Something about humor that I've always wondered..

[gaara4158]

Why do many people find slapstick humor so funny? We see somebody fall out of a tree or walk into a pole, and as long as they're ok, we laugh our heads off. I wonder if chimps laugh at each other when that happens..

I can't imagine what evolutionary pressures would cause humor at the misfortune of others to come up... taken to higher levels it's antisocial behavior.
Do you guys know?

 

[gaara4158]

anybody?

 

[GuidanceNeeded]

Honestly I've never thought about it. Kind of like the saying
"It's all fun and games until someone get hurt, then it's flipping hillarious!" LOL

 

[Hespera]

i tried to watch americas funniest videos one time. its just videos of people getting hurt. that is far from funny. maybe it is humor-for-sociopaths.

 

[Stan (AKA Otaku-chan)]

Bahaha! I actually tend to laugh at people even if they break a leg. For example, one guy at school was jumping from ridiculous heights and doing all these things after school and it was only me and a buddy on some stairs. We watched him and laughed when he kept on falling and getting up, and when he tried to climb up a pole and jump down we thought it was real funny (a teacher stopped him though).

It all depends on what a person thinks it's funny I guess.

 

[Ectezus]

I can't imagine what evolutionary pressures would cause humor at the misfortune of others to come up... taken to higher levels it's antisocial behavior.
Do you guys know?

The first thing that pops into my head is: Self-preservation.

Ok that needs explaining:

"Self preservation is part of an animal's instinct that demands that the organism survives. Pain and fear are parts of this mechanism. Pain causes discomfort so that the organism is inclined to stop the pain. Fear causes the organism to seek safety [...]" (wiki)

So we have an inherent fear against certain things to prevent us from making mistakes. Obviously having a fear is not an emotion we like to feel. Just like pain, we need it but we don't like it.

I think seeing someone being in such a situation that we 'fear' and then find out he's ok with no harm done reasures us and reduces that inherent fear.

It's kinda like I could be afraid for.. lets say; bungee jumping. Afterall it doesn't really seem logical to jump of a bridge! (Love it though ). However if I see 10 other people jumping off before me that can comfort me and remove the fear, which would mean a bad feeling went away.

Could be plenty of other reasons though. This one just popped up first.

- Ectezus

 

[juvenissun]

Why do many people find slapstick humor so funny? We see somebody fall out of a tree or walk into a pole, and as long as they're ok, we laugh our heads off. I wonder if chimps laugh at each other when that happens..

I can't imagine what evolutionary pressures would cause humor at the misfortune of others to come up... taken to higher levels it's antisocial behavior.
Do you guys know?

I am glad to see you pondering on this. Evolution does not work on humanity. There is nothing more obvious than that.

 

[Ectezus]

Another possibility is that it simply makes you feel good because relatively speaking to the person getting 'slapsticked' you're better of.

Think of it as children bullying a nerdy kid. By teasing him they won't be better human beings, however by lowering his value, they automatically become better than him (in their mind). Which obviously, is a nice feeling.

- Ectezus

 

[Hespera]

Juv sez
am glad to see you pondering on this. Evolution does not work on humanity. There is nothing more obvious than that. QUOTE////

​

Hespera sez

wrong. Only thing obvious here is that an ideolog cant see past the end of his ideology.

 

[gaara4158]

Another possibility is that it simply makes you feel good because relatively speaking to the person getting 'slapsticked' you're better of.

Think of it as children bullying a nerdy kid. By teasing him they won't be better human beings, however by lowering his value, they automatically become better than him (in their mind). Which obviously, is a nice feeling.

- Ectezus

I like both of your explanations; neither of them had occurred to me. Check your rep
I think connecting it to bullying is a very astute observation, and more people will be likely to do it because there's less guilt in simply getting entertainment from another's injury than there is with causing it. Perhaps pranks would fall into this category as well?

 

[gaara4158]

I am glad to see you pondering on this. Evolution does not work on humanity. There is nothing more obvious than that.

So when a question is too hard, just answer goddidit. Nothing new here.

