Humor theories can be summarized in 3 points: 1) Humor arises from incongruity or things that violate our expectations and resolutions that make sense of the incongruity. Common features of humor include ambiguity, exaggeration, surprise, and word play. 2) Humor serves psychological functions like establishing superiority, gaining control, and bonding as well as intellectual functions like teaching, making connections, and comparing interpretations. 3) The subjects that are commonly joked about, like ethnicity, gender, occupations, and taboo topics, reveal areas of social discomfort and allow people to test attitudes in a low-stakes way.

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Humor Theories
by Don L. F. Nilsen and
Alleen Pace Nilsen

2. WHIMSY
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3. Whimsical Don and Alleen
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THE NATURE OF HUMOR
• FEATURES = CHARACTERISTICS
• FUNCTIONS = THE PURPOSE(S)
• SUBJECTS = THE TOPIC(S)

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AN IMPORTANT FEATURE OF
HUMOR IS INCONGRUITY AND
INCONGRUITY RES0LUTION
• Consider an umbrella in a severe
rain and wind storm.
• We feel tension until we put things
right—at least in our mind’s eye—
as with the kitten on the next slide.

7. Machinification: Monorail LOL Cat
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8. Other Features of Humor
• Ambiguity
• Exaggeration
• Understatement
• Hostility
• Incongruity or
Irony
• Situation-Insight
• Sudden Insight
• Superiority
• Surprise or Shock
• Tension and
Relief
• A Trick or Twist
• Word Play
• Visual Imagery
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9. Metaphor: “Pool Table”
Features:
•Ambiguity
•Sudden Insight
•Surprise
•Visual Imagery
•Word Play
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10. Pun: “Eye Pod”
Features
•Ambiguity
•Incongruity
•Surprise
•Visual Imagery
•Word Play
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A century ago, philosopher Thomas Hobbes
said that an important feature of humor was
laughing at those we feel are inferior to us.
This was known as the “Superiority Theory.”
• Later philosophers, including Frances Hutcheson, argue that
what we are really laughing about is incongruity.
• We do not go to asylums to laugh at the “inferior” beings, nor
do we laugh at animals unless they resemble human beings.
• We laugh at someone who slips on a banana peel not because
we feel superior, but because of the incongruity between our
expectations and the sudden insight.

12. “The Rule of Three” is another common feature
of humor illustrated in this cartoon.
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13. Another Rule of Three Joke
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14. Incongruity and
Incongruity Resolution
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15. Dog-Related Incongruity
and Incongruity Resulution
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16. Functions of Humor
PSYCHOLOGICAL
•To amuse
•To establish
superiority
•To gain control
•To persuade
•To save face
•To test limits
•To inbond/outbond
INTELLECTUAL
•To amuse
•To teach
•To make connections
•To compare two
scripts—one
metaphorical, one
straight-forward
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An Important Literary Function
relates to Double Entendre.
• “The text of a joke is always fully or in part
compatible with two distinct scripts and the
two scripts are opposed to each other in a
special way.”
• “The punch line triggers the switch from the
one script to the other by making the hearer
backtrack and realize that a different
interpretation [of the joke] was possible from
the very beginning.”
Attardo and Raskin [1991] 308

18. A Real-Life Example of the
Usefulness of Two Scripts
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19. Accidental humor occurs when the creator and
the receiver have different scripts in mind.
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20. The impossibility in this picture causes
tension, until we realize that it is a joke.
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The Function of Disparaging
Oneself.
Self-disparagement humor illustrates how it is not
always easy to recognize the functions of humor. On
the surface, it appears to be humbling oneself, but
oftentimes the mock-humility really puts the speaker in
a position of power as in these commercials:
•Terminex Pest Control: “When you think of
pests, think of us.”
•Twist Lemon-Menthol Cigarettes: “Our new
menthol is a lemon.”

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• Champion International Trend Carpet:
“Eight million people walked all over us.
And they don’t even know our name.”
• Quaker Oats as a diet food: “Quaker
Oats: Breakfast of losers.”
• Simmons bunk beds: “Simmons beds are a
lot of bunk.”

23. Educators Use Humor To:
• Relax Students
• Teach Facts
• Argue and Persuade
• Teach Vocabulary
Concepts
• Teach Careful
Observation
• Model Problem
Solving
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24. This Egg-to-Bird picture first causes tension,
followed by a smile of relief as we “catch on.”
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25. Real vs. Unreal
• This is an amusing
lesson in careful
observation.
• What are the clues
that it is a painting?
• Were such paintings
precursors to
today’s PhotoShop
fun?
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JONATHAN WINTERS--STICK PROP:
http://biggeekdad.com/2013/04/jonathan-winters-stick/#.UXfWSphGZzg.email

27. SUBJECTS OF HUMOR
The subjects we
joke about are the
very subjects that
we hesitate to talk
about in real life.
To test out the
attitudes of new
friends, we often
send up “trial
balloons” disguised
as jokes.
– Ethnic Identification
– Politics
– Sexual Roles and
Scatology
– Occupations
– Religion and Belief
Systems
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What subjects do the two fish
shapes on this car speak to?

29. Jokes Reveal Current Areas of
Social Discomfort
OLD TABOOS
•Vulgarities
•Swear Words
•Body Parts
•Sex
•Religion
•Obscenities
NEW TABOOS
•Lack of Patriotism
•GLBTQ Issues
•Disabilities
•Ethnicities
•Old People
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30. Hot Potato Humor—Based on Metaphors
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31. The epiphany comes in this political joke with the
explanation that the maple leaf design is a silhouette of
Jack and Jacque arguing over English vs. French.
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32. Humor Theory:
The Sciences vs. The Humanities
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34. Hate Speech Vs. Humor
• The subject matter that people choose to joke about
goes a long ways in determining whether they are
using humor as release of moderate levels of
discomfort, or whether they are really engaging in
“hate-speech” disguised as humor.
• The important question to ask is whether the humor
is used to weaken the target or strengthen the target.
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35. In conclusion
Here are two paradigm Shifts
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