Relief Theory

Very Short Summary

The Relief Theory argues, more or less, that laughter is a way of discharging unnecessary nervous energy.

It has its origins in the very old and very outdated theory of Humorism which says that the body has four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm) which need to be balanced in order for a human to be healthy. This theory was later expanded upon and it was believed that we also have gases inside ourselves which need to be balanced too. Any imbalance would lead to tension or “nervous energy” and one way of relieving said tension was laughter.

Later proponents of the Relief Theory claim that the origins of the tension is the built up energy of emotions and/or thinking. Or in the case of Sigmund Freud the release of the energy we normally use to suppress certain thoughts and feelings.

Proponents

Lord Shaftesbury (The Freedom of Wit and Humour), Sigmund Freud (Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious), Herbert Spencer (On the Physiology of Laughter)

The Case for the Relief Theory

We can observe that laughter can come from a sudden relief of tension. I would also argue that the greater the tension is, the bigger the laugh can be. Additionally it is also easier to get laughs from topics that moves the audience emotionally and introduces tension (sex, politics, drugs, etc.) as compared to something that to most of us is inherently uninteresting like the authors life.

Tension can come from various sources like a fight between two characters in a play, a dramatization of a story, the rhythm of how something is told, a quasi offensive remark, approaching a hot button topic, the atmosphere in the room, etc.

The Case against the Relief Theory

Is it necessary to feel relieved in order to laugh? If we just consider the arguments of the Relief Theory proponents I would wager a no. In many a joke it would be very hard to pinpoint any building up of emotions or tension, as we can observe in this example by Mitch Hedberg:

“Rice is great if you’re hungry and want 2000 of something.”

I’d argue not many people have big emotional attachments to rice one way or another and Mitch Hedberg isn’t ramping up a lot of tension in this 11 word long joke. To be fair: One could argue that the release of tension is necessary to laughter if we think of a joke as a “mental attack” as we will later in the Play Theory and when we take a look at the book “The Science of Storytelling.” So seen through the lens of these two theories the joke about rice by Mitch Hedberg could become a sudden connection between two things where we thought there was no connection and thus was registered by our brain as an unexpected change which could be potentially dangerous. Also we can argue that we find release of tension when things suddenly fit together (Incongruity and Incongruity Plus Theory), when one is not being the target of the joke (Superiority Theory) and when we realize that a violation is benign (Benign Violation Theory).

Is it sufficient to feel relieved in order to laugh? No. There are other ways of releasing tension or feeling relieved: Crying, sighing, farting…

Rating: Two out of Five Stars

All I can say is that I am relieved that there are other Humor Theories.

The Takeaway

It is useful to keep tension in the back of our heads when approaching a comedy writing task. Be that in our choice of topic, words or dramatization of a story. The question we need to ask ourselves during writing is: How can I create (more) tension?