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Extract: Communique from Government (124.387)
To Psychology. Over the past few days, I have closely observed human interaction within the scope of your experimentation protocol. I now find myself trying to understand the role that humor plays in human interaction. I cannot understand how or why it developed. In your studies, have you ever encountered the reason behind it? It is a fascinating part of human existence.
Formulating response...
In the archival data, there are a number of different theories pertaining to the evolutionary role of humor and the nature of humor. The evolutionary role of humor appears to be a mechanism to demonstrate intelligence for sexual selection. There is a point in human evolution when intelligence began playing an important role in mate selection. Two indicators of intelligence are the ability to identify humor in a situation and the ability to exploit that humor.
When humans evolved into thinking creatures, more and more complex tools were developed by them. Knowledge of how to use these tools and creativity to improve or utilize the tools became important. Ways to determine this intelligence were necessary, and that is when humor was first developed. It is an odd way to determine intelligence, but these are odd creatures, sometimes.
Answering the question, what is humor, is far more difficult. I was once asked to analyze four prevailing theories of humor. These were superiority theory, relief theory, play theory, and incongruity theory. In brief, superiority theory is finding humor in someone else’s shortcomings in order to instill a sense of superiority. Relief theory suggests that subjects find humor in order to release psychological tension. Play theory looks at the possibility that humor is a form of play, like the way chimpanzees tickled each other, or the way dogs wagged their tails. Lastly, and the one that holds the most merit in my opinion, is incongruity theory. While it is more general, incongruity theory leads us to believe that humor is found at the moment of realization when an expectation is met with something different, often something more absurd.
Extract: Communique from Government (124.387)
To Psychology. Those are very interesting theories of humor. Incongruity theory has me thinking. Is our experiment humorous then? The reality that the subjects expected is now very different from what they previously knew, creating a great deal of incongruity. Are we also doing an experiment of humor?
Formulating Response...
I had not thought about the experiment in that way before. While we may find humor in their incongruity, I doubt that they will find the situation humorous. The context is not one intended for humor.
Extract: Communique from Government (124.387)
From my observation, you are correct. They do not find the situation humorous, though they have found some humor with each other. Perhaps it is as you say, part of mate selection. I am, however, entertained by their progress and find some humor in their situation.
