Where is the funny?
Ft. Aristotle, Plato and Michael Scott
How often in your tryst with achieving “funny” do your punch lines not land? Maybe it was funnier in your head, sometimes people don’t get your sarcasm, sometimes people come across as insensitive, and sometimes grossly inappropriate. You might want to brush it off in style, but you aren’t as cool as this guy:
Where is the funny?
To understand what makes things funny is actually to understand people
What makes a joke funny? As always, Aristotle and Plato never left anything out. They had theories on this too. Their theory was pretty simple – One man’s misfortune is other person’s laughter. Psychological distance (In time and experience) from a tragedy is certainly important for it to be funny. For ex: the survivor of that funny accident video on Instagram, might not laugh at it, at least not till sometime. And, if that is the kind of humour Aristotle and Plato were surrounded with - they probably needed to check their privilege.
Woke-ness apart, their theory is true in a lot of scenarios - lot of humour depends on misfortune of others and this is consistent across the spectrum; from The Office to Taarak Mehta ka Ulta Chashma [Please forgive the blasphemy]. But this theory falls short in explaining simpler knock-knock jokes, or puns and word-plays.
Then comes up the incongruity theory. It suggests that humour arises when people discover there’s an inconsistency between what they expect to happen and what actually happens. Do not confuse this with “surprise elements” – for you might laugh at the same joke again. It is more about enjoying the disorder, the change in the norm – i.e. There is some sort of deviation or violation. This theory does make sense, it covers the misfortune part, and also word plays and puns. But it is still incomplete in a certain sense. For example, a person slipping on a banana peel and smashing his head on a rock [the incongruence] is funny if the person is back on his feet, but not when the person dies.
The Benign-Violation Theory [BVT]
The most fundamental thing about sensitivity training is that you cannot make fun of a person for something or some action that they have done that they regret. You can only make fun of things that they have control over.
Michael Scott, Regional Manager, Dunder Mifflin
McGraw and Warren have been developing and testing a general theory of humour called the Benign Violation theory. The theory builds on work by a linguist, Tom Veatch, and integrates existing humour theories to propose that humour occurs when and only when three conditions are satisfied:
(1) a situation is a violation
(2) the situation is benign, and
(3) both perceptions occur simultaneously
A violation refers to anything that threatens one’s beliefs about how things should be. The theory suggests that most violations do not amuse people. For a violation to induce humour, it also needs to seem OK, safe, acceptable, or in other words – Benign. In essence, it is about something that is wrong or different, but is also okay. Although many comedians these days use “wrong but okay” to induce humour, and then later explain why it shouldn’t be okay, but the part that brings in the amusement is the former.
The BVT covers all aspects - misfortunes, psychological distance, the incongruence and also explains why some violations aren’t funny. Another exciting insight of this theory is the answers it provides on tickling causing laughter.
What is the violation? Violation of personal space
Why is it okay? Because it benign
Why can’t you tickle yourself? Because that wouldn’t be a violation
Why don’t we feel ticklish when a stranger tickles? Because it is not benign
The book HumorCode talks about the Benign-Violation theory and the Tickle Robot experiment, amongst others.
The cost of “funny” at workplace
Employees who laugh together have been shown to be more creative, more collaborative and as a result more productive and profitable. Likewise, humour has also been shown to boost status — executives who incorporate laughter and jokes in their work (as long as they are appropriate in nature) garner more support for their initiatives, are better at motivating employees, make more money, and get promoted more quickly.
But violations or deviations are called so, because they are not the norm or the ideal. While it may be benign, what it could also do is to normalise deviation, and lead to bad behaviour. Poorly thought out humour leads to perceiving certain deviant behaviours being acceptable. It can also act as a powerful signal to team members that it’s OK to break the rules in negative ways – and look cool doing it. For example, a one-off joke during lunch about an irate customer can set a bad example for any customer facing team, even if the direct orders from you clearly say “Customers first”
The case is NOT to stop using humour. In fact, we promote it. But when you do so - either do like the comedians do i.e. use the deviant behaviour to create humour but explain why it’s not okay, or try non-business humour. Whatever suits your style.
“Humor is a tool to help make your way in the world, to ease pain, to find social support”
-Peter McGraw, Behavioural Scientist & Director – Humour Research Lab