Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

HUMOR: THE TRIUMPH OF REASON T. P. MILLAR* Coming to the task of understanding man from the treatment imperative , psychiatrists have tended to focus on pathology rather than health, on psychic pain more than pleasure. So it is that one can find a dozen references to suspicion in the indices of psychiatric texts but none to trust, an extensive literature of anxiety and nothing of confidence and courage, reams on depression and barely a footnote on joie de vivre. But man is more than the sum of his pains, and if we are to come to a larger appreciation of his nature, we must take a harder look at the role of pleasure in his psychic economy. Which brings us to humor, a pleasurable affect peculiar to Homo sapiens . If Freud was right when he said, "The dream serves preponderantly to guard against pain while wit [humor] serves to acquire pleasure ," then perhaps an analysis of humor-pleasure may begin our understanding of this aspect of man's nature [I]. A variety of theoretical models have been proposed to explain the nature of humor. None seems to cover the ground adequately. The Bateson and Fry model sees humor-pleasure as emanating from the resolution of a series of paradoxes but pays little attention to the hostile and/or sexual components of humor. Classical behavior theory posits that humor is pleasurable because it reduces the primary drives of sex and aggression, but this fails to account for the cognitive component of humor. The psychoanalytic model says that humor gives pleasure because it permits momentary gratification of hidden or forbidden wishes. Even Freud found this inadequate for he felt compelled to add the notion that humor originates in the free wordplay of childhood and that at least part ofits pleasure lies in the recapture ofthat early freedom [2]. This paper was presented at the 46th annual meeting of the North Pacific Society of Neurology and Psychiatry, Vancouver, B.C., March 22, 1985. *Address: #23 659 Clyde Avenue, West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V7T 1C8.© 1986 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 003 1-5982/86/2904-0500$01 .00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 29, 4 ¦ Summer 1986 \ 545 None of these models succeeds in accounting for all the ingredients of the humor-pleasure experience in a parsimonious way. This paper is an attempt to construct a model that does so. The ingredients we need to account for include the response, that is, the precise nature of the humor reaction, and second, the stimulus— what words, actions, or situations trigger this response. Humor-Pleasure: The Affective Experience When something funny happens or is said, the individual becomes conscious of a sensation, an emotion—just as anxiety and anger are emotions. It is appropriately named humor-pleasure, for the affect is generally agreed to be positive in tone. Furthermore, just as do anxiety and anger, humor-pleasure can vary in intensity or magnitude. The sensation may begin with the amiable accord ofquiet amusement. It oftens escalates to mirth or gleeful derision, and sometimes becomes a joy so fierce it launches the affected individual into reflex paroxysms of the facial and diaphragmatic musculature beyond his or her conscious control. Since sensations, like shades of color, are primary sense data, words cannot define them in other than comparative terms, so one is compelled to come at the delineation of humor-pleasure obliquely. The pleasurable nature of humor is reflected in adjectives like merry and mirthful, gay andjoyful. That people actively seek out opportunities for laughter and that most get pleasure in generating it in others are further evidence for its desirable nature. There is a further quality to humor-pleasure that is frequently noted; it seems to include a component of self-esteem, a transient feeling of power or increased worth that, in some instances, borders on derisive superiority. Finally, the presence of humor-pleasure seems to confer a temporary immunity to guilt, such that verbal malice and cruelty unthinkable in normal discourse may be briefly countenanced; as Bergson puts it, "a momentary anesthesia of the heart." While it is common to be amused without laughing, Arthur Koestler calls laughter the Geiger counter...