Ha! (28 page)

To show how the right side of our brain is so special for humor, I'd like to introduce you to Howard Gardner. Most people know of Gardner as the developmental psychologist from Harvard who developed the
popular theory of multiple intelligences, but he's also an active experimenter in several fields, including right-hemisphere humor. It's well known that people with damage to the right hemisphere, usually as a result of stroke, often misunderstand jokes. Gardner conducted a study that tells us why. Specifically, twenty-four subjects—twelve normal control subjects and an equal number of stroke patients, all with damage exclusively to the right frontal side of their brain—were exposed to a series of jokes. However, instead of presenting the jokes in their entirety, Gardner showed only the joke setups, along with four possible endings. Each represented a different kind of conclusion, and only one was funny. Here's an actual joke from the experiment:

              
The neighborhood borrower approached Mr. Smith on Sunday afternoon and inquired: “Say, Smith, are you using your lawn mower this afternoon?”

              
“Yes, I am,” Smith replied warily.

              
The neighborhood borrower then answered:

Here came the decision. Four different index cards were shown, each with a different ending. Which one would you choose to complete the joke?

              
A. “Fine, then you won't be needing your golf clubs. I'll just borrow them.”

              
B. “You know the grass is greener on the other side.”

              
C. “Do you think I could use it when you're done?”

              
D. “Gee, if only I had enough money, I could buy my own.”

Clearly,
A
is the right answer. The other three are valid, just not funny. The second is a non-sequitur ending, meaning that it includes an element of surprise (as a good joke should) but provides no coherence. The third ending doesn't incorporate surprise and is also straightforward. The fourth ending is just sad.

Gardner observed that the patients with right-brain damage had great difficulty finding the correct joke ending, identifying it barely
over half the time. In addition, their errors weren't randomly distributed among the other answers but, instead, favored the non-sequitur ending. In short, the right-hemisphere-damaged patients could identify that surprise was necessary but had trouble determining what made the joke actually funny.

From Gardner's study we see an important aspect of right-hemisphere loss—the inability to identify the meaning of jokes. As we discovered earlier, every joke involves both spoken and unspoken communication between teller and receiver. That unspoken communication is what we need our right hemisphere for. In the example joke above, the unspoken message is that nobody wants to lend something to a neighbor who never returns things—something the right-hemisphere-damaged patients missed.

Scientists have been studying the differences between left-hemisphere and right-hemisphere loss for over a hundred years, but only recently have we begun to recognize their implications for humor. Damage to the left hemisphere typically leads to language deficits. If a stroke takes out the posterior section of our left superior temporal gyrus, we have difficulty understanding written or spoken language. Loss of the left inferior frontal gyrus leads to deficits in language production. These are very different from the effects of damage to our right hemisphere. Damage to that side of the brain doesn't impair our ability to speak or understand, but it does affect our ability to connect with people. In some cases, we experience a muting of emotions. In others, we have a hard time following conversations or understanding complex aspects of language such as metaphors. In still others, we lose our ability to “get” jokes.

Humor doesn't reside solely in the right side of our brain, but it is certainly right-hemisphere-dominant. This laterality has a big impact on social interactions because the right hemisphere also helps us recognize the intent behind communication. The main difference between a lie and an ironic joke is the recognition that the ironic statement isn't intended to deceive. Right-hemisphere-damaged patients struggle with ironic humor because they miss this unspoken aspect of the communication.
Normally, we rely on a speaker's gesture and tone to determine if a conversation is sarcastic or ironic. Right-hemisphere-damaged patients don't do this. They function on a literal level, often missing the subtle emotional and nonverbal cues that would otherwise suggest that the conversation is humorous. It takes both hemispheres to fully understand and appreciate a good joke, though apparently they don't need to be connected.

“Humor is preserved in the split-brain patient because both sides remain intact, just separate,” says Eran Zaidel, one of the first neuroscientists to study the split brain. His graduate advisor, Roger Sperry, won the Nobel Prize for discovering that each hemisphere can “think” independently. “I've seen them [split-brain patients] display some marvelous senses of humor too, telling jokes all day,” Zaidel continues. “But because skills like maintaining social relations are specialized for the right hemisphere, while language is lateralized to the left, that makes humor sometimes harder to spot. It becomes very important how you look for it, and how you allow it to come out. You can't look only at the words.”

On one occasion, Zaidel counted fourteen different kinds of jokes told by Linda and a second split-brain patient, Philip. The difference between their jokes and those of the general public, however, is that theirs are less tied to language, which resides in the left hemisphere. This is especially true of the jokes told by Linda, who seldom uses puns or other wordplay. However, she excels in social humor, especially the kind that teases—including herself. “I told my husband I'm a lot smarter than him,” she once said. “I have two brains and he only has one.”

We often don't appreciate how much the hemispheres work together to provide us a full cognitive experience. This has implications not just for humor but for consciousness itself. Zaidel once asked Philip a series of questions directed to his left and right hemispheres and found that the two sides of his brain had different personalities and outlooks on life. His left hemisphere experienced relatively low self-esteem while his right hemisphere saw itself rather positively. The right side also experienced greater loneliness and sadness. Another
split-brain patient's right hemisphere was particularly influenced by childhood memories of being bullied, even though his left hemisphere denied finding such experiences disturbing. And then there was the split-brain patient who, when asked if he believed in God, responded “yes” with his left hemisphere and “no” with his right.

