Landscape scale conservation attempts to reconcile competing pressures on the designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty across the United Kingdom.
Landscape-scale conservation is a holistic approach to landscape management, aiming to reconcile the competing objectives of nature conservation and economic activities across a given landscape. Landscape-scale conservation may sometimes be attempted because of climate change. It can be seen as an alternative to site based conservation.
Many global problems such as poverty, food security, climate change, water scarcity, deforestation and biodiversity loss are connected. For example, lifting people out of poverty can increase consumption and drive climate change. Expanding agriculture can exacerbate water scarcity and drive habitat loss.
Proponents of landscape management argue that as these problems are
interconnected, coordinated approaches are needed to address them, by
focussing on how landscapes can generate multiple benefits. For example,
a river basin can supply water for towns and agriculture,
timber and food crops for people and industry, and habitat for
biodiversity; and each one of these users can have impacts on the
others.
Landscapes in general have been recognised as important units for conservation by intergovernmental bodies, government initiatives, and research institutes.
Problems with this approach include difficulties in monitoring, and the proliferation of definitions and terms relating to it.
There are many overlapping terms and definitions, but many terms have similar meanings. A sustainable
landscape, for example, meets "the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
Approaching conservation by means of landscapes can be seen as "a conceptual framework whereby stakeholders
in a landscape aim to reconcile competing social, economic and
environmental objectives". Instead of focussing on a single use of the
land it aims to ensure that the interests of different stakeholders are
met.
The starting point for all landscape-scale conservation schemes
must be an understanding of the character of the landscape. Landscape
character goes beyond aesthetic.
It involves understanding how the landscape functions to support
communities, cultural heritage and development, the economy, as well as
the wildlife and natural resources of the area. Landscape character
requires careful assessment according to accepted methodologies.
Landscape character assessment will contribute to the determination of
what scale is appropriate in which landscape. "Landscape scale" does not
merely mean acting at a bigger scale: it means conservation is carried
out at the correct scale and that it takes into account the human
elements of the landscape, both past and present.
The word 'landscape' in English is a loanword from Dutchlandschap introduced in the 1660s and originally meant a painting.
The meaning a "tract of land with its distinguishing characteristics"
was derived from that in 1886. This was then used as a verb as of 1916.
The German geographerCarl Troll coined the German term Landschaftsökologie–thus 'landscape ecology' in 1939. He developed this terminology and many early concepts of landscape ecology as part of this work, which consisted of applying aerial photograph interpretation to studies of interactions between environment, agriculture and vegetation.
In the UK conservation of landscapes can be said to have begun in 1945 with the publication of the Report to the Government on National Parks in England and Wales. The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 introduced the legislation for the creation Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Northern Ireland has the same system after adoption of the Amenity Lands (NI) Act 1965. The first of these AONB were defined in 1956, with the last being created in 1995.
The conservation community began to take notice of the science of landscape ecology in the 1980s.
Efforts to develop concepts of landscape management that
integrate international social and economic development with
biodiversity conservation began in 1992.
The UN Environment Programme stated in 2015 that the landscape approach embodies ecosystem management. UNEP uses the approach with the Ecosystem Management of Productive Landscapes project. The scientific committee of the Convention on Biological Diversity also considers the perspective of a landscape the most important scale for improving sustainable use of biodiversity. There are global fora on landscapes. During the Livelihoods and Landscapes Strategies programme the International Union for Conservation of Nature applied this approach to locations worldwide, in 27 landscapes in 23 different countries.
Examples of landscape approaches can be global or continental, for example in Africa, Oceania and Latin America. The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development plays an important part in funding landscape conservation in Europe.
Relevance to international commitments
Some argue landscape management can address the Sustainable Development Goals.
Many of these goals have potential synergies or trade-offs: some
therefore argue that addressing these goals individually may not be
effective, and landscape approaches provide a potential framework to
manage them. For example, increasing areas of irrigated agricultural
land to end hunger could have adverse impacts on terrestrial ecosystems
or sