How to Be Funny: to Make People Laugh, Attack Them

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HOW TO BE FUNNY: TO MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH, ATTACK THEM

• We make people laugh by attacking them • Laughing is a type of screaming • The key element in laughter is NOT surprise, but mental or physical violence

Nury Vittachi Creativity and Design Education Lab School of Design The Hong Kong Polytechnic University March 2, 2015

Abstract:

Laughter is rooted in fear, this paper proposes. • The widespread belief that the surprise is the basic building block of items of humor is inaccurate. Unpredictability is a common but non- essential element of the discomfort that creates laughter. • People essentially create laughter by attacking others. Parents physically attack their infants. Comedians verbally abuse audiences or threaten violence to their belief systems or senses of morality. • Laughter is a type of screaming. Our hypothesis, we suggest, sheds light on laughter-related puzzles. • Why can we not tickle ourselves? Answer: Fear is missing. • Why is embarrassment sometimes expressed by laughter? Answer: Gross emotional discomfort is the root of involuntary laughter. Our hypothesis also gives us a new understanding of human utterances sometimes defined as “courtesy laughter”, reclassifying them as “discomfort laughter”.

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One-line summary: The fundamental element of humor is not surprise, but attack, since the relationship between fear and laughter is significantly closer than is generally assumed.

Keywords: humor, attack, evolution, laughter, fear, tension, comedy, embarrassment, discomfort, displacement, behavioral psychology, violation

1. Introduction: The study of humor

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMOR is still in its early stages, despite it having been a topic of interest for millennia, since Aristotle expressed his opinion that laughter was a technique people used to make them feel superior to others. But progress on acquiring a fuller understanding has been slow for many reasons, not least because the subject is extremely difficult to define. Laughing is a complex cognitive act that sometimes but not always involves language and sometimes but not always involves a physical response. There are times when we laugh inwardly, making little or no outside show of the act. There are times when the act is extremely physical, as our shoulders shake, we lose control of our vocal chords and we clutch our sides. Laughing is sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary and sometimes appears to be a mix of these, or somewhere in between. Furthermore, laughter is clearly contagious but no one knows exactly how it spreads. “Participants in a conversation move from a single laugh to laughing together…” (Glenn, 2003). Despite these mysteries, it is agreed that humor is universal in human beings, and has been around since time immemorial. Laughter is observable in all human cultures, from the most primitive to the most developed, and some researchers believe some animals laugh (Goodall, 1968). In humans, although laughter is often negative in tone, it is universally seen as a positive trait. This is true on a personal basis (“she’s got a good sense of humor”) and on a group basis (“they know how to laugh at themselves”). But what is the key element that underpins laughter?

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This study starts with an overview of the academic literature on humor, takes in what we all know about the subject (since we are all practitioners), and then investigates comedy from several angles, amateur and professional. It may usefully be mentioned that the senior investigator on this project has worked as a humorist for some years, so has practical experience on which to draw. This paper is drawn on material gathered over a four-year period, from 2009 to 2013. In seeking to provide insights, we will focus less on biochemical processes and more on psychology and discourse analysis.

2. Overview: All humans laugh

Laughter is a standard human trait in communities around the world. While there may be individuals who do not laugh out loud, such people are considered socially incomplete or physically disabled, possibly even assumed to be suffering from a rare condition known as aphonogelia (Levin, 1931). For the rest of us, it should be noted that the amount of laughter we express differs widely among individuals. Children laugh far more than adults (Provine, 1993), with studies showing that babies from four months old can make chortling noises, and sometimes do so several hundred times a day, while adults laugh about 20 times a day. Personality is also a factor. Some individuals laugh a great deal, the sounds forming key parts of their personal vocabulary. Others go through life apparently never laughing out loud at all. “The varieties of laughter cover so vast and varied a terrain that they all but frustrate mapping,” lamented historian Peter Gay (Gay, 1993). Laughter has been academically studied (the field is known as “gelotology”) for decades, yet no one needs professors to tell us what we all feel we know by instinct: laughter is an amused response to stimuli. In practice, it is seen as an involuntary response to hearing a joke, seeing a humorous sight or being tickled. However, some researchers believe that laughter is often used as a voluntary act to smooth social interactions. This action can be defined as a

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“courtesy laugh” (Moss, 2009). The present investigators agree that laughter regularly forms a part of verbal exchanges which are not intentionally funny, although this study interprets these incidents differently, seeing them as fear-related and involuntary. This type of joke-free laughter is ubiquitous and can be easily observed in one-to-one conversations and in audience-performer situations. For example, picture a social gathering such as a Rotary Club meeting, wedding party or conference. During the opening minutes, a speaker may take the stage, lean into the microphone and say something such as: “I can’t believe I’m up here again.” The audience will laugh audibly, although no actual joke has been delivered by the speaker, nor has any example of wit or wordplay been demonstrated. It is the tension involved in setting up a speaker-audience relationship which has produced a small burst of laughter.

