Chapter 2 - Classic Theories of Humor

Abstract

This chapter covers the three classic theories of humor that have attempted to provide a comprehensive explanation for the entirety of humor. However, they incorporated concepts that were too vaguely or broadly defined. As a result, none of the three provided a complete or comprehensive account of humor. Each theory, however, explains something about the humor experience and calls attention to important variables and processes involved in certain humor experiences, thus providing the conceptual foundation for contemporary theory and research. Spencer’s relief theory and arousal theories that emerged from it underscore the view that humor represents a complex mind–body interaction of cognition and emotion that is rooted in the biological substrates of our brain and nervous system. Psychoanalytic theory calls our attention to the predominance of aggressive and sexual themes in jokes, suggesting that strong intrapersonal needs that lie outside conscious awareness motivate our enjoyment of such humor. Psychoanalytic theory also raised the possibility that humor can function as a protective defense mechanism against the challenges and stresses of life. Superiority theories emphasize the interpersonal motives that humor shares in the context of interpersonal and broader intergroup relationships. They laid the theoretical groundwork for contemporary theories of why we enjoy and engage in disparagement (put down) humor. Finally, incongruity theories shed light on the cognitive-perceptual processes involved in humor, identifying incongruity as minimally necessary for all humor.