Ha! (36 page)

also Dean Yarwood, “When Congress Makes a Joke: Congressional Humor as Serious and Purposeful Communication,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
14, no. 4 (2001): 359–394; also Pamela Hobbs, “Lawyers' Use of Humor as Persuasion,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
20, no. 2 (2007): 123–156.

On humor and political humility, see Amy Bippus, “Factors Predicting the Perceived Effectiveness of Politicians' Use of Humor During a Debate,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
20, no. 2 (2007): 105–121.

On humor in the workplace, see Barbara Plester and Mark Orams, “Send in the Clowns: The Role of the Joker in Three New Zealand IT Companies,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
21, no. 3 (2008): 253–281; also Owen Lynch, “Cooking with Humor: In-Group Humor as Social Organization,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
23, no. 2 (2010): 127–159; also Reva Brown and Dermott Keegan, “Humor in the Hotel Kitchen,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
12, no. 1 (1999): 47–70; also Leide Porcu, “Fishy Business: Humor in a Sardinian Fish Market,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
18, no. 1 (2005): 69–102; also Janet Bing and Dana Heller, “How Many Lesbians Does It Take to Screw in a Light Bulb?”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
16, no. 2 (2003): 157–182; also Catherine Davies, “Joking as Boundary Negotiation Among Good Old Boys: White Trash as a Social Category at the Bottom of the Southern Working Class in Alabama,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
23, no. 2 (2010): 179–200.

Greater Implications

On humor and intelligence, see Ann Masten, “Humor and Competence in School-Aged Children,”
Child Development
57 (1986): 461–473.

On humor and insight, see Alice Isen, Kimberly Daubman, and Gary Nowicki, “Positive Affect Facilitates Creative Problem Solving,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
52, no. 6 (1987): 1122–1131; also Heather Belanger, Lee Kirkpatrick, and Peter Derks, “The Effects of Humor on Verbal and Imaginal Problem Solving,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
11, no. 1 (1998): 21–31.

On humor and creativity, see Avner Ziv, “Facilitating Effects of Humor on Creativity,”
Journal of Educational Psychology
68, no. 3 (1976): 318–322.

The finding that watching Robin Williams improves problem-solving ability is from an unpublished paper by Mark Jung-Beeman. For details about the experiment itself, see his December 6, 2010, interview with the
New York Times
, titled “Tracing the Spark of Creative Problem Solving.”

Becoming Funny

On heritable traits in general, see Matt McGue and Thomas Bouchard, “Genetic and Environmental Influences on Human Behavioral Differences,”
Annual Review of Neuroscience
21 (1998): 1–24. On the heritability of humor specifically, see Beth Manke, “Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Children's Interpersonal Humor,” in
Sense of Humor: Explorations of a Personality Characteristic
, ed. Willibald Ruch (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998).

On the comic personality, see Seymour Fisher and Rhoda Fisher,
Pretend the World Is Funny and Forever: A Psychological Analysis of Comedians, Clowns, and Actors
(Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1981).

On the association between humor comprehension and production, see Aaron Kozbelt and Kana Nishioka, “Humor Comprehension, Humor Production, and Insight: An Exploratory Study,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
23, no. 3 (2010): 375–401.

On humor training, see Ofra Nevo, Haim Aharonson, and Avigdor Klingman, “The Development and Evaluation of a Systematic Program for Improving Sense of Humor,” in
The Sense of Humor: Explorations of a Personality Characteristic
, ed. Willibald Ruch (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998).

C
ONCLUSION

If you really want to read about humor and intoxication, see James Weaver, Jonathan Masland, Shahin Kharazmi, and Dolf Zillmann, “Effect of Alcoholic Intoxication on the Appreciation of Different Types of Humor,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
49, no. 3 (1985): 781–787. On the Russian duo Foma and Yerema, see Alexander Kozintsev, “Foma and Yerema; Max and Moritz; Beavis and Butt-Head: Images of Twin Clowns in Three Cultures,”
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
15, no. 4 (2002): 419–439.

On the concept of flow, see Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi,
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
(New York: Harper and Row, 1990).

