Theories of Humor

Theories Of Humor

There are many theories of humour which attempt to explain what humour is, what social functions it serves, and what would be considered humorous. It would be very difficult to explain humour to a hypothetical person who did not have a sense of humour already. In fact, to such a person humour would appear to be quite strange if not outright irrational behavior. Among the prevailing types of theories that attempt to account for the existence of humour there are: psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider humour to be very healthy behavior; there are spiritual theories which may, for instance consider humour to be a "gift from God;" there are also theories that consider humour to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience. Although various classical theories of humour and laughter may be found, in contemporary academic literature, three theories of humour appear repeatedly: relief theory, superiority theory, and incongruity theory. Among current humour researchers, there is no consensus about which of these three theories of humour is most viable. Proponents of each one originally claimed their theory to be capable of explaining all cases of humour, however, they now acknowledge that although each theory generally covers its own area of focus, many instances of humour can be explained by more than one theory. Incongruity and superiority theories, for instance, seem to describe complementary mechanisms which together create humour.