Scientists revealed the secret of humor

Scientists revealed the true origin of humor, writes the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph . According to American researchers, humor is a benign violation of the order of things that have developed in the world.

Comedians, actors, writers and psychoanalysts raised their heads for a long time over why some things seem ridiculous to us. So, Sigmund Freud believed that humor was rooted in a sense of superiority and incompatibility, and Mark Twain assumed that the genuine source of humor was not fun, but sadness.

In the work made by the psychoanalysts of the University of Colorado (USA), it is argued that people find the incident ridiculous when it is contrary to morally acceptable order, but at the same time remains harmless. Which is noteworthy. Each person determines the degree of harmlessness in his own way.

To confirm their hunch, scientists asked volunteers to take part in several theatrical performances. According to the scenario of one of them, the owner of sausage industries in the United States hired a Jewish rabbi to promote pork products to the market, and in another, he hired a farmer by his representative.

As a result, an attempt to attract a rabbi to promote pork products was more funny than the use of a farmer for this, since it was a violation of moral principles and looked inappropriate, because Judaism categorically prohibits the eating of pork.

According to the second scenario, a church community and a credit institution played a SUV in a lottery to attract new parishioners or customers, respectively.

Such actions from the church community were also a violation of morality, but those respondents who did not attribute themselves to believers found this option more funny. This confirms the assumption that the degree of benignity or malignancy of the funny scenario is determined individually by each viewer.

Experts dispersed regarding this study. The writer Jiles Brandret believes that the true nature of humor is more complicated. He is more inclined to agree with the Chinese proverb: "There is no greater pleasure than the contemplation of your friend falling from the roof."

But comedian John Bishop with the conclusions of Colorado scientists agree. According to him, humor is like a view of the world through a cracked window - we see it somewhat distorted.

According to one of the authors of the study by Peter McGro, his novelty is that the previous studies lost sight of precisely the degree of “benign” events that we regard from the point of view of the presence of humorous content in them. He also noted that in different countries different approaches to good and evil, and that is why the humor of different peoples is so different.