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Humor arises from incongruity or unexpected relationships between ideas that are resolved as a joke. Common features of humor include displacement, where the obvious interpretation is replaced by a less expected one. While humor gets people's attention and creates rapport, allowing greater influence, it also has disadvantages. Being funny all the time is pressure, and humor should not derail serious topics or offend. Historically humor was seen negatively, but modern psychology sees laughter positively as a way to discharge nervous energy and make conflicts harmless. Appreciation of humor depends on cultural and group perspectives, and men and women tell different types of jokes to achieve social goals.

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40 views

Topic 4

Humor arises from incongruity or unexpected relationships between ideas that are resolved as a joke. Common features of humor include displacement, where the obvious interpretation is replaced by a less expected one. While humor gets people's attention and creates rapport, allowing greater influence, it also has disadvantages. Being funny all the time is pressure, and humor should not derail serious topics or offend. Historically humor was seen negatively, but modern psychology sees laughter positively as a way to discharge nervous energy and make conflicts harmless. Appreciation of humor depends on cultural and group perspectives, and men and women tell different types of jokes to achieve social goals.

Uploaded by

Марина Светличная
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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For humour to exist, there must be an essential incongruity – an unexpected conflict or inconsistency

between two ideas which is resolved as a joke. This may come about because the punch line bears an
unexpected relationship to the opening part of the story. This corny old joke also relies on a simple double
meaning:
- My dog has no nose. – Then how does he smell? – Terrible!
Another regular feature of humour is ‘displacement’. Here the most obvious interpretation of the
situation is displaced by a less obvious or expected one. Take, for example, a typical psychiatrist joke:
- Doctor, I keep thinking that there are two of me. – OK, but don’t both speak at once.

There is no doubt that humor is an important thing in our life, and it is one of very helpful values in
our society , this value has a lot of advantages as well as some disadvantages.
To begin with, humor gets people to listen. Studies of persuasion have revealed that humorous
people are perceived as being more likeable, and this in turn enables them to have greater influence. Humour
reduces people’s feelings of threat and anxiety and establishes a more relaxed relationship. Both trust and
attraction increase. And thus you can win concessions.
Secondly, homour is useful in opening conversations both with the same and the opposite sex.
Establishing a relaxed mood helps a relationship to develop quickly.
Thirdly, if you can get people to laugh with you, then you have already established a degree of
leadership. With the help of humour you can improve your image and standing in conversation with a group
of friends.
Besides, humor enhance one’s ability to solve problems , studies have shown that simply watching
comedy films can improve creative problem solving skills.
On other hand, humor has some disadvantages. Being funny, is not always that easy. The funnier you
are, the more expect you to be funny all of the time. It’s a lot of pressure sometimes, people approach you
just because they feel like laughing, and when you don’t come through, then they become disappointed.
Besides, funny people have bad moods too.
What is more, humor is good thing, but when there is a case for it. You should not joke all the time,
because you can derail serious conversations. When a person is waiting for your support, making fun of
issues doesn’t make them go away.
Moreover, you may not be correctly understood. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’. The same can
be said about the word. You can make a remark which is only funny to you and end up offending people.

Talking about positive and negative nature of humor, I can say that historically, humour has often
been seen in a very negative way. For example, about two and a half thousand years ago, Plato, the famous
Greek philosopher, wrote about the ‘malevolent nature of homour’. For him, it meant trying to give yourself
a sense of superiority by making fun of other people, and he taught that only people of lesser worth did this.
Today this negative side of humour is used while bullying.
Modern psychology, however, regards humour with more respect. Sigmund Freud, the founder of
psychoanalysis, saw laughter as a means of safely discharging nervous energy. It provides relief and self-
gratification and makes potentially damaging conflicts harmless.

Answering the question about why do we see the funny side of jokes, I can say that we find humor in
things that are unexpected to our brain. Basically, we find humor in the incongruity between our
expectations and reality. I have already gave examples of such jokes at the beginning of my speech. What is
more, sometimes jokes are funny for us because they're true. These jokes are used be comedians, especially
by “Квартал 95”.
But as we know, all nations see jokes differently. And if something is funny for the Ukrainians, it
won’t be so for the Americans and vice versa. It can be explained by such studies as psycho- and
ethnolinguistics. Appreciation of humour depends very much on your reference point. Group loyalties,
political opinions and ethnic background, all influence the way a joke is received and how funny people find
it. Different nations have different picture of the world. We understand the world differently and jokes are
not an exception.

In addition I can also say, that men and women both enjoy and tell different types of jokes.
The sense of a joke for a man is to gain top status. From the very early age, boys learn about competition
and develop skills for resolving conflict. They tend to play in groups with a hierarchical structure. When
boys negotiate, it is about trying to achieve or maintain the upper hand and to protect themselves from
others’ attempts to put them down. Men use humor to give negative feedback or to knock down a peg
someone who is trying to take a dominant position over them. Their humour is rough.
Women, on the other hand, use humor to connect. Girls play games that emphasize the importance of
cooperation and the development of noncompetitive skills. Negotiation is to resolve conflict, to gain support,
to close a rift, to be closer and to gain consensus. Although there are hierarchies in their world, girls’
hierarchies are of friendship rather than of power and accomplishment.
In conclusion I would like to say, that for all of us humour is not only an invaluable social tool, it
also provides a useful way of coping with personal frustrations and emotional difficulties. Making a joke
about a problem enables us to communicate the nature of our true feelings to others. And by laughing about
them, we achieve a more relaxed mood in which we are better able to understand and resolve conflicts.

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