Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as "humours" (Latin: , "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion.
People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people can experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny (such as a pun or joke)—and thus are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by subjective personal taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favour slapstick such as Punch and Judy puppet shows or cartoons such as Tom and Jerry or Looney Tunes, whose physical nature makes it accessible to them. By contrast, more sophisticated forms of humour such as satire require an understanding of its social meaning and context, and thus tend to appeal to a more mature audience.
Theories
Many theories exist about what humour is and what social function it serves. The prevailing types of theories attempting to account for the existence of humour include psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider humour-induced behaviour to be very healthy; spiritual theories, which may, for instance, consider humour to be a "gift from God"; and theories which consider humour to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience.Raymond Smullyan, "The Planet Without Laughter", This Book Needs No Title
The benign-violation theory, endorsed by Peter McGraw, attempts to explain humour's existence. The theory says "humour only occurs when something seems wrong, unsettling, or threatening, but simultaneously seems okay, acceptable or safe." Humour can be used as a method to easily engage in social interaction by taking away that awkward, uncomfortable, or uneasy feeling of social interactions.
Others believe that "the appropriate use of humour can facilitate social interactions". citing:Nicholas Kuiper, "Prudence and Racial Humor: Troubling Epithets"
Views Some claim that humour should not be explained. Author E. B. White once said, "Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." Counter to this argument, protests against "offensive" cartoons invite the dissection of humour or its lack by aggrieved individuals and communities. This process of dissecting humour does not necessarily banish a sense of humour but directs attention towards its politics and assumed universality.Ritu Gairola Khanduri. 2014. Caricaturing Culture in India: Cartoons and History of the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Arthur Schopenhauer lamented the misuse of humour (a German loanword from English) to mean any type of comedy. However, both humour and comic are often used when theorising about the subject. The connotations of humour as opposed to comic are said to be that of response versus stimulus. Additionally, humour was thought to include a combination of ridiculousness and wit in an individual; the paradigmatic case being Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff. The French were slow to adopt the term humour; in French, humeur and humour are still two different words, the former referring to a person's mood or to the archaic concept of the four humours.
Non-satirical humour can be specifically termed droll humour or recreational drollery.Seth Benedict Graham A cultural analysis of the Russo-Soviet Anekdot 2003 p. 13Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World [1941, 1965]. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press p. 12
Humour is also observed in great apes.
Sociological factors As with any art form, the acceptance of a particular style or incidence of humour depends on sociological factors and varies from person to person. Throughout history, comedy has been used as a form of entertainment all over the world, whether in the courts of the Western kings or the villages of the Far East. Both a social etiquette and a certain intelligence can be displayed through forms of wit and sarcasm. Eighteenth-century German author Georg Lichtenberg said that "the more you know humour, the more you become demanding in fineness."
Ancient Greece Western humour theory begins with Plato, who attributed to Socrates (as a semi-historical dialogue character) in the Philebus (p. 49b) the view that the essence of the ridiculous is an ignorance in the weak, who are thus unable to retaliate when ridiculed. Later, in Greek philosophy, Aristotle, in the Poetics (1449a, pp. 34–35), suggested that an ugliness that does not disgust is fundamental to humour.
India In ancient Sanskrit drama, Bharata Muni's Natya Shastra defined humour (hāsyam) as one of the nine nava rasas, or principle rasas (emotional responses), which can be inspired in the audience by bhavas, the imitations of emotions that the actors perform. Each rasa was associated with a specific bhavas portrayed on stage.
In Arabic and Persian culture
The terms comedy and satire became synonymous after Aristotle's Poetics was translated into Arabic in the medieval Islamic world, where it was elaborated upon by Arabic writers and Islamic philosophers such as Abu Bischr, his pupil Al-Farabi, Persian Avicenna, and Averroes. Due to cultural differences, they disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation, and instead identified it with Arabic poetic themes and forms, such as hija (satirical poetry). They viewed comedy as simply the "art of reprehension" and made no reference to light and cheerful events or troublesome beginnings and happy endings associated with classical Greek comedy. After the Latin translations of the 12th century, the term comedy thus gained a new meaning in Medieval literature. In Islamic teachings, mocking others through humour is considered undesirable. In particular, showing disrespect toward sacred figures and religious symbols, such as prophets, companions of the Prophet, religious leaders, the Quran, mosques, the month of Ramadan or the shrines of saints, is regarded as a grave offense.Mufti Ahmad Yar Khan Naeemi, Tafir Naeemi: Vol. 1. (1944) (Lahore: Naeemi Kutub Khanah, 2009), Part 1, Chapter 2, Lessons 1 to 5, p. 183.
