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From: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: MATHEMATICS AND HUMOR by John Allen Paulos
Message-ID: <16398@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Sep-85 10:11:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.16398
Posted: Thu Sep 12 10:11:34 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Sep-85 03:16:29 EDT
References: <1117@mtgzz.UUCP> <1095@ulysses.UUCP>
Reply-To: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 37

[...]

One of the most interesting theories of humour that I've heard is in
The Naked Ape (by Desmond Morris).  He notes that an ape's smile is
anything but amused; in fact, apes "smile" to bare their teeth when
they are afraid. The connectionn between "amusement" and fear is also
seen in infants.  Infants laugh when they are in a scary situation
that is made unscary by the presence of a parent.  For example, babies
tend to laugh if a parent holds them high up or swoops them through the
air.  They laugh playing peekaboo when something suddenly appears in
front of them, but it's a friendly face (or the parent is nearby).
If you have children at home, try it -- if your appearance isn't
sudden, they won't laugh (no shock of surprise).  And of course, the
baby will not laugh if it doesn't feel safe (it will cry if picked up
by a stranger or if a stranger tries to play peekaboo).

Morris concludes that laughter and "amusement" result when we come
across something that would normally scare us when we know we are
perfectly safe.  This explains why so many jokes involve someone being
hurt or embarassed -- we subconsciously identify with the victim, but we
know we are safe, so we laugh.  If the joke is too crude for us to make
this identification, we don't laugh.  If the joke is too grisly for us
to feel comfortable, at best we will give a nervous laugh (another natural
association of fear and laughter).

Of course, there are many forms of humour which aren't so easy to interpret
according to this model...puns, for example.  Quite possibly, our reflex
to laugh at most surprises makes word play surprises humourous eventually
(although we have to build into it).  It would be interesting to make a
survey of the ages at which children laugh at certain kinds of jokes.  I
suspect that there are jokes that children could get (they have the necessary
background knowledge) but that they don't laugh at because their structure
of fears and humour reflexes have not sufficiently developed.

				Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo