The Theology of Everyday Life: The Theology of Humor, Part 1, "Humor as Power"

Well, after a few weeks of pretty much straight theology, let's get back to what I do best: The interface of psychology with theology.

On Sunday, I taught the Sojourners adult bible class at the Highland Church of Christ. (I'm one of four regular Sojourner teachers.) It was a class about gentleness and I started the class off with the psychology of humor. What does humor have to do with gentleness? We'll get there in a minute.

Anyway, during and after class there was a lot of discussion about the the theology of humor. So much so that I thought I would devote a series to the topic.

I started the class of with a discussion of the "mystery of funny." That is, we know what we think is funny but when we are asked for specifics it is very hard to say what exactly was funny. We can say it was "witty" or "absurd" but that doesn't get us very far. In the end, trying to describe why something is funny is like trying to describe what an apple tastes like. Apples, well, they taste like apples. And funny things are, well, funny.

But psychologists have made some headway on humor and I'd like to talk today about two facets of humor, the two facets of humor I spoke about in class on Sunday.

First, humor is generally social. For example, potatoes, on their own, don't crack people up. But if you put eyes on a potato, and a nose and a cute hat, well, you got yourself a Mr. Potato Head. That is, non-human things (e.g., plants, animals, rocks) are only funny insofar as they remind us of ourselves. Think about a Disney animated movie (e.g., Cars, Finding Nemo) and you see the dynamic in action. In short, we find OURSELVES funny.

Given that humor is generally social, a second facet of humor can now be considered. Aristotle was one of the first to note that one of the social uses of humor was to communicate power and status.

Much of humor is about power: Sarcasm, teasing, satire, ridicule. We see this "laughing at people" institutionalized in the "clown," "jester," or "fool." To demean someone we call them a "fool" or say they are a "joke."

Interesting experimental evidence highlights the role of power in humor. Research in boardrooms have discovered what is called "downward humor." In boardrooms, high status persons typically make the jokes and low status persons laugh at the jokes. In generally,

Laugh producer = High status
Laugh consumer = Low status.

Thus, the "class clown" (or the "boardroom clown") is typically making a subversive power move. By getting others to laugh (being a laugh producer) signals High Status in the presence of the teacher or boss, the person supposed to be in charge. In short, humor production in the presence of a superior can undercut their power. (BTW, on a related note, the equation of "Laugh consumer = Low status" also explains why you cannot be giggly and be taken seriously in the business world.)

Further evidence of this is found in the work of Robert Provine (see his excellent book Laugher: A Scientific Investigation), who studied natural laugh episodes between dyads (a speaker and an one person audience). When laughter occurs in dyads, who generally laughs the most? Speakers or audiences? You would think it would be the audience. That laugher occurs when someone says something "funny." In fact, speakers laugh more than audiences. That's interesting. Generally, speakers say something and then laugh at themselves. Audiences then join in with laughter. Why might this be? Well, recall the equations above: A laugher is low status. So, when speakers laugh they signal that they are low status. We interpret this as being friendly and non-dominant. Thus, intimacy can be achieved.

Provine also uncovered a final peice of evidence concerning the association of laughter and status. Provine found it in personal ads. Generally, women seek high status males. Thus, if being a laugh producer = high status, what do you think women look for in a man? You guessed it: A sense of humor, a man who can "make me laugh." And if you look at personal ads in your local paper you can replicate Provine's study: You'll see that women are much more likely to seek a sense of humor in a potential dating partner than men are.

And this now brings us back to gentleness. In the class I suggested that we are enmeshed in subtle forms of status-seeking. We might generally think we don't seek after status, but I asked the class to reflect on their humor usage. How do they use humor to tease, demean, or undercut authority figures? Do we use humor to hurt others and to signal our dominance?

It's an interesting question.