the punchline should be different from what you would predict it to be from the setup. The incongruity theory proposes that it is this “bissociation,” that is the perception of two contradictory meanings, that leads one to perceive the joke as funny.
An example of this (taken from Suls, 1972) is:
O’Riley was on trial for armed robbery. The jury came out and announced, “Not guilty”.
“Wonderful”, said O’Riley, “does that mean I can keep the money?”
Here, the setup establishes O’Riley to be innocent, but the punchline suggests that O’Riley is guilty. According to incongruity theory, this incongruity between the setup and the punchline makes the joke funny.
One example from the comedy set of a comedian I follow, Alingon Mitra, also demonstrates this –
“..I started reading positive quotes on Instagram; I just read one the other day, which said, Shoot for the moon, even if you fail, you land among the stars; … which is a beautiful, uplifting quote,
if you don’t know science.”
(Because stars are farther away from earth than the moon).
This is an example of incongruity being deployed to induce humor because the setup leads you to interpret the quote through a philosophical lens, but the punchline asks you to change the lens to a scientific one, upon which the quote stops making sense. So, the two contradictory interpretations of the quote presumably make the joke funny. Another up-and-coming comedian, Shreeja Chaturvedi, also uses this technique in her jokes.
Incongruity and resolution
An extension of the incongruity theory by Jerry Suls in 1972 suggests that it is not the perception of incongruity but the resolution of incongruity, that is, ‘getting the joke’, that makes the joke funny. In other words, the setup and the punchline should lead to a perception of incongruity first, but the setup must also be vague enough to allow a reinterpretation when the incongruity is resolved. This resolution of incongruity is necessary for the joke to be perceived as funny. This theory is called incongruity resolution theory.
One joke (Original: Hindi; translated to English) from the comedy set of another comedian that I follow, Abhishek Upmanyu, demonstrates this –
“I recently went to watch a movie in one of those old single screen movie theaters. They are great because you don’t need to buy any popcorn over there,
you just find it in your seat.”
The setup gives you the impression that the theater provides popcorn without charge and the comedian is praising it, while the punchline contradicts that by providing you the information that the theater is not well-maintained, leading to an incongruity. But incongruity is resolved when you reinterpret not having to buy the popcorn as a negative, that is, it has already been left on the seat by a previous moviegoer.
Incongruity and/or resolution?
But then, what exactly makes the joke funny? Is it the incongruity, the resolution, or both? In a behavioral study in 1974, Thomas Shultz and Frances Horibe tried to address this question. They had three versions of a joke, as shown in the image below, and showed them to children of grades 1-4. They collected their responses in terms of rating the mirth displayed on their faces. They found that the mirth due to the original joke, which had both incongruity and resolution, was the highest, followed by joke v2, which only had incongruity (but no resolution), and then joke v3 which only had resolution (but no incongruity). This study supports the idea that, in a joke that contains both incongruity and resolution, both these aspects play a role in the perceived funniness of the joke.
Benign violation
However, incongruity theories are still not specific enough to differentiate between humorous and non-humorous material. This brings us to Warren and McGraw’s 2015 “benign violation theory,” a more general theory of humor. This theory suggests that a joke will be funny if it satisfies two conditions. 1) The joke violates some norm, that is, it violates the audience’s view of how things should be. 2) The violation is perceived as benign by the audience. If a joke violates a norm but the violation is not perceived as benign or harmless, then the joke will not be perceived as funny.
According to this theory, the joke should violate a norm, but the violation should be within a small window, not too small as not to be considered a violation, and not too big to be considered non-benign/unacceptable. The ‘norm’ here is broadly defined and could be anything – social, moral, ethical, or linguistic. For example, the O’Riley joke above violates the norm of self-preservation, which is considered benign because O’Riley is assumed to be a hypothetical person. The other norm that gets violated is that the justice system correctly delivers justice, and the violation of this belief happens when the jury declares him ‘not guilty’ before O’Riley reveals that he is guilty.
Further, in Alingon Mitra’s joke, the violation is scientific but benign because the audience assumes that it does not cause any real consequences. Abhishek Upamanyu’s joke violates cleanliness and hygiene norms as people do not expect anyone to eat popcorn dropped on the seats, nor do they expect theaters to be unclean. But again, it is a benign violation.
Can you think of a version of this joke where the violation is not benign? I would guess that, if the setting is changed to a hospital and the popcorn is replaced with medicine – the violation will be considered severe, and the joke will cease to be funny.
All the jokes and examples discussed in part 1 can similarly be cast as benign violations.
This theory is different from incongruity theories because an incongruity comprises both pleasant incongruities and unpleasant incongruities (violations), while the benign violation theory only includes unpleasant incongruities. In other words, benign violation theory predicts that a pleasant incongruity, that is, an incongruity that propagates a norm or does not violate a norm, will not be funny. It seems like this may explain the idea of ‘dad jokes’ – they technically seem like jokes, but they are not quite funny. For example, consider this –
“My wife said I should do lunges to stay in shape. That would be a big step forward.“
It’s a clever play of words but does not violate any norm (or, in fact, it can be seen as propagating the norm that lunges involve putting one step forward), which presumably explains why it is not very funny. The humor with ‘dad jokes’ may be associated with a meta-norm violation of someone expecting others to laugh at something often classified as ‘lame’ or not especially funny.
In this way, benign violation theory, among all the theories discussed in this two-part blog, seems to explain the most variety in humor – whether it is being ‘politically incorrect’ or using a clever joke structure to elicit humor. The theory can be used to also explain observation-based comedy that relies on relatability. In this case, the ‘violation’ of the norm can be viewed in terms of an unusual observation about a topic such that you never thought of it that way, but it is relatable.
Concluding remarks
Lastly, there is at least one other contemporary theory that also explains various types of humor, which I have not discussed in this blog, and it is the comprehension-elaboration theory. It is a slightly different version of the congruity-resolution theory. My 2-part blog post is not exhaustive, but I have tried to touch upon all the major ideas in the field. Further, it seems that the current research on humor lacks an exploration of ancient ideas/theories on humor from around the world. Such an exploration may have a lot to offer, as I have stressed in part 1 through a brief discussion of rasa theory (from Natya Shastra by Bharat Muni) and may inspire novel ideas on humor.
I hope this blog post has prepared you to at least talk about humor, if not to talk humorously, but note that the humor perception is an ever-expanding area of research and as our society changes, what we perceive as funny may also change, requiring new theories to explain the phenomenon. So, let us all stay tuned to the new developments in both humor and its understanding!
References:
Martin, R. A., & Ford, T. (2018). The psychology of humor: An integrative approach. Academic press.
Edited by Elizabeth Rosdeitcher and Gabriel Nah
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