3. Physiology What happens inside when we laugh

In physical terms, it may be most straightforward to define laughter as a mental process triggered by stimuli which often leads to a physiological response. We see, hear or feel stimuli, usually from outside sources, but occasionally from inner sources (for example, you remember a joke or replay a humorous memory and it sets you laughing). We may react to the stimuli with a series of actions: our cheeks rise, the larynx forms sounds and the epiglottis begins a rhythmic episode of constrictions, often resulting in our uttering a series of staccato notes. While comic-book creators follow the convention of portraying the resulting sound as “ha ha ha” or “tee hee hee”, in reality it can take a wide variety of forms, from yelping to squealing to howling to sniggering to shrieking. You can also laugh silently. The physiological responses can be slight, virtually imperceptible, or great, producing a visual and audible reaction and faster heartbeat and breathing rates (Ruch, 1993). In the more extreme cases, your shoulders shake, sometimes there is a convulsive response in the viscera, and you wrap your arms around yourself. You may even double over or in very extreme cases, fall off your chair.

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And in your head? Neuroscientists know that when this process occurs, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is activated—the part of the brain which produces endorphins. We also know that two parts of the limbic system, the hippocampus and the amygdala, are involved. These are both associated with emotions. A burst of electrical activity occurs in specific areas of your brain (Fried et al, 1998). How much control do you have? Probably everyone reading this will at some time have experienced a visceral bout of laughing in which their whole torso shakes. This appears to be involuntary and can sometimes last so long that we end up in pain. Yet despite the hurt, laughter in human societies is associated with positive emotional feelings and physical good health. Even in strict behavioral codes, laughter is seen as a good thing. For example, while Islamic tradition contains warnings against laughing too much, ancient writings specifically list instances of Mohammed laughing (al-Hajjaj, 874). Laughter has been associated with introducing not just a general feeling of greater wellbeing, but measurable improvements in health. Laughter is believed to expand the blood vessels, decrease serum cortisol and boost the immune system. It even makes you more able to withstand pain (Dunbar, 2012).

4. Laughter comes from fear Development of our hypothesis

Conventional wisdom says laughter is associated with joy, and especially with jokes in the sense of items of wordplay and the presentation of “funny” lines. Jokes are seen as aphorisms or short narratives which end in a punch line containing a surprise. Yet scholars have long known that laughter is more complex than that. People can also be observed to laugh in reaction to being embarrassed, distressed or even angry. Frederick Nietzsche said that laughter was a reaction to the sense of existential loneliness and mortality that humans, and only humans, experience. In other words, it is a yelp of emotion from the deepest parts of the human consciousness. (This is refuted by scholars who believe that other animals laugh.) “Relief theory” was posited by Sigmund Freud and others as a general theory of laughter. John Morreall theorized that the passing of

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danger led to the “shared expression of relief”, which was a smile and a laugh. Nevertheless, attempts to identify the building blocks of humor by comedians inevitably zero back in on the surprise at the end as the key element. You are led to expect one thing but are given something else. Scholars agree, talking of violated expectations and unexpected shifts (Martin & Lefcourt, 1983; McGhee, 1979). Further, it is natural to think that you need to be in the right mood to laugh: relaxed, unburdened, and upbeat; and there’s a general belief that discomfort or terror drives out laughter. One study says “extreme fear” is believed to “limit laughter” (Polimini, Reiss, 2006). Many people have seen how masters of ceremonies at comedy clubs spend time priming audiences, and we might assume that they are getting them into a suitably light- hearted state before introducing the comedians. Yet is that really what they are doing? What exactly do you hear or see that actually triggers the convulsion? After collecting observations, we suggest that the key element is fear. The audience learns that it is about to be attacked. Digs will be made, assumptions will be attacked, and someone sitting in the front row will be mercilessly grilled. To work, laughter needs tension, or fear’s milder cousins discomfort and mental displacement. Is relief in there? Perhaps not. The audience doesn’t have time to think about what they have heard and feel relieved: there’s no gap between the attack and the response. The point of a comedy performance is not to present a list of statements with surprise endings, but to create tension, with laughter being the by-product. The fear-laughter coin is on edge, being twirled at speed. How did this theory develop? On several occasions, one of our researchers observed at close hand several senior Asian politicians, including Singaporean senior minister Lee Kuan Yew, speaking at public events. Like many Asian “strongman” leaders, Mr. Lee is known for his unsympathetic personality. The international media regularly describes Singapore as a city-state in which critics say people live in “a climate of fear” (Reuters, 2005). Mr. Lee has been known to use his role as guest of honor at important functions to berate his hosts, sometimes harshly. But how do audiences and fellow speakers react to him? While he rarely utters anything in public that could be described as a joke, his comments

