Theories of Humor

Theories of humor

Humor has many theories to explain what would be considered humorous, because there are many people who don’t have sense of humor. Theories that explain the existence of humor are: psychological theories, considering humor to be very healthy and spiritual theories, considering the humor is a “gift from god”. Various classical theories of humor and laughter may be found: relief theory, superiority theory and incongruity theory.

The relief theory states laughter is a mechanism to reduce your tension. For example, humor facilitates reliefing your tension caused by your fear.

The superiority theory says that people laugh about misfortunes of others because when a bad thing happens to a person, the other person laughs because the person thinks he or she is superior. Aristoteles thought, people laughed at inferior or ugly people because people fell superior to them. Plato thought it was a display of self-ignorance.

The incongruity theory considered laughter as a response to the perception of incongruity. Perceived incongruity is between a concept and the real object it represents, but concept as an “appearance” and belived that laughter totally negates that appearance. Laughter is an “economical phenomenon” whose functions is to release “psychic energy” that has been wrongly mobilized by incorrect or false expections.

The humor can be a form of defense mechanism, a set of expressions of ideas and feelings that give pleasure to others. Humor has many theories, but no one exactly explains what is that or if that exists. I tkink this happens because there are many people who don’t believe in humor