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Stories We Tell: The Survival Value of Humor
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20266 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1992 |
3,487 Words |
| Author
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Peter Derks
Peter Derks is professor of psychology at the College of
William and Mary in Virginia. He is a member of the editorial
board for Humor: International Journal of Humor Research.
Derks has been studying the psychology of humor for twenty
years and admits to understanding it less today than when he
began. |
Either Victor Borge or Giacomo Leopardi coined the phrase "The shortest distance between two people is a laugh." Whoever said it first, there is plenty of evidence to substantiate the comments' validity. Larry Sherman, an educational psychologist who has made a career of studying children at play, finds that the laughers and jokers, the class clowns, though not necessarily leaders, are certainly the preferred followers and most popular members in any group.
Laughter and humor serve as a social bond. It is a vigorous reflex: We burst with laughter; we explode, out of control. Laughing is fun, and we usually enjoy it no matter what the source. It gets the whole human system--social, psychological, and physiological--going at a peak clip. In fact, laughter can be demonstrated to be both physically and mentally beneficial. The electrical activity in the brain when a person "gets" a joke suggests that humor plays a general role in our individual and social well-being. We can surmise that the jokes and stories we tell play a considerable role in our daily survival and existence.
Woody Allen once observed: "More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." Funny or not, it's an all-too-accurate assessment. But whether we travel the path to hopelessness or extinction (or both), we can face life's uncertainties with a sense of humor. At least a smile will make the trip a little easier. We can, for example, be appropriately depressed by the future (as characterized by the six o'clock news). Perhaps the international news is relatively good at the moment, but how about the economic? Humor writer Bob Orbean has expressed admiration for his financial adviser, who seems prepared for anything: In his office is a device with the instructions "In case of emergency, break glass!" It is a window.
Survival stories and fringe groups
In the face of what nature and humankind do to us, the stories that we tell seem intimately linked to our powers of survival. These stories can be described as those we tell nature, those we tell ourselves, and those we tell each other. Humor seems to go hand in hand with our survival stories, but how central a role does it play in any of them?
The "stories that we tell for nature" are specific skills that enable some organisms to fill certain niches better than others
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