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frequently trigger peals of laughter. Observers may be led to comment that this happens despite the high level of fear in the room. But this researcher felt on several occasions that the laughter was not despite but because of the high level of fear in the room. With his audience in the grip of tension, Mr. Lee’s slightest departures from polite convention created uncontrollable bursts of laughter among listeners. The same phenomenon can be seen sometimes in South Asia, at meetings between high caste individuals and those of lower castes. No jokes are told: humor is entirely absent. Yet the more grim-faced the high caste people become, the more giggles are heard from the nervous low caste participants. This laughter clearly does not come from surprises, but from fear. The phenomenon of the tension of hierarchy leading to laughter has been observed in several societies (Provine, 2001). For closely accessible examples, the reader is invited to consider hierarchically organized groups of his or her own experience. We all know subordinates who laugh frequently at the utterances of “the boss”, whether the words spoken are intended to be funny or not. Conventional wisdom designates these responses as examples of courtesy laughter, but we suggest that such reactions are involuntary responses rooted in the discomfort of low-ranked members of the group in the presence of superiors who quite literally scare them. They subconsciously fear imminent attack and this makes them laugh.

5. Humor and the surprise Punch-lines don’t need to be unexpected

How do we test this? Our hypothesis says that while what we may call “unexpected violations” (surprises) are frequently present at the end of a joke or a one liner, the key element may not be the fact that the end is unexpected, but that it is a violation. The punch-lines create incongruous mental images that range from being unsettling to being scary—and thus they amuse us. Another researcher who thinks surprises are overvalued is

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Peter McGraw (McGraw, 2014), whose “benign violation” theory is in the same direction as our own. To study the presence or absence of surprises, the present researchers needed pieces of humor which were funny but free of punch-line surprises. We considered this question from various points of view, looking at children, adults, and the parent-infant relationship. We also analyzed the work of professional comedians. The results are presented in three sections below, featuring children, adults and the parent-baby relationship. i) Children and surprise-free laughter

To test this in a practical forum, we used a stream of data that was already available, having been built up over some years. One of our researchers is contracted to visit schools as a storyteller. He typically tells six to eight stories on each visit. His audiences range from single classes of about 28 students to full-school assemblies of 1,300 children. Typically, he speaks to year groups, numbering 70 to 150 students, with audiences aged four to 12. Most of the stories told were regular child-oriented narratives with a conventional structure, in which characters were introduced, developments took place, and a climax led to a resolution. However, he included in every session a reworked humorous folk-tale which contained no surprises. Instead, it had a linear narrative structure featuring a repeated motif of an ostensibly discomforting image. The main character in the story, Herman the Worm, is introduced and then we hear about how he proceeds to eats his family members, one member each day. The story climaxes with Herman eating his own father. Although it sounds violent, the tale was told in the sort of stylized fairy tale horror format that makes it suitable (and enjoyable) for children. This text, provided in full in Appendix I, was designed to have an entirely predictable climax, right down to the individual words and sentences used. This was to ensure that the dramatic climax had no surprise element whatsoever. (There is a happy ending to this tale of cannibalism: in the closing lines of the tale, Herman ejects all his relatives in a giant belch.)

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Following the conventional belief that humor is rooted in surprises, the story should have become increasingly unfunny as its progress became increasingly obvious. And there should have been no laughter at all at the climax, every word of which was predictable even to children aged four and five. Yet what happened? The Tale of Herman the Worm triggered waves of mirth with the loudest laughs reserved for the entirely predictable climactic lines. Even children who shouted out the climactic lines in advance of the storyteller uttering them (“He ate his daddy!”), laughed when almost identical words were spoken by the adult (“Then Herman said: ‘I ate my daddy.’”). Furthermore, in return visits to the same schools, the entire story was retold and received the same response from the same children, who were by that time familiar with every line of it. And again, the loudest laughter was reserved for the climax. (A video of the researcher reciting this tale to an audience of children is available and a link included in the appendices.) The experiment was repeated in front of more than 60 school age audiences with identical results. This included halls of education with primarily Asian audiences, and those with primarily Western children. Details of the school visits are featured in Appendix II. Herman the Worm, the comedy tale with no surprises, was universally judged the “funniest” piece of humor in that storyteller’s repertoire. This clearly indicated that unexpectedness is not the fundamental element that makes children laugh. What made them laugh was the provision of a discomforting mental image, one that attacked their assumptions about morality and their most deeply-held understanding of family relationships: how shocking to picture a child eating his mother and father. But what about adults? ii) Adults and surprise-free laughs

