People think immoral behavior is funny - but only if it seems too benign

What makes something funny? Philosophers have been throwing this question since Plato. Now two scientists believe is psychological, they have come up with the formula: humor comes from an injury or threat to the way the world should be, that is, at the same time, benign.Most older theories of humor are all too short in one way or another, said A. Peter McGraw, University of Colorado-Boulder, who coauthored the study with Caleb Warren. Freud thought humor came from a release of tension, the other theory is that humor comes from a feeling of superiority, and yet one of incongruity. The researchers point out that all this could happen if you accidentally killed your spouse, but that would not be funny. They thought that, instead, a situation could be funny if it seems too benign.

To test their hypothesis, the researchers asked volunteers to different situations rewarded with candy bars. In one experiment, volunteers read the pairs of situations, for example, a, a rabbi asked where Jimmy Dean as spokesman for their new line of pork, and one where Jimmy Dean We rented a farm as a spokesperson for their new line of pork. The situation with a moral violation with a rabbi to promote pork was both more often than wrong and get more for the reader to laugh to see.

The other part of the study examined whether reports of a benign moral injury made it funnier. For one experiment, participants read a scenario in which either a church or a credit union giving away an SUV in order to attract new members. The participants were outraged when the church members covered with a raffle, but not the credit union. But if they hung maintained by the church in part on whether they went to the church itself, not church-goers were more inclined to believe that was fun. The researchers believe is because the non-churchgoers are "not particularly committed to the sanctity of churches," says McGraw-to be so benign for the moral injury it seems. Another experiment confirmed that people who were more psychological distance from a moral injury are rather amused. The research is published in Psychological Science, was a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"We laugh when Larry Moe suggests, because we know that Larry does not really hurt," said McGraw, who in a humorous slapstick. "It is a violation of social norms. You do not have people to meet, especially a friend. But it's okay, because it is not real." He recalls a recent example, an Internet video of an Indonesian chain-smoking young child. "When I first told them, I laughed because it unreal, what parents let their children smoke cigarettes would seem? The fact that the situation there seemed incredibly benign. Then when I saw the video of this kid smoking, was it is no longer possible to laugh about it. "

McGraw thinks the theory for other types of humor, how to break word games, a linguistic conventions or rules, but are still okay, because they are in another rule, the sentence still makes sense. It also explains why dramas and action movies play better outside their home countries to do comedies. "It is difficult to find a comedy that is funny to find cross-cultural, because the way that violations of benign may differ from culture to culture. The comedy is funny cross-cultural tendency to include a lot of physical humor. The injuries are clear, no matter who you are, "he says.

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