[cheschire]

The most comprehensive theory I have seen is that laughter, and therefore humor, is primarily a fear response.

It starts as an infant when you laugh by having your surface nerves rapidly engaged through tickling. Even peakaboo is a fear game due to the child’s lack of object permanence.

When you examine all funny things through the lens of fear, it becomes an interesting logic exercise to draw a connection between the humor you see and how it may or may not be connected to fear.

Consider all of your examples through that lens.

[josephg]

> The most comprehensive theory I have seen is that laughter, and therefore humor, is primarily a fear response.

I’ve been practicing / performing improv comedy for about 5 years now. Keith Johnson style, not UCB style.

Newbies always try to be clever, but being clever is a total trap. The moments that always get the biggest laughs are when you acknowledge something that was already in the room. The audience had a thought - or a proto thought - “where did the umbrella go?” “I thought his name was Fred?” “But why is the duck talking?”. When you acknowledge it on stage, with lightness and connection, you get mad laughter.

I think you’re right about the fear thing. I think doing this acknowledges some deep fear of being alone, or stupid, or something. As a performer, when we make you whole, and do it in a way that feels easy and comfortable, I think, just for a moment, it makes that fear go away. And that’s what the audience is responding to when they laugh. There’s an old line from clowning: “When the performer breathes, the audience breathes.” I think it’s deeper than that. When the performer demonstrates being deeply ok with themselves, the audience believes it might be possible for them too.

[emnudge]

This is a very interesting way of putting it.

The way I’ve explained it is “unserious surprise” which also fits with this.

https://emnudge.dev/blog/a-grand-theory-of-humor/

[nfin]

I’ve had some thoughts in that direction.

Super interesting!

I thought about it for jokes, as the reaction is quick (just system 1 and very maybe for more complex jokes it’s system 2 understanding the joke and then system 1 laughing… but then it might not spontenous enough to lough out loud), didn’t though about that for “all funny things”.

Do you have some sources detailng this more?

[cheschire]

Oh I couldn’t tell you the original source, it was well over a decade ago that I first heard it. Briefly searching though gave some interesting results.

Here’s a study that identified an unintended consequence of an antismoking fear campaign:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5844502/

Here’s a study that looks at this relationship from a therapeutic perspective:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38840335/

And of course dozens of blog posts exist trying to explain it in a more accessible way.

[theultdev]

It's common knowledge (or used to be) that humor is a healthy coping mechanism for fear and dark/uncomfortable situations.

In other words; comical relief.