The researchers considered this question by looking at comedy for adults, in written, filmed, and live-on-stage formats. Many hours of recorded comedy shows of various types were studied. Comedy clubs were visited

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and live performers seen. For analytical consistency, we focused on comedians who worked mostly in English, but we did see comics from Western, Chinese, Indian and other cultural backgrounds. We also considered television comedy. The same “surprise-free comedy” phenomenon was most powerfully observed in a trend observable in recent British TV comedy. Sketch shows, in which comedians create short playlets leading to a punch line have been popular since at least the 1960s. But in the past 10 years, we noted the development of humorous sketches which are almost entirely free of the element of surprise. A popular show by Catherine Tate (“The Catherine Tate Show”, which ran for three series from 2004), often repeats entire sketches. Other than minor changes in setting, the characters and general narrative flow of each playlet is identical. In the most popular of these, an authority figure attempts to scold Ms. Tate, who is dressed as a schoolgirl named Lauren Cooper. She replies: “Am I bovvered [bothered]?” As the argument escalates, the schoolgirl simply repeats and reinforces her arguments, repeating her insouciant catchphrase: “Am I bovvered?” In no way are the narrative outcomes or items of dialogue surprising or unpredictable: quite the contrary: we know exactly what is coming. Yet they produced hysterical laughter in audiences. Further examples can be seen in a TV comedy series called “Little Britain”. In one skit, an apparently disabled man distracts his long-suffering carer and then secretly leaves his wheelchair, showing that he is not really disabled at all. The skit is repeated in each episode. There are no surprises. The humor comes not from the presence of unexpected occurrences, since there are none. It comes from the discomforting notion that a person can be so gratuitously unkind to a kindly person serving them. Tension causes laughter, not surprises. Next, we examined routines of various lengths by a large number of working comedians, with the schtick (signature behavior) of 68 being considered. Although the majority of working professional comedians whose work is available in recorded form are male and Caucasian, we noted the presence of female and non-Caucasian comics in the more recent material available. As mentioned above, researchers also attended live shows. (A list of comedians can be found in Appendix III.)

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Our null hypothesis, representing the conventional views on laughter, was this: Comedians, like other stage performers, would cultivate a positive atmosphere (“Wow, thank you so much, it’s so great to be here tonight”) and would then tell jokes, the basic structure of which would be the provision of a set-up describing a familiar situation and a punch-line giving a surprise twist. The surprise would cause listeners to laugh. In contrast, if our fear-attack hypothesis was correct, we would see comedians instead adopting a hostile, combative stance, abusing their audiences to create a tension-based relationship. We would see examples of comics eschewing the “set-up leads to surprise punch-line ending” format, and simply providing mental dislocations, in particular, word- pictures of emotionally discomforting, convention-breaking, frightening or disgusting images. And the results? All comedians, we found, established a relationship with their audience featuring ostensibly negative elements, such as hostility and suspicion. They ranged from being borderline impolite to presenting themselves as furious, brain-damaged, depressed or criminal. While there was simply too much material for detailed textual analysis, hostility and surprise-free humor were much in evidence, as the examples listed below show. 1) Bernie Mac opens his act by marching into the front-stage spotlight and shouting at the audience: “I ain’t scared of you motherfuckers.” No set-up, no punchline. His stance is one of attack. 2) Aziz Ansari curses the audience: “Clap if you haven’t seen ‘The Dark Knight’ yet? What the fuck is wrong with you people?” 3) Bill Hicks urges audience members to commit suicide: “If anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourselves. I’m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe they’ll take root. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourselves. But seriously, if you are, do.” 4) Mitch Fatel goes on stage and simply makes a series of discomforting statements with a creepy smile, coming across as dangerously demented. “I like girls who are easy,” he says. “Babies are expensive and they eat your food,” he adds. “I am really funny.” Again, there are no set-ups leading to surprises. 5) Margaret Cho lets fly with a string of absurdities: “Lesbians love whale watching. They love it more than pussy. They love whale watching.