 

[plindboe]

Why do many people find slapstick humor so funny? We see somebody fall out of a tree or walk into a pole, and as long as they're ok, we laugh our heads off. I wonder if chimps laugh at each other when that happens..

I can't imagine what evolutionary pressures would cause humor at the misfortune of others to come up... taken to higher levels it's antisocial behavior.
Do you guys know?

Laughing is a social behaviour. Sure, the person who got kicked in the scrotum might feel left out when we laugh, but we strengten the bonds to other potential observers standing close to us. Being social animals we continuously seek to divide ourselves into groups, and laughing at others could simply be another tool in this pursuit. That's one possible explanation.

Another point that needs to be made and that might also help to explain slapstick humour is that evolution doesn't result in all traits being explainable as optimal adaptions. Rather evolution works by working with the genetic potential at hand, producing trade offs and coming up with general solutions. For instance we've evolved the trait of panicking in life-threatening situations. This trait can be a benefit or a disadvantage depending on the situation. If we evolved in an environment where the life-saving situations outweigh the life-costing situations then the trait will be selected for. Lifewise, the curious aberration of our adoration of baby animals can be explained by us evolving a fondness of features inherent in our own offspring (small size, clumsiness, big eyes, big head etc.). With humour, a similarly general approach taken by evolution can explain why we might find some examples that could be counterproductive, simply because the overall benefits of having humour outweighs the disadvantages.

Peter

 

[Hespera]

So when a question is too hard, just answer goddidit. Nothing new here.

Yep goddidit can only explain why SOME things are funny.
A sensibly evolving organism would see that its goal was to be a better critter than that, and evolve a really good sense of humor.

 

[MoonLancer]

I am glad to see you pondering on this. Evolution does not work on humanity. There is nothing more obvious than that.

lol. I think evolution explains it just fine. laughter is a stress relief. someone elses pain reminds of our own mortality and imperfect nature, thus laughter kicks in to subside that so we don't get heart attacks.

 

[Nithavela]

This question reminds me of a documentary I once saw. A bunch of lions chased prey (dunno what it was, maybe antilopes). All Antilopes ran away from them, but one was caught. When the Lions killed that antilope and started to om nom nom nom on it, the other antilopes just stood there and watched from a marginally safe distance. They didn't do anything, but I had the nagging feeling that, in their own, silent antilope ways, they were laughing their asses of that Steve got eaten.

 

[milkyway]

Why do many people find slapstick humor so funny? We see somebody fall out of a tree or walk into a pole, and as long as they're ok, we laugh our heads off. I wonder if chimps laugh at each other when that happens..

I can't imagine what evolutionary pressures would cause humor at the misfortune of others to come up... taken to higher levels it's antisocial behavior.
Do you guys know?

I can't believe that I'm the only one to notice the spelling mistake in the OP!

 

[gaara4158]

I can't believe that I'm the only one to notice the spelling mistake in the OP!

after carefully proofreading, i've failed to find anything. I trust you're not referring to "humour," vs "humor," so i'm at a loss. enlighten me!

 

[atomweaver]

They didn't do anything, but I had the nagging feeling that, in their own, silent antilope ways, they were laughing their asses of that Steve got eaten.

...That's just your Inner Gary Larson Fan talking.

(Oh, wait, a Deutscher? Nope, I'm wrong... that's the Schadenfreude talking)

Gaara, for your reading pleasure (some primary sources from the Schadenfreude entry of wikipedia);

1. ^ St. John, Warren. "Sorrow So Sweet: A Guilty Pleasure in Another's Woe". New York Times, Aug. 24, 2002.
2. ^ Singer T, Seymour B, O'Doherty JP, Stephan KE, Dolan RJ, Frith CD (January 2006). "Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others". Nature 439 (7075): 466–9. doi:10.1038/nature04271. PMID 16421576. Lay-summary
3. ^ Science (February 13, 2009) "When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain: Neural Correlates of Envy and Schadenfreude" by Hidehiko Takahashi et al.
4. ^ New York Times (February 17, 2009) "In Pain and Joy of Envy, the Brain May Play a Role" by Natalie Angier