Humour is an act of aggression | Hacker News Reader

Humour is an act of aggression

telegraph.co.uk

39 pointsnreece47 comments

The study seems to say that whether a person uses humor (and what kind) depends on their place in the social hierarchy. But that is a far cry from saying that the purpose of humor is to define the hierarchy.

Similarly, the type of food people eat reflects their social standing, but the purpose of food clearly isn't to define the social hierarchy.

>but the purpose of food clearly isn't to define the social hierarchy.

Actually food is used to define social hierarchy in many groups and societies - mainly the order in which it is eaten. The head of the family eats first and gets the largest piece of the chicken.

In many groups, the head of the family eats last and gets the smallest piece of the chicken.

P.S. I'm using humour for self-defence.

I think I remember that Leeeeeroy Jenkins was not the leader of the group, but he was the only one to have chicken.

> Actually food is used to define social hierarchy in many groups and societies - mainly the order in which it is eaten. The head of the family eats first and gets the largest piece of the chicken.

So you're saying that the hierarchy would not exist except for the food? The OP's post said that humor, like food, _reflects_ an existing hierarchy, and, as far as I can see, this dinner table hierarchy would exist regardless of the food.

The hierarchy would exist - yes. But the order in which food is eaten reinforces the hierarchy - no?

No.

The order in which the food is eaten is simply a reflection of the hierarchy. One eats first because one is the king. One does not become the king by eating first.

You can certainly signal your intent to assume the position by eating ahead of your position. And if you do get away with it, chances are you will be the next king.

Same with humor. Review the material on the use of pornography and humor in the French Revolution.

[edit grammar]

The telegraphs summary seems like your standard effort to simplify a complex signaling action into a simpler action.

Real research, on things like game theory, actually has shown how a single signal can have multiple functions that vary depending on the context. This "research" is clearly not aware of these modern advances...

Uh, and the funniest thing is that the only article in the "Journal Of Pragmatics" that I could find said just the opposite: "Humor serves a wide range of functions at work, one of which is to foster collegiality. An analysis of interactions in New Zealand workplaces showed that one of the most important functions of humor was the construction and maintenance of good relations with fellow workers. " ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... )

When integrating dogs into a new group, trainers often intentionally create a specific hierarchy. This serves to keep the dogs from creating it themselves via fighting, and can allow for one dog to be a leader, for example if you need them to cooperate in pulling a sled.

One of the key ways of creating the hierarchy is to feed the alpha dog first, and only feed the other dogs when the alpha dog is done. This is of course not the only way to create a hierarchy, and as you point out one would exist even if food was so abundant that it wasn't an issue.

In my experience, the head of the family feeds the kids first, eats a salad and a breadstick, then eats a full meal off of what's left on the kids' plates.

A British programmer, a French engineer, and a German "pragmatic scientist" are in a bar. The programmer and the engineer are arguing about whose country will be next to put a man on the moon. After a while, they asked the German "pragmatic scientist" why his country wasn't in the race. "We're going to the sun," he said. "The sun?" they asked incredulously, "You'll burn up before you even get close!" "Oh, no," he replied, "We're going at night."

That's the purpose of humor. When something is so absurd that there's no other way to deal with it, we turn it into the joke that it really is. OP provides perfect fodder.

That's a great joke - in fact I've never heard it before. But, at the risk of being a spoilsport, the OP is not completely absurd, and neither is the original version of this joke. Googling, I found two common versions of this joke. The first two in the bar are invariably an American and a Russian (countries with a prestigious history of space exploration). The third person is either:

  1) a blonde
  2) an Irishman

Now it's no longer just absurd, it's making joke at others' expense. Blondes (in the US) and the Irish (in the UK) are stereotypically dumb. (Maybe there's a French version involving a Belgian?) It's still funny for sure, but there's more to it than harmless absurdity.

edit: I found the French version: http://www.blague.info/blagues/humour/drole-2228.html

OP is not completely absurd

When something stupid gets posted to hn, some of the instant responses typically include:

  - stupid
  - not hacker news
  - a sample size of one means nothing
  - ameteur ramblings
  - belongs on digg or reddit
  - correlation != causation
  - citings?
  - anecdotal, not scientific
  - fail
  - flagged (not only do they flag, they comment that they have flagged)

I've been reading hn for years, and OP is the most absurb thing I've ever read here. All of the above apply. But since it was about humor, I just turned it into the joke that it already is.