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Any kind of sea mammal really. Whales. Manatees. Dolphins.” Rather than using punch-lines, she creates strings of shocking statements attacking a convention, which is that lesbians should not be characterized as being unattractive. 6) Rowan Atkinson pretends to be taking a register of audience members’ names, using words associated with genitalia. “All right, come on, settle down please. Answer your names. Anus. Arsebandit. Bottom. Clitoris. Where are you, Clitoris? Enema. Fistup. Come on, grow up, please.” Although this appears infantile in print, the live audience shrieked with laughter at being abused in this way. 7) Ricky Gervais muses carelessly: “Adolf… That name’s died out, ain’t it?” There’s no standard joke structure. The humor lies in his slightly puzzled, blasé attitude to an obvious truism about a character people feel sensitive about mentioning. 8) Eddie Griffin shows his audience a large image of President Obama’s wife Michelle and says: “This is the first First Lady that is fuckable.” Again, the laugh is achieved not by a set-up and a twist, but by a powerful attack on conventional values. 9) Stephen Fry asks an audience member to tell him when his 45 minutes are up, adding: “If I am in the middle of a joke, shut the fuck up.” It’s not a joke, but it’s such an obviously unwarranted attack that it gets a big reaction. 10) Kevin Shea subverts the child-parent relationship: “I’m trying to be more Asian. Don’t know if that makes sense. ‘Cause I was adopted by white people. Fucking devils.” Although none except the last example follows the surprise-at-the- end format conventionally identified as the basis of humor, all get big (if sometimes stunned) laughs from audiences. What do they all share? All are violent, discomforting utterances defying conventional mores. The comedians are attacking their audiences—and the result is laughter. Furthermore, all live stage comedians we saw, including Jami Gong, Vivek Mahbubani and Jim Brewsky, chose specific members of the audience in the front rows to humiliate (in good-natured fashion) over periods several minutes long. So, rather than moving audiences into a state of happy and relaxed mirth using set-ups followed by surprise punch lines, what comedians really

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do is keep their audiences on edge by presenting themselves as being in attack mode. They do this by presenting themselves as dangerous, tense, angry, damaged, confused, retarded or deeply unfortunate people sharing surreal personal histories. If fear and laughter are two sides of the same coin, comedians keep the coin spinning at high speed throughout their shows. iii) Babies and surprise-free humor

Third, we turn to infants and their parents. Looking at babies and toddlers allows us to see how fear and laughter work together in relationships which have little or no verbal interaction. Also, individual human infant development may allow us to observe in microcosm traits which may reflect large-scale evolutionary development in humanity as a species. However, since many of our observations in this section fall into the “everybody knows that” category, we will attempt not to belabor the obvious. Our fundamental observation, after spending many mornings taking notes in public parks and playgrounds, is this: adults make babies and toddlers laugh by putting them in ostensibly fear-inducing situations. These activities go through numerous repetitions, showing that fear, not surprise, is the cause of the laughter. Here are some examples of parent-child attacks we saw regularly in public playgrounds, parks and gardens. All produced instant, audible laughter. a) A father throws the child in the air, and catches it on the way down. b) A mother holds a baby on her legs and then suddenly parts her thighs, causing the child to drop—but grabs the child before it hits the ground. c) A sitting parent holds the child draped backwards over her legs, with the child’s head dangling upside down, and sings a song such as: “Down in the water, under the sea, how many fishes can you see?” before jerking the child back into an upright position. d) A parent pretends to be eating the child, biting its neck and other parts.

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e) A parent lays an infant down and pretends to collapse on top of it, as if to crush it. f) An adult approaches a child from behind, taps one shoulder and then ducks out of sight. The researchers made a point of viewing adults of different cultures, including American, Chinese, French, Indian and European. All demonstrated the frequent use of violence to elicit laughter in their small children, using attacks as listed above. We saw no differences between cultures. It was noted that verbal infants made it clear that they wanted the attack to be repeated. (“Again! Again!”) This means that surprise is specifically not a factor. The child feels the need to cycle through the emotions repeatedly: fear/laughter-fear/laughter-fear/laughter and so on. Indeed, in the remarkable series of images below, showing a baby’s reaction to her mother blowing her nose, it can be clearly seen that the baby moves from a state of extreme fear to extreme enjoyment and back repeatedly. He needs one to experience the other. In these images, we suggest that fear can be seen not a separate emotion that precedes laughter, but as an intrinsic part of the experience of delight. After the initial incident, surprise plays no part in the generation of the laughter. And note how he jerks his body backwards, as if he is being physically attacked.

(Continued…)

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This image of baby Emerson, aged five and half months, was recorded by his mother Karen (she has requested that her surname be not printed in any media) on March 15, 2011, and placed on YouTube. She was blowing her nose, and the baby was both utterly horrified and squealing with laughter. Two weeks later, the baby was a media star, with over nine million views and the family making international headlines.

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Visiting older children, we believed we saw how laughter evolves, as youngsters age, from physical attacks to verbal attacks. During visits to more than 60 primary schools, we noted the gradual introduction of language into the rough play laughter-creation process. When children become verbal, from two years old upwards, we saw many examples of games in which parents, teachers or older children teased or confused children as part of the play process, with the result being the production of involuntary laughter. Therein we believe we recognized the roots of the process which leads to laughter in adults: not cerebral word-play, but emotion-linked teasing. People are made to laugh by being attacked, either physically, verbally, or both.

