How did you come up with the mathematical formulation for humor? This is not specific to your theory but, I think, a question worth asking whenever such a formula is presented and claimed to be fully explanatory—and presenting a flawed formula in such cases can detract from good analysis. There is now a long history in the mass media of “Scientists have found the formula for _” without sufficient quantitative data, as illustrated in this 2004 article from the Daily Telegraph.
And then, one may quibble about the boundary cases of a proposed explanatory formula without having to take seriously the argument that went into it—for example consider what happens as Anxiety approaches a value of zero as you mention in the first paper. Is this intentional? It seems problematic to require a kludge (“Anxiety +1”).
That said, I like the treatment of different theories and how they fail to account for different kinds of humor—and the analysis of how status loss may play a crucial role. Voted up because ultimately your post got me thinking in unexpected directions.
The equation doesn’t have measurable units but instead represents the proportions and relationships of the variables. Any other study or article that uses some formula may or may not be a good idea, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think this form allows me to say the most in the least amount of space. (By contrast, there was a study going around recently that spoke about the “formula for happiness,” with the “equation” using what seemed like 10 variables and tons of complex notation that seemed to probably take more work to use than to simply write it out).
Re: Anxiety approaching zero, it’s not intentional because you can end up in a tangential argument about what feeling amounts to “zero anxiety” then claiming that should make your head explode because the equation is undefined, so I’d rather offer an alternate form just to try to avoid spending time on that. Having said though, in paper 2 we mention Nitrous Oxide which seems to lower anxiety beneath our natural levels and has the side effect of making people laugh at all kinds of inappropriate and abnormal things. So artificial lower of anxiety DOES seem to amplify the overall humor people feel.
I am replying to myself because this is a different point, but still based on the question of how anxiety ought to modulate humor. How does your theory deal with the role of humor to break tension or deal with extreme adversity? These situations should probably be considered high in anxiety and thus should be more “humor-resistant” if I understand your theory.
As an example, an older relative of mine, having been diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s: “Well at least I won’t wander off, as I can’t get out of my wheelchair”. This was hilariously funny at the time, and broke an awkward, painful, anxious silence. Similarly, humor on the battlefield, or among prisoners of war is well attested and also seems to be problematic under these terms.
A good thing to bring up. There’s several reasons this could occur, mainly because laughter communicates to others how much anxiety someone is feeling at the moment.
In the example of your relative, you were probably quiet because you don’t know what anyone else is thinking, for the person in question to tell a joke (or someone close to it), lets you know that they themselves aren’t utterly depressed at that moment and thus lowers your own anxiety. Which probably readied you to laugh as well.
An attempted joke at a horribly wrong time, if it’s a big enough fail to overcome small amounts of anxiety, can make you potentially laugh at the person telling the joke for their utter lack of awareness. This is why a lot of comedy skits feature people doing stupid things at funerals.
At the actual moment when you feel highest anxiety though, such as when your loved one actually dies or the moment when it’s diagnosed, I would suggest that you won’t laugh at a tension breaking joke. It requires time for that feeling to fade a bit and for everyone to be unsure about how other people feel about things.
EDIT: I thought about this one in the shower. There’s also the possibility that your relative wasn’t joking, in which case you’d probably laugh (and I would too) because you expected them to be thinking much more dire thoughts. And the fact that their own response was a true result of a pragmatic, shoulder-shrugging type of analysis (not having to worry about getting lost due to being wheelchair bound), added validity to the idea that they were thinking about it that way. This would trigger us to laugh at our own expectations being so totally wrong. My own instinct is to say “oh, so that’s it?” while I’m laughing, which also points to this being the reason.
How did you come up with the mathematical formulation for humor? This is not specific to your theory but, I think, a question worth asking whenever such a formula is presented and claimed to be fully explanatory—and presenting a flawed formula in such cases can detract from good analysis. There is now a long history in the mass media of “Scientists have found the formula for _” without sufficient quantitative data, as illustrated in this 2004 article from the Daily Telegraph.
And then, one may quibble about the boundary cases of a proposed explanatory formula without having to take seriously the argument that went into it—for example consider what happens as Anxiety approaches a value of zero as you mention in the first paper. Is this intentional? It seems problematic to require a kludge (“Anxiety +1”).
That said, I like the treatment of different theories and how they fail to account for different kinds of humor—and the analysis of how status loss may play a crucial role. Voted up because ultimately your post got me thinking in unexpected directions.
The equation doesn’t have measurable units but instead represents the proportions and relationships of the variables. Any other study or article that uses some formula may or may not be a good idea, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think this form allows me to say the most in the least amount of space. (By contrast, there was a study going around recently that spoke about the “formula for happiness,” with the “equation” using what seemed like 10 variables and tons of complex notation that seemed to probably take more work to use than to simply write it out).
Re: Anxiety approaching zero, it’s not intentional because you can end up in a tangential argument about what feeling amounts to “zero anxiety” then claiming that should make your head explode because the equation is undefined, so I’d rather offer an alternate form just to try to avoid spending time on that. Having said though, in paper 2 we mention Nitrous Oxide which seems to lower anxiety beneath our natural levels and has the side effect of making people laugh at all kinds of inappropriate and abnormal things. So artificial lower of anxiety DOES seem to amplify the overall humor people feel.
I am replying to myself because this is a different point, but still based on the question of how anxiety ought to modulate humor. How does your theory deal with the role of humor to break tension or deal with extreme adversity? These situations should probably be considered high in anxiety and thus should be more “humor-resistant” if I understand your theory.
As an example, an older relative of mine, having been diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s: “Well at least I won’t wander off, as I can’t get out of my wheelchair”. This was hilariously funny at the time, and broke an awkward, painful, anxious silence. Similarly, humor on the battlefield, or among prisoners of war is well attested and also seems to be problematic under these terms.
A good thing to bring up. There’s several reasons this could occur, mainly because laughter communicates to others how much anxiety someone is feeling at the moment.
In the example of your relative, you were probably quiet because you don’t know what anyone else is thinking, for the person in question to tell a joke (or someone close to it), lets you know that they themselves aren’t utterly depressed at that moment and thus lowers your own anxiety. Which probably readied you to laugh as well.
An attempted joke at a horribly wrong time, if it’s a big enough fail to overcome small amounts of anxiety, can make you potentially laugh at the person telling the joke for their utter lack of awareness. This is why a lot of comedy skits feature people doing stupid things at funerals.
At the actual moment when you feel highest anxiety though, such as when your loved one actually dies or the moment when it’s diagnosed, I would suggest that you won’t laugh at a tension breaking joke. It requires time for that feeling to fade a bit and for everyone to be unsure about how other people feel about things.
EDIT: I thought about this one in the shower. There’s also the possibility that your relative wasn’t joking, in which case you’d probably laugh (and I would too) because you expected them to be thinking much more dire thoughts. And the fact that their own response was a true result of a pragmatic, shoulder-shrugging type of analysis (not having to worry about getting lost due to being wheelchair bound), added validity to the idea that they were thinking about it that way. This would trigger us to laugh at our own expectations being so totally wrong. My own instinct is to say “oh, so that’s it?” while I’m laughing, which also points to this being the reason.