I think you're wrong on this one. I think the OP is on target and your joke is an example of its validity. I also think your posting of typical responses is you establishing your position in the HN hierarchy. Since you can list all of those typical responses, obviously you have been here longer and since you've been here longer, you're the man dogg.

You also belittle the OP calling it stupid. It's not stupid. It's the result of perhaps many years of research by people who are patient and observant.

The article echoes the feeling many, including myself, have had when making a joke in front of a superior and gotten that stern look of someone who feels their power being subverted. "I want people to feel my wrath and you are cracking jokes..." It's a subtle show of disrespect of the social order.

It's also poignant because we've probably all been in situations where we were compelled to laugh at a joke that wasn't funny to show our allegiance to the joke teller. This happens a lot when someone is making a joke at another's expense. If everyone laughs, then all is okay, the leader is still in charge. But if someone doesn't laugh, then everyone knows who is really on the side of right. Laughing at bad jokes shows loyalty and disregard for honesty at the gain of social credibility.

The Scholastics beleived that humor resulted from the sudden realization of one's own superiority. When one suddenly 'discovers' that one is better than a person or situation, one laughs. When you listen to this joke you sudden;y realize how foolish the 'pragmatic scientist' is and laugh.

I think that it is absurd to claim that humor's purpose for human beings is as a means of establishing hierarchy, but it doesn't surprise that might be used in establishing it.

All said, this article was a waste of my time.

Are you trying to prove your better than me with that joke? Am I supposed to sit here and take that sort of abuse?

Humor at the expense of others CAN be an act of aggression.

Good natured jokes made by a manager to make his or her employees feel at ease is a demonstration of people skills. People use humor in stressful situations not necessarily because they want to be in charge, but to actually lighten the tension. How is that aggression?

There are so many obvious situations of humor being anything BUT aggression. This is a completely ridiculous statement stating the exception to the norm as the general rule.

"Cars are used to kill people" "Food is poison" "Headlines are linkbait"

Agreed, from what I've witnessed, humour is usually used in a form of empathising with peers or a form of group-initiation (new people tend to get poked fun of to see if they're good natured vis a vis a good fit in the group). I tell the joke about how I set a boiling pan of water alight (it's true, and I'm not sure how) because I'm a far better cook than most of my friends; I use the joke to actually reduce any social imbalance because I make it at my own expense. I could easily make a joke at my friend's expense, but then we likely wouldn't be friends for very long.

There is a very big difference between being fun and making fun. The OP IMO is way off, perhaps this is the social norm in Germany, but in Anglo-culture most jokes are self-deprecating. It's rare that aggressive (belittling or demeaning) jokes are made and go over well, people in senior positions using this type of humour are at risk, in fact it's one of the main reasons employers get sued because it frequently creates a hostile work environment. If you think your joke is so funny that you want to get sued over it, well I believe it's still a self-depreciating joke, because either way the joke ended up on you, but it depreciated your bank account too.

The few exceptions when aggressive jokes are allowed and found funny is usually between close friends or family and it's usually classed as a roasting joke where the entire point is that they're respected more for showing their good nature.

Comedy on TV is very different from comedy in real life. The reason why most doctors don't crack jokes is because they're insured to work, if they start insulting their subordinates with aggressive jokes, their insurance goes up and the same is with almost any antisocial behaviour, because the insurance company is thinking "How long until this idiot calls an obese patient a tub of lard and we have to fork out a hundred-thousand dollars to shut the patient up".

The only place I can realistically see ill-natured joking being accepted is in a school. The social hierarchy in schools is often based on it, in fact.

But in the real world, I agree with you. (What does that say about our education system? Sigh.) (Actually, it probably says more about slowing rates of maturity and development in the general population. I still blame the education system, though. =P)

I agree there's probably a lot of blame to bare on the education system. Packing 700+ students into a school with barely 30 adults (including janitors) isn't a realistic representation of society. There's barely 1 child per adult in the western world, but our education system gives 30 or more children to a single adult that hasn't even had a child of their own.

How can you expect to raise 30 kids when you haven't even raised 1. It's ludicrous.

> ... about how I set a boiling pan of water alight

I demand an explanation!

Well the first time happened whilst camping, the pan had had lots of oil in it and a few different kinds (no like lamp oil, just cooking oils). It was above a hot fire, because the temperature had got down to -1C in the night and the water was almost frozen. The flames licked over the edge and the surface of the water, I pulled it out of the fire and left it sat on the ground for a few seconds until it burnt out. We soaked the wood in lighter fluid, so if it was just the fumes gathering in the air pocket or something I don't know.