6. Further thoughts about laughter i) Using these findings

While recognizing that anecdotal evidence is not data, it may be worth recording details of attempts to make practical use of our findings. The researcher visiting schools frequently played a game with children, one at a time, in classroom settings. Researcher: “I bet I can make you laugh by saying just one word.” Child: “Can’t!” Researcher: “I bet I can. Ready?” Child: “Yes.” At that point, the researcher says nothing. The purpose of this pause is simple: to let fear build up. The child, initially confident that she or can keep her face straight, now starts to feel scared. After several seconds are allowed to elapse, the researcher barks a random word, for example, “Carrot.” The child laughs out loud, as does the rest of the class. It is not the word which has made them laugh, but the fear. The same game is then repeated with another child using the same word to ensure that surprise is not causing the laughter. ii) Why we can’t tickle ourselves

Many people have attempted to answer this question, which puzzled Aristotle. The act of tickling is the provision of light tactile stimulation to sensitive parts of the body; often the neck, the armpits, the legs, the abdomen, or the soles of the feet. Whether one person tickles another, or

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the person tickles themselves, the actual physical stimulation is similar or identical. Yet if someone tickles us, we may well laugh uncontrollably; but if we do the same thing to ourselves, there is no reaction. The reason is that fear is missing. If the mental processes that are controlling the stimuli are our own, there is no tension, no unpredictability: we know exactly where and when each fingertip will touch each part of the soft skin of our necks or under our ears. The whole process is tightly controlled by ourselves. But if someone else is providing the stimuli, there is tension. We don’t know the rhythm of the touches, we don’t know how it will progress, which direction it will move, or whether it will intensify or stop. Further, there is intimate physical contact between two people, which is in itself a tension-raising process. But there are limits. You might not laugh if a complete stranger tickles you, because you don’t know if it is a benign attack or an assault (McGraw, 2014). iii) Why embarrassment is expressed by laughter

In some places, such as Indochina, laughter is seen as the natural response to embarrassing situations. Guidebooks in English sometimes warn travelers that if they find themselves in difficulties, such as reporting a theft in Vietnam or Cambodia, they should prepare to be laughed at. Tourists are advised not to react angrily, as a laugh response is not seen as inappropriate in such communities. One of our researchers had practical experience of this, when his camera was stolen. Tourists who report stolen goods to police officers or airport staff in Vietnam are shocked to see the officials snicker. No callousness is intended. The abrupt intrusion of tension into the situation causes the people in uniform to laugh. Sometimes the tourist is angered by the response and expresses dismay. The tension level dramatically increases—causing the officials to laugh harder.

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7. The sound of laughter Coming to a conclusion

To sum up, the general belief that the root of humor is surprise is unfounded, we believe. Surprises are common in jokes only because they often form part of a mental attack strategy. We laugh because we are attacked, physically or mentally. Parents attack their babies by throwing them in the air and biting at them. We make older children laugh by teasing or tickling them. To get a laugh, adults pay comedians to abuse them, curse them and violate their most deeply held conventions. When we are attacked, we scream, and laughter is the particular variety of scream that indicates a benign attack. While we present these findings as worth noting, we make no claim that they are entirely novel. Darwin noted the connection between laughter and fighting way back in 1872, although the view that surprises are the key to laughter is still very common today. Scott Weems talks about “the kick of discovery” in a 2014 book on the science of laughter, suggesting that even many experts on the subject still believe that surprise is the key factor. And while the expression of relief may have been the original trigger for the evolution of laughter, we think a feeling of being relieved may not be actually involved today. Infants being nibbled by their mothers or adults being abused by comedians don’t consciously or unconsciously think: “I am being harmed—no, I’m not, so I can feel relieved.” The process is deeper and more instinctive than that. Our belief is that laughter is an involuntary, convulsive response to being attacked by someone known to us. It forms an integral part of the play process that humans and some primates share. We said in the opening that laughter is a type of scream. But since yelps of laughter are far more common than screams of fear, it may be more accurate to say that attacks-and-yelps as an awareness-building, relationship-building activity, are fundamental to primate development; and actual screams of fear are a small sub-set of utterances of laughter. Our work thus reinforces the findings of scholars who prefer the benign violation theory of laughter (Veatch, 2009; McGraw & Warner, 2014). Even away from the academic area, there are indications that some people have long had an instinctive understanding of the real root of

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humor. Author Mark Twain (quoted in Goldstein, 2013) wrote in 1894’s “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar”: “The secret of Humor is not joy, but sorrow.”

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Reuters, “Singapore says no climate of fear in city-state’, (May 27, 2005)

Ruch, W., Lewis, M., & Haviland, J. M. (Eds.) “The Handbook of Emotion”. New York: Guilford Press. (1993).