Caribbean Mento star Lord Flea stated in a 1957 interview that he thought that "West Indians have the best sense of humour in the world. Even in the most solemn song, like Las Kean Fine ["Lost and Can Not Be Found"], which tells of a boiler explosion on a sugar plantation that killed several of the workers, their natural wit and humour shine though."
China Confucianist & Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, with its emphasis on ritual and propriety, have traditionally looked down upon humour as subversive or unseemly. Humour was perceived as irony and sarcasm. The Confucian Analects itself, however, depicts the Master as fond of humorous self-deprecation, once comparing his wanderings to the existence of a homeless dog.C. Harbsmeier, "Confucius-Ridens, Humor in the Analects." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 50. 1: 131–61. Early Daoist philosophical texts such as Zhuangzi pointedly make fun of Confucian seriousness and make Confucius himself a slow-witted figure of fun.Jocelyn Chey and Jessica Milner Davis, eds. "Humour in Chinese Life and Letters: Classical and Traditional Approaches" (HKUP, 2011) Joke books containing a mix of wordplay, puns, situational humour, and play with taboo subjects like sex and scatology, remained popular over the centuries. Local performing arts, storytelling, vernacular fiction, and poetry offer a wide variety of humorous styles and sensibilities.
Famous Chinese humourists include the ancient jesters Chunyu Kun and Dongfang Shuo; writers of the Ming and Qing dynasties such as Feng Menglong, Li Yu, and Wu Jingzi; and modern comic writers such as Lu Xun, Lin Yutang, Lao She, Qian Zhongshu, Wang Xiaobo, and Wang Shuo, and performers such as Ge You, Guo Degang, and Zhou Libo.
Modern Chinese humour has been heavily influenced not only by indigenous traditions, but also by foreign humour, circulated via print culture, cinema, television, and the internet. During the 1930s, Lin Yutang's phono-semantic transliteration yōumò (; humour) caught on as a new term for humour, sparking a fad for humour literature, as well as impassioned debate about what type of humorous sensibility best suited China, a poor, weak country under partial foreign occupation.Christopher Rea, "The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China" (University of California Press, 2015) While some types of comedy were officially sanctioned during the rule of Mao Zedong, the Party-state's approach towards humour was generally repressive. Social liberalisation in the 1980s, commercialisation of the cultural market in the 1990s, and the advent of the internet have each—despite an invasive state-sponsored censorship apparatus—enabled new forms of humour to flourish in China in recent decades.
Social transformation model The social transformation model of humour predicts that specific characteristics, such as physical attractiveness, interact with humour. This model involves linkages between the humorist, an audience, and the subject matter of the humour. The two transformations associated with this particular model involve the subject matter of the humour and the change in the audience's perception of the humorous person, therefore establishing a relationship between the humorous speaker and the audience. The social transformation model views humour as adaptive because it communicates the present desire to be humorous as well as future intentions of being humorous. This model is used with deliberate self-deprecating humour where one is communicating with desires to be accepted into someone else's specific social group. Although self-deprecating humour communicates weakness and fallibility in the bid to gain another's affection, it can be concluded from the model that this type of humour can increase romantic attraction towards the humorist when other variables are also favourable.
Physical attractiveness Humour is considered attractive for males in Western cultures. In the mid-20th century, a majority of American college students reported that having a sense of humour is a crucial characteristic looked for in a romantic partner. In the late-20th century, British college students reported humour and honesty as the two most important attributes in a significant other. Humour becomes more evident and significantly more important as the level of commitment in a romantic relationship increases. Recent research suggests expressions of humour in relation to physical attractiveness are two major factors in the desire for future interaction. Self-deprecating humour has been found to increase one's desirability and physical attractiveness to others for committed relationships. Women regard physical attractiveness less highly compared to men when it came to dating, a serious relationship, and sexual intercourse. However, women rate humorous men as more desirable than nonhumorous individuals for a serious relationship or marriage, but only when these men were physically attractive.
While humorous people may be considered attractive, humorous people are also perceived by others to be less intellectual than nonhumorous people. When women were given the forced-choice design in the study, they chose funny men as potential relationship partners even though they rated them as being less honest and intelligent. Post-Hoc analysis showed no relationship between humour quality and favourable judgments.