How I Explain It

We want to survive. We do that by trying to predict the future by looking for cause and effect. The person who correctly understands how the world works, is prepared for it and can even shape it.

Sudden change disrupts our ability to predict and thus leads to us tensing up: We get ready to fight or flight. And if the sudden change turns out to be benign we might laugh to release tension.

But why do we laugh even though we know a joke is just that: A joke. Why do we laugh, feel threatened even though we know it isn’t real. It is make-believe. A tiny story.

Some scientist argue that our brains can’t discern between reality and imagination. There has been a studyPascual-Leone A, Nguyet D, Cohen LG, Brasil-Neto JP, Cammarota A, Hallett M. Modulation of muscle responses evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation during the acquisition of new fine motor skills. J Neurophysiol. 1995 Sep;74(3):1037-45. doi: 10.1152/jn.1995.74.3.1037. PMID: 7500130. where the first group was asked to play the piano every day for several weeks and a second group was asked to only imagine playing the piano. The third (the control) group did nothing. Lazy bastards. All of them got a brain scan before and after the experiment and when the scans were compared it showed that the biggest change in brain structure happened in the first group, the people actually playing the piano.

But nearly as much change occurred in the people who just imagined playing. The brain thought it was real and acted accordingly.

I believe when we hear a joke a similar thing happens: Our brain can’t discern between imagination and reality and thus a joke and its inbuilt element of surprise registers as a real, potentially life-threatening sudden change which triggers our flight or fight system.

All of this happens too fast to think about, helped by being in a group and having an abundance of play signals around us.

So I say: A joke constitutes of a sudden and unexpected change that could be harmful but isn’t and we laugh to release tension and send a false alarm signal to the people around us.

What follows is is that what we need to do as joke writers is to have something that says Play Signal“Hey do you know this one?, Body Language, Setting, etc. and then create a sudden change which is compatible with what went beforeIncongruity Theory Plus and registers as an attack or potential threatSuperiority Theory and Play Theory that in the eyes of the receiver turns out to be benignBenign Violation Theory so the person laughs in reliefRelief Theory and thus communicates to others that this is okayFalse Alarm Signal.