Have you ever laughed at a joke that you thought was hilarious only to discover that your companions were not amused? Humor may appear to be a simple concept. When it comes to comedy, you either find something hilarious or you don't, but there's a lot more to it than that. Humor can effect you in a variety of ways, from how your mind interprets a joke to how your brain is affected.
Everyone has their own sense of humor, but what factors influence which words, behaviors, or acts each person finds amusing?
Different Kinds of Humor
According to Rod Martin, a psychologist, different varieties of comedy can be employed for different objectives, and everyone has their own sense of comedy. He distinguished four distinct sorts of humor:
Affiliative - a term used to describe a group of people who work together to improve their connections.
Self-enhancing – the process of improving oneself in a given environment.
Aggressive - Sarcasm and teasing are examples of aggressive behavior directed against others.
Self-defeating — a technique for making others laugh at the expense of putting yourself down.
In the realm of comedy, the source of humor, the manner in which it is conveyed, and the context in which it is provided can result in a variety of genres, including deadpan, slapstick, satire, and smart comedy.
What factors influence our sense of humour?
As you may expect, everyone's sense of humor is unique because it is based on our life experiences. More particular, the social interactions and events to which we were exposed as children have a significant impact on what we find amusing as we get older.
A person's sense of humor is regarded to be significantly linked to their creativity, imagination, emotions, intelligence, and perspective. Humor fascinates scientists because it is extremely complicated and so fascinating to examine. Comedy is not only enjoyable to work with, but it also produces an immediate response in the brain, allowing researchers to examine it in real time.
One of the most fascinating aspects of humor is how we humans respond to it. It's more complicated than it appears, because humorous stimuli are processed by different areas of the brain.
For example, a Dartmouth neurologist allowed participants to watch Seinfeld and The Simpsons while hooked up to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment, which monitors brain activity via blood flow. As each joke was said. There were two stages in the development of the brain.
1. Detection – the left inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortices, which act as a library in the brain, are involved. It checks your knowledge bank when you see a slapstick routine or hear a hilarious sentence to see if the setup is familiar. The brain then advances to the next step if the comedians have done their job correctly.
2. Appreciation – the chemical dopamine is released, causing pressure and pleasure.
Prof. Irving Biederman of the University of Southern California and his student Ori Amir conducted an important study on the connection between comedy and neurology in 2017. They discovered that producing comedy can truly change brain function as a result of their research.
Professional comedians with improvisational talents and amateur comedians who were simply trying their hand at comedy were both included in the study. After the volunteers were connected up for MRIs, Amir and Biederman showed them cartoons from the New Yorker. The participants were then instructed to come up with two captions: one that was funny and one that was just a normal occurrence. As previously stated, when the groups came up with their responses, two areas of the brain were activated.
The medial prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for organization and top-down control, and the temporal lobe, which is responsible for speech comprehension and visual cognition, were involved in this case. The temporal lobe and the prefrontal cortex work in unison, with the temporal lobe acting as a free thinker and the prefrontal cortex keeping it under control.
Professionals, on the other hand, pulled their replies from the more freewheeling temporal lobe, whilst amateurs depended on their prefrontal brain. “The more experience you have doing comedy, the less top-down management you need to engage in, and the more you rely on your spontaneous associations,” Amir explained. These findings were intriguing because they demonstrated how brain functions might alter over time.
Humor, believe it or not, was once seen unfavorably by psychologists, who believed it to be more of a defense mechanism used to belittle others, and hence something to be avoided. While this may be true in some situations, we now know that comedy serves a variety of purposes, including establishing social bonds and even improving your health! Laughter has been shown to relax muscles and enhance the immune system in studies in the field of psychology. Stress hormones are reduced, and the risk of heart disease is reduced as well.
Having a good sense of humor can help you enhance your relationships and your physical health, as well as lower stress and anxiety and give you a more optimistic attitude on life. So keep your heart light and laugh often, since laughter is indeed the best medicine.