I
NDEX

3WD Humor Test,
21

9/11
,
5
,
12
,
51–54
,
56
,
60

A

Abrahams, Roger,
74

Absurd humor.
See
Humor types

Affect

     
emotion (general),
17–18
,
25
,
37–38
,
49–50
,
54
,
68–70
,
95
,
99
,
124
,
135
,
164
,
168–169

     
emotional complexity,
13–14
,
57
,
59
,
61–64
,
72–73
,
145–146

     
horror movies and,
61–63
,
64
,
144

     
joy,
16
,
17
,
40
,
47
,
55
,
62–63
,
84
,
139

     
mood,
30
,
34
,
85–86
,
87
,
135
,
139
,
140
,
144–145
,
146–149
,
163–164
,
179
,
185

     
pleasure,
18–19
,
29–31
,
36–38
,
47
,
81
,
84
,
96
,
136
,
139
,
178
,
184
,
197

A.K. (epileptic patient),
82–83

Albee, Edward,
81

Allen, Woody,
188

Andrade, Eduardo,
61–63

Aristotle,
xiii
,
35
,
100

Arnheim, Rudolf,
38

Atkinson, Rowan,
19

Attardo, Salvatore,
43–44
,
155–156

B

Ball, Lucille,
188

Beecher, Henry Ward,
81

Benchley, Richard,
3

Berger, Asa,
16

Berle, Milton,
188

Big Lebowski, The
(movie),
162

Boden, Margaret,
110–111
,
119
,
120
,
124
,
130

Brain regions

     
amygdala,
17
,
19
,
33
,
49–50

     
anterior cingulate,
30
,
32–34
,
39
,
47
,
48
,
49–50
,
68–69

     
Broca's area,
96

     
computer comparisons and,
82
,
106
,
109
,
113–118
,
124–128

     
corpus callosum,
32–33
,
165
,
166

     
dopamine reward circuit,
17–20
,
31
,
33
,
39
,
96
,
128
,
139

     
electroencephalogram (EEG),
45–47
,
115–116
,
165–166

     
frontal cortex (general),
19
,
33
,
82
,
95–96
,
167–168

     
fronto-insula,
69

     
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),
17
,
18
,
28
,
29
,
39
,
49
,
95

     
mirror neurons,
68

     
N400,
46–47
,
115–116

     
nucleus accumbens,
17
,
33

     
organization of,
16–19
,
32–33
,
39
,
49–50
,
95–96
,
121
,
155–156
,
165–166
,
169–170
,
197

     
P300,
46–47
,
115

     
right hemisphere processing,
165–170

     
spindle cells,
68–70

     
split-brain syndrome,
165–166
,
169–170

     
striatum (ventral),
19

     
supplementary motor cortex,
82–83

     
tegmental area (ventral),
17
,
33

Bressler, Eric,
172

Briedbart, Shaun,
94

Brooks, Mel,
9

Bruce, Lenny,
121
,
125
,
187

Brun, Yuriy,
112

Burgdorf, Jeffrey,
20

C

Cann, Arnie,
147–149

Carlin, George,
125
,
127
,
196

Chinese room thought experiment,
128

Cleese, John,
179

Cloze probability,
114–116

Colbert, Steven,
39
,
40

Colby, Frank Moore,
175

Colleges and universities

     
Aberdeen University,
110

     
California Institute of Technology,
39

     
Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium,
86

     
Grand Valley State University,
59

     
Harvard University,
158
,
166

     
Florida International University,
143

     
Hebrew School of Jerusalem,
71

     
Indiana University,
36

     
McGill University,
18

     
Northwestern University,
20
,
27
,
30

     
San Diego State University,
180

     
Stanford University,
17
,
37
,
45
,
95

     
State University of New York at Syracuse,
188

     
Tel Aviv University,
181

     
Texas A&M University,
43
,
118

     
United States Military Academy,
180

     
University College of London,
48

     
University of California at Berkeley,
62

     
University of California at Los Angeles,
41
,
82

     
University of California at Riverside,
141

     
University of California at San Diego,
116

     
University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom,
22

     
University of Louisville,
xvii

     
University of Maryland,
93
,
138
,
186

     
University of North Carolina,
147

     
University of North Texas,
113

     
University of Sussex,
110
,
123