The second time was less mysterious. The pan had been used for a flambé the night before, I just added water and put it on the heat. I believe I flambé'd water . . . still tasted like water, no new beverage discovery.

For the love of god, does everything now-a-days have to be about how someone is oppressing someone else, blah, blah, blah.

Being politically correct is like trying to pick up the clean end of a turd.

I don't see the social hierarchy as a form of oppression. And I don't see how this says anything about political correctness, either.

I'm not at the top of the ladder. I'm not particularly funny, and I'm not particularly cool. But social domination, on the part of anyone, doesn't really feel like oppression, to me.

Can you explain your POV a little more?

While they didn't outright mention oppression or political correctness, those terms often go hand in hand with a term like "aggression".

The author also mentions: "But both sexes use comedy as a means of controlling others".

The authors also imply that men do it to be mean because they make jokes about others, but women are wholly innocent because they only make jokes about themselves.

"Aggression" and "Controlling Others" have negative connotations and to equate them with humor in general is unfortunate. The authors of this study need to lighten up.

I've evolved a self deprecating style of humor, mostly because I like to make people laugh without unintentionally stepping on anyone's toes.

Does that make me a dissociative schizophrenic in a power struggle with myself? (actually, after typing that out, that kinda describes who I am to some extent. "whoa." -keanu)

I've always thought of humor as a way of gaining trust. A joke that succeeds proves that you share a common understanding about some aspect of life. This is why explaining a joke never works (if you have to explain it, it proves you didn't understand each other), and why it's much easier to get a friend to laugh than a stranger; if someone already knows and trusts you, any little thing will remind them of that trust. It's also why insider jokes are only funny to insiders; they are a way of proving shared knowledge and cannot work without it.

It sounds like these researchers showed a special case of this: if you want be the leader in a situation then you need to be able to get people to trust you, so naturally would-be leaders will tell jokes in an attempt to create and reinforce trust. Also, if you're not a leader and you tell a joke then it could be considered a challenge by an insecure leader, so this will be avoided by people who don't want to rock the boat. But to say that jokes are only about aggression is too much. If everyone in the group is comfortable telling jokes then that's a sign that there's a lot of mutual trust.

"The research, which was published in the Journal of Pragmatics, suggest that the role of humour is not to make other people laugh as much as it is to make others know who is in charge."

Please, really. So, everytime somebody asks for a joke we are now to interpret this person as being subordinate ?

Humour has since time immemorial been a way for people to relieve tension and to deal with the hardships in life.

To reduce it to 'an act of aggression' suggests the author should take some of their own medicine and laugh a little more at life and take themselves less serious.

The study, which has apparently been conducted in Germany by an 'expert in genderlinguistics' (is there such a thing) according to this page:

http://www.gender-in-gestufte-studiengaenge.de/expertin_beis...

makes me feel sad for my neighbours to the east. Too many jokes have already been made about the Germans not having a sense of humour (in spite of an enormous body of 'witzen' and the general German traditions), no need to fuel the fires.

I did laugh myself when I saw it was a German study.

That said, Germans have a fantastic sense of humor - it's just a bit different than the English-speaking Western humor. It's more dry and more casually draws attention to something that's a bit funny anyways - so you get your attention drawn to it... not sure why for a second... then people start laughing.

The timing/pacing is a bit different too - for me, it seems like the German pacing is frequently either - "ok, I'm telling a joke" (like a traditional standup comedian's pacing). Or it's dropping a joke into the middle of a seemingly serious conversdation without switching tone to convey storytelling - so it kind of sneaks up on you sometimes.

From my limited time in Germany, it seemed to me like there's less sarcasm and irony in German humor, and more highlighting nonsensical or tense situations. I didn't really "get" it at first, but once I did I had a right good time. Very nice and friendly people too, once you acclimate to the cultural differences.

At the risk of coming across as agressive:

q: How often does an Englishman laugh at a joke ?

a: Once, he laughs out of politeness, he'll never get it

q: How often does a German laugh at a joke ?

a: Twice. Once when you tell the joke, out of politeness, the second time when he thinks he gets it, but he'll never get it.

q: How often does a Jewish guy laugh at a joke ?

a: Not at all, he already knows the joke ;)

I think the article could use better terminology. Aggression is not really the right term. (Probably some lost-in-translation happening here...)