Veatch, Thomas C., A Theory of Humor, International Journal of Humor Research. Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages 161–216, ISSN (Online) 1613-3722, ISSN (Print) 0933-719, DOI: 10.1515/humr.1998.11.2.161, July 2009

Weems, Scott, “Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why”, Basic Books, (2014)

Footnotes

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APPENDICES APPENDIX I

Text of the story with the surprise-free humor climax Video available at this address: http://youtu.be/0c-FodSVqxA

Herman the Worm By Nury Vittachi

I live in a house with a garden. Except it isn’t really a garden. It’s just a patch of mud. I love mud. Do you know why? Because worms live in mud. I love worms. They’re so icky and wriggly and slimy! Do you like worms? *** Every day after work at six o’clock I go home and get my chair and sit in the garden. Because that’s when a little tiny worm crawls across the mud. I say: “Hi Herman. How’s your mom, how’s your dad, how’s your sister?” And he says: “Fine, thank you.” *** Now, last week, on Monday, I was sitting in my garden. And I was drinking Coca-Cola. Along came Herman the Worm. And he stopped. And he said: “What’s that?” I said: “This is Coca-Cola.” And he said: “Can I have some?” I said: “No. Worms do not drink Coca-Cola.” And he said: “Please.” And I said: “NO!” And he said: “Please please please!” And I said, “Okay.” And I picked up Herman the worm and I put him in my Coca-Cola.

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Slurrrp! I took him out again and said: “Did you like it?” And he said. “No! It was full of bubbles!” And off he went. But he was moving much faster now. That was Monday. *** On Tuesday I came home at six o’clock and I was sitting in my garden. Along came Herman the Worm. Only he wasn’t this big. He was THIS big. I said: “Herman, how did you get to be so big?” And he said: “I did something naughty.” And I said: “What did you do?” And he said: “I ate my sister.” And I said: “Herman! That’s rude. You should never eat your sister.” And he said: “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.” And off he went. That was Tuesday. *** On Wednesday I came home at six o’clock and I was sitting in my garden. Along came Herman the Worm. Only he wasn’t this big. He was THIS big. I said: “Herman, how did you get to be so big?” And he said: “I did something naughty.” And I said: “What did you do?” And he said: “I ate my Mommy.” And I said: “Herman! That’s impolite. You should never eat your mother.” And he said: “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.” And off he went. That was Wednesday. *** On Thursday I was standing in my garden when the ground began to shake. Along came Herman the Worm. Only he wasn’t this big. He was THIS big. I said: “Herman, how did you get to be so big?” And he said: “I did something naughty.” And I said: “What did you do?”

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And he said: “I ate my Daddy.” And I said: “Herman! You have now eaten your whole family. That’s very naughty indeed.” And he said: “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.” *** But then his face changed. Because all the bubbles from the Coca-Cola were coming up. Up and up and up and up they came. Until Herman burped the biggest burp in the history of the world. And it went like this: BUURRRRRRPPPPPP! Out came his dad, out came his mom, out came his sister. *** Last night, I was sitting in my garden when along came Herman the Worm. I said: “Hi, Herman. How’s your mom, how’s your dad, how’s your sister?” And he said: “Fine.” And I said: “Would you like some Coca-Cola?” And he said: “Noooooooooooo.” ***

[ends]

APPENDIX II

List of educational organisations

Data was used from a storyteller who visited groups of children between 2009 and 2013. Most venues were schools, although occasionally the storytelling sessions took place at libraries or at literary festivals. All were in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore or Guangzhou. Sessions ranged from half a day to a “residency” of five days. In Shanghai, the sessions were in a central location and children from a variety of schools visited.

Thu 1/22/2009 St Paul’s Co-Ed, Hong Kong

Wed 3/11/2009 Shatin Junior School, Hong Kong

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Wed 3/11/2009 Hong Kong International Montesorri, Hong Kong

Thu 3/12/2009 Singapore International School, Hong Kong

Wed 3/18/2009 American International School, Hong Kong

Thu 3/19/2009 Bradbury School, Hong Kong

Mon 5/18/2009 Glenealy School, Hong Kong

Sat 6/13/2009 Chinese International School, Hong Kong

Tue 6/23/2009 Yew Chung International School, Hong Kong

Fri 7/3/2009 British School of Guangzhou, China

Mon 10/19/2009 St Paul’s Co-Ed, Hong Kong

Wed 11/25/2009 St Joseph’s Institution International School, Singapore

Thu 11/26/2009 German European School, Singapore

Sat 11/28/2009 Bukit Merah Library, Singapore

Thu 2/11/2010 International College, Hong Kong

Mon 2/22/2010 King George V School, Hong Kong

Tue 2/23/2010 French International School, Hong Kong

Wed 2/24/2010 Korean International School, Hong Kong

Thu 3/11/2010 German Swiss International School, Hong Kong

Tue 3/16/2010 Renaissance College, Hong Kong

Sun 3/21/2010 Shanghai Literary Festival, Shanghai

Mon 3/15/2010 Hoi Ping Chamber of Commerce School, Hong Kong

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Thu 4/15/2010 Kennedy School, Hong Kong

