What is Humour?
Where are you?
In general I am a jovial person. I enjoy lighter moments in my life. Reading jokes make me happy. I watch cartoons with kids. I love to crack jokes with my friends. But sometimes I think deeply to find answer for 'some' questions on humour. Well, what is a joke? Humour means ...what?
Here I try to find the answer. You can also supplement!
Humour is one of the stranger geological formations in the cognitive landscape. It is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. Is it gift from God? You may argue that humour cannot or should not be explained. I read some theories in the liteature. I want to share.
According to superiority theory, people believe that humour resulted when others are humiliated. By highlighting the defects in others, we raise our own status relative to the object of humour.
By incongruity theory, some believe that the topic of the joke is less important than its structural properties. Laughter occured when two incongruous concepts were somehow unified.
Modern humour theory says that humour involves the release of built-up energy. The successful joke or cartoon produces a subjective, but indisputable feeling of pleasure.
Mathematically, humiliation is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for humour. This is not true that every joke makes one feel superior. The essence of good comedy is timing.
The degree of humour declines as response time increases, consistent with anecdotal and experimental evidence. Do you agree with me?