But the article's subtitle is something that does seem pretty spot on - and makes you think a bit:

"telling jokes is a method of reinforcing a social hierarchy"

And as erlanger's comment says - the end of the article crystallizes the meaning pretty well:

"Nurses and midwives tend to tell jokes about patients but not when the doctor is present. And when someone initiates a joke they tend to be ignored if they are in the presence of someone of a higher status."

There are many things that are cultural and that you'd need to see in the context of the region where the events occur. In Germany for instance, the business culture is quite formal and 'stiff' compared to the countries around it, and I can easily imagine that to be the case there.

But in other countries in that region (say, Poland, Belgium or the Netherlands) you'll find a completely different culture.

In Germany for instance in many firms even today it is still very customary to indicate a senior in the company with 'Sie', the polite form 'du' would be frowned upon unless it has been explicitly stated that that is permitted.

I seriously wonder how much of the report should simply be viewed through a German cultural lens in the region where the research was conducted, instead of used as a universal set of truths regarding humour the way the article suggests.

You really have to keep in mind that Germany is still very 'status conscious' compared to many other countries (at least, in my own limited experience, maybe 50 or so trips into Germany visiting people and businesses for various reasons).

From the fact that I laughed out loud at this headline, I conclude that nreece has aggressed against me! I demand restitution!

Or, er, not. :)

Seems like very subjective results.

In my experience being a demanding prick is an often successful technique in defining social peking order.

Oddly though, it does seem common for someone with a cutup personality to butt heads with a demanding prick.

Full disclosure: I tell a lot of jokes :( I think the jokes have more to do with not being able to take much seriously though than it is me trying to exert some type of social dominance. If I'm trying to exert anything its something along the line of: "hey lighten up."

Some days science just takes the fun out of things.

According to this the class clown is at the top of the social hierarchy.

I think humor is a bit more complex then that.

A class clown was at the top of the social hierarchy, at least until recently when Americans tired of the joke.

This article didn't make that much sense to me until I read this paragraph at the end:

I've seen this played out countless times from both perspectives (not literally in a doctor's office), and it always smacks of a power struggle.

This kinda makes sense. Subordinates will often try to inject humour in order to break a the tension in a serious situation. Superiors can't allow their subordinates to control the tone of the conversation like that, though, so they'll ignore it.

The article ignores, however, the fact that an awful lot (the vast majority?) of joking takes place between social equals. Now I come to think of it, jokes between social equals are the only ones which are actually particularly funny -- jokes told across different social levels tend to elicit a good-natured chuckle, not uncontrollable guffawing.

except perhaps in the case of stand up comedy: which for me usually elicits the loudest laughter.

There's nothing more tense than a showdown between a stand-up comedian and their heckler. It's like a being in the saloon in one of those Western movies when a some tike speaks out of turn to the local gunslinger.

There's a big step from "Humor can be a form of aggression" to "humor is a form of aggression - study says". In fact, if the study said only what it was justified in saying, it would read like an Onion headline:

"Nurses Laugh Snarkily While Doctor Away, News At 11:00"

What a load of Malarky.

Is the cup half full here or half empty ? It's both for me too, but it's often not aggression.

I think it's pretty normal for a boss to tell a joke as an effort to show calm and relax his/her employees. It's a good leadership attribute. I've seen women bosses do this - often. Most are not trying to assert control, but rather to fullfill the role most employees deserve - a boss whom shows strong leadership yet is approachable/approving/inspires/empowers.

I myself am cautious joking around when the bosses are present - not because of a lack of desiring control, but rather as a sign of respect to others and to myself. I want people to know I take my job seriously and rarely does joking around all the time accomplish this.

Interestingly enough, when I lose respect for the "bosses" I tend to joke with them more, but again not for control or aggression - rather to lighten the weight/mood under the circumstances - the respect for the person is not lost even though respect for the persons role has been.

So is joking or a lack of joking a form of showing aggression/submission or is it showing respect and caring ? I drink the half full glass thank you.

I've been reading these kinds of studies for over a decade and the more your read, the more you live the less you believe BS articles like this.

If your interested in the motive. Money, Name Publishing etc etc. Read John Robins "Diet for a New America", it's interesting how all the facts in life are sold to corporations for a reason.

Humour is a fine Old French vocable, and so is its original meaning.

You can pervert anything, and humour (together with real love) is one of the most often perverted (but originally really beautiful) things...

Try to create real humour to tell your own children; it's not that hard -- and it will be real humour.

Knock Knock

Go fuck yourself.

This is actually a relevant if not explicit point from Catch Me If You Can.

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