This division of resources in the brain has strong implications for how we think. For example, though the left does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to language, the right contributes understanding in the form of recognizing subtleties, including those in jokes. This suggests that the right hemisphere is important for coming up with insightful connections. It's also important for poetry. When poetic language in the form of creative metaphors is shown to the right hemisphere, we're a lot better at processing that language than when it's shown to the left. So, perhaps the right hemisphere is like our nonliteral friend, flitting from topic to topic, helping us with poetry, jokes, and other artistic endeavors. Alone it would be lost, but when paired with the stricter and more literal left hemisphere it provides us just the balance we need to remain insightful and creative. Without either hemisphere we might be lost, but with the two combined we have a powerful ability to understand and create.

F
UNNY
R
ELATIONSHIPS

As a social phenomenon, humor has a direct impact on our relationships. As we've seen, being around laughing people increases the chance we'll find a joke funny. But the influence works in reverse, too: enjoying a humorous attitude improves the quality of our social relationships. This reveals something important not only about humor—that it brings us closer together by providing shared experiences—but also about relationships themselves. We bond with people who share similar perspectives toward life. Humor is the best way to uncover what those perspectives are.

We don't need to look hard to find scientific proof that humor is important to romance. Numerous researchers have asked people what
traits they most desire in a partner, and one trait is always near the top of the list: sense of humor. A 2007 study published in the journal
Archives of Sexual Behavior
found that sense of humor was the second most desired trait, behind only intelligence. Women ranked it first. For men it was number three, after intelligence and good looks.

However, this affinity for humor hasn't always been so strong. In a similar survey taken in 1958, humor ranked much lower among women's preferred traits for mates, after such characteristics as “well groomed,” “ambitious,” and “makes sensible decisions about money.” In 1984 it ranked behind intelligence and sensitivity. And in 1990 it was number two—again, behind sensitivity.

One possible reason for this shift in priorities is that women, because they're no longer confined to a limited number of jobs, have begun to expect different things from their men. Ambition and money management abilities are important in a partner, but they become a lot less relevant when these responsibilities are shared in the partnership. A strong and ambitious man is nice, but better still to find one who is funny too! But this still doesn't answer: What's so special about humor?

Before exploring that question, we need to recognize that affinity for humor isn't universal; it's part of our culture. For example, humor almost never fares as well in other countries. In a survey of Siberian women, humor didn't appear even among the top-ten most important traits in a partner. In fact, it was closer to twentieth. Perhaps this says something about women in Siberia, but I think it says more about women in the United States. In the United States, we want to have fun, to enjoy ourselves, and be entertained. This desire isn't superficial but an important part of relationship building. In Siberia people also want to have fun, but faithfulness (#2), reliability (#4), and love for children (#9) are all more important because life in Siberia is hard. Russians are a jovial, generous people, but let there be no mistake—when food is scarce and snow and vodka are plentiful, having a spouse you can depend on to help maintain the home is invaluable.

Perhaps humor is so important, especially to American women, because it evolved to be over time. It helps us convey our thoughts and
values, two important goals for identifying compatibility, and it also helps build social bonds. From an evolutionary standpoint, these benefits raise some interesting questions. For example, could humor have evolved to predict quality of mates? Is there something special about humor that singles out funny males as especially good partners?

Understanding how natural selection brings about any complex behavior, including humor, is difficult because it involves speculative story telling. It's like seeing a pool table filled with moving balls and guessing the direction and velocity of the strike that got things going. Yet, it's still useful to guess why humor became so important for our species. We'll never know for sure why it evolved the way it did, but scientists have some good theories, and they say a lot about humor differences between the genders.

The evolutionary argument starts with the premise that women have more at stake in procreation because they have so few opportunities to birth children. Each attempt, if successful, requires at least a dozen years of nurturing. Their opportunities also end late in middle age, meaning that a woman might not get many tries, so each one has to count. By contrast, men can father multiple children simultaneously, almost up until death, and they don't have to stick around after their initial contribution. So while men can be less discriminating, women must be selective and use subtle lures to attract only the best of mates. Laughter is one of those lures, just as sense of humor is one of the ways males show their suitability. The argument makes at least two predictions: that women should laugh more (indeed, as we've seen, they laugh roughly 125 percent more than men) and that humor should play different roles for men than for women. For men, the ability to be funny and make a partner laugh should be the most important consideration. For women, it should be the ability to appreciate humor.

Indeed, these predictions appear to be true. One study conducted by the psychologist Eric Bressler at Westfield State College in Massachusetts asked male and female subjects what was more important: having a partner who's funny and produces quality humor, or having
a partner who appreciates one's own jokes. This question was asked as it applied to several kinds of relationships, ranging from one-night stands to long-term romances. The results were clear—in almost every relationship category, women preferred men who were funny, and men preferred women who appreciated their own humor. The sole exception was platonic friendships, the only kind for which offspring are impossible (assuming they remain platonic). For that category, men didn't care whether they were the funny ones or not.

Regardless of what we believe about its evolutionary history, humor keeps us healthy—both mentally and physically. It makes us more desirable by revealing either our openness to laugh or our dedication to bring out laughter in others. This may explain why people who rate high on tests of intimacy also have a good sense of humor. The same goes for trust, dependability, and kindness.