Fri 12/3/2010 Renaissance College, Hong Kong

Thu 12/2/2010 Glenealy School, Hong Kong

Mon 12/6/2010 French International School, Hong Kong

Tue 12/7/2010 Shatin Junior School, Hong Kong

Tue 12/7/2010 Japanese International School, Hong Kong

Wed 12/8/2010 Yew Chung International School, Hong Kong

Wed 12/8/2010 Discovery Bay International School, Hong Kong

Thu 12/9/2010 German Swiss International School, Hong Kong

Thu 12/9/2010 American International School, Hong Kong

Fri 1/28/2011 Yew Chung International School, Hong Kong

Thu 2/17/2011 St Paul’s Co-Ed, Hong Kong

Wed 2/23/2011 Discovery Bay International School, Hong Kong

Thu 3/3/2011 Kellet School, Hong Kong

Fri 3/4/2011- Yew Chung International School, Hong Kong

Sun 4/19/2011 Shanghai Literary Festival, Shanghai

Mon 3/21/2011 Hoi Ping Chamber of Commerce School, Hong Kong

Fri 4/1/2011 Quarry Bay School, Hong Kong

Fri 5/6/2011 Korean International School, Hong Kong

Wed 3/28/2012 Korean International School, Hong Kong

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Thu 3/29/2012 St Paul’s Co-Ed, Hong Kong

Fri 11/23/2012 French International School, Hong Kong

Thu 12/20/2012 Kowloon Junior School, Hong Kong

Wed 4/24/2013 Independent Schools Federation Academy, Hong Kong

Fri 4/26/2013 Independent Schools Federation Academy, Hong Kong

Wed 5/8/2013 Singapore International School, Hong Kong

Thu 5 27 2013 Po Leung Kuk Camoes TSL School, Hong Kong

Fri 6/28/2013 St. Mary’s Canossian College, Hong Kong

Fri 8/16/2013 Australian International School, Hong Kong

Mon 11/25/2013 Glenealy School, Hong Kong

Mon 11/25/2013 Shanghai Victoria Academy, Hong Kong

Wed 11/27/2013 Yew Chung International School, Hong Kong

Thu 11/28/2013 ELCHK Lutheran Academy, Hong Kong

Fri 11/29/2013 Glenealy School, Hong Kong

Mon 12/2/2013 Discovery College, Hong Kong

Thu 12/5/2013 Creative Secondary School, Hong Kong

Fri 12/6/2013 Shatin Junior School, Hong Kong

Fri 12/6/2013 Pui Kiu College, Hong Kong

Mon 12/9/2013 Creative Secondary School, Hong Kong

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APPENDIX III

LIST OF COMEDIANS

Researchers watched the routines of the following 68 comedians to note their relationships with their audiences and their use of surprise-free jokes.

Allen, Tim Ansari, Aziz Antonucci, Jessica Atkinson, Rowan Bhoy, Danny Brewsky, Jim Brown, A. Whitney Carey, Drew Carlin, George Carrey, Jim Carson, Johnny Chappelle, Dave Cho, Danny Cho, Margaret Cook, Dane Dee, Jack DeGeneres, Ellen Dunham, Jeff Ettinger Bob Fatel, Mitch Ferguson, Craig Fields, WC: Fry, Stephen Garofalo, Janeane Gervais, Ricky Glover, Donald Goldthwait, Bobcat Gong, Jami Griffin, Eddie

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Handler, Chelsea Handler Hedberg, Mitch Hicks, Bill Hutcherson, Warren Inglesias Gabriel Johansen, Jake Karpur, Vidur Khorsandi, Shappi Lebowitz, Fran Lindley, Joel Lucas, Matt Mac, Bernie Mahbubani, Vivek McIntyre, Michael Millican, Sarah Milligan, Spike Montgomery, Lynda Moran, Dylan Oswalt, Patton Porter, Lucy Poundstone, Paula Rock, Chris Rock Seinfeld, Jerry Shea, Kevin Silverman, Sarah Smith, Tracy Snow, Carrie Stewart, Jon Stone, Dave Styal, Rajiv Szekely, Louis (Louis CK) Tatara, KY Tate, Catherine Tomlin, Lily Tucker, Chris Walliams, David

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Wright, Stephen Yashere, Gina Yusuf, Imran

****

Contact details for the chief investigator in this research project:

Nury Vittachi

Creativity and Education Research Lab

School of Design

Hong Kong Polytechnic University [email protected]

+852 6656 1460