The Adaptive Power of Humor: How Laughter Helps You Survive Tough Times

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says, “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says “OK, now what?”

You have just read what was voted the world’s funniest joke in the 2001 edition of the LaughLab project. It had been submitted by a psychiatrist from Manchester, who explained that he sometimes told the joke to cheer up his patients, noting that “it makes people feel better because it reminds them that there is always someone out there who is doing something more stupid than themselves.”

It’s Not Funny!… Or Is It?

Grasping one’s sense of humor is no easy feat. Scientists have been discussing this topic for decades and they have already produced a few theories supposed to clarify why we find stuff funny.

Everybody knows some dumb blonde jokes or has laughed at least once in their lives when they saw another person slip and fall down. This kind of amusement—perhaps the nastiest one out there—is explained by the superiority theory of humor, according to which people feel pleasure when laughing at the misfortunes or mindlessness of others (Germans even have a special word for it: Schadenfreude). The behavior of the patients treated by the psychiatrist mentioned above is based on this very pattern: they laugh at somebody else’s stupidity and thus find a tad of consolation in their difficult condition. The superiority theory also covers all the racist jokes and those based on ethnic differences, in which case humor strengthens the bonds within a group. Still, the theory fails to explain why we don’t laugh upon seeing a homeless person in the street or witnessing somebody else’s harm.

The incongruity theory tackles the problem of humor in a different way: it assumes that amusement is a response to surprise or absurdity. This approach goes beyond the situation itself and highlights the skill of noticing that something is wrong. Therefore, the theory involves an evolutionary aspect; after all, finding incongruities in the world is a very useful ability and a sense of humor provides the necessary practice.

The winning joke certainly entails considerable surprise when the telephone operator asks the hunter to make sure that his friend is indeed dead. Most of us would probably rush to check breathing and pulse, but the hunter misinterprets the instructions and “makes sure” in an unexpected yet undeniably effective way.

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However, not every instance of incongruity is funny. If you were told, “I’m pleasantly stuffed, but I’m still hungry,” you would probably be surprised but not inclined to laugh. The relief theory states that humor and laughter comprises a mechanism to reduce psychological tension by replacing fear or anger with amusement. This explains why black humor is so popular: it helps people tame their fright. No wonder that the number of jokes about tragic events such as terrorist attacks or the Holocaust increases with time. This has even been put into a separate formula: “tragedy + time = comedy.”

Nevertheless, none of these theories is able to explain independently why something is funny. Interestingly, the winning joke of the 2001 LaughLab project includes the elements of each approach, which may well be the best way to think up funny stories.

Laughter in Lethal Times

Every now and then we are completely absorbed by daily affairs. A sense of humor is the only skill which lets us become detached from the circumstances and view them more objectively. Imagine that you’re in a hurry for an important meeting and the bus leaves in a few minutes. You can’t find the keys although you have nervously searched every inch of your pockets and drawers. Suddenly, upon an accidental glimpse at the door, it turns out that the keys are already in the lock. You snort with laughter as a reaction to your own absent mind, and this very moment relieves you of haste, if only for a little while. Now you can perceive the situation like a third party observer and see yourself as an actor on the great stage of life.

People are able to laugh even in critical situations and such a reaction is actually more common than it seems. Prisoners in concentration camps joked too! Psychologist Viktor Frankl, who survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, later wrote that he had noticed various manifestations of the sense of humor in his fellows. Naturally, those were usually just elusive substitutes of real joy, yet they often served as a secret weapon for the people facing the tragedy of genocide.

The prisoners typically resorted to black humor in order to become detached from the nightmare that surrounded them. Frankl himself made a deal with his companion in misery: every day they would think up one funny situation which might happen to them if they were set free. Obviously, the anecdotes reflected the somber reality of the camp. For example, the men envisioned attending dinner parties where they would suddenly forget themselves and beg the hostess to serve the soup “from the bottom.” Why was that? In the concentration camp, soup was life. Cooks would favor some prisoners by ladling from the bottom of the pot for bits of potato or peas, while punishing others by skimming off the top broth.

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Another way to cope with the inhuman circumstances was to ridicule the Nazi murderers. One popular joke employed the discrepancy between the official Aryan ideal and the actual appearance of the Third Reich leaders. Question: what should a true Aryan look like? Answer: blonde like Hitler, slim like Göring, and tall like Goebbels. Astonished? You needn’t be; stories like that were many.

Sense of Humor and Mental Wellbeing

In Frankl’s approach, humor can be perceived as a lifestyle. “The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living,” he wrote. If that’s the case, we should at least try to understand what’s so beneficial about humor in our daily lives.

The existing research on this subject has produced fairly unequivocal results. A good sense of humor is combined with a more positive perception of yourself, and that includes comparisons between your real self and your ideal self (as psychology calls them). In addition, people who joke often show higher resistance to stress and generally respond to good and bad events in their lives with more positive emotions than people who find it hard to make fun. The conclusion seems obvious: humor is our ally and we should resort to it—especially when confronted with a situation where we can but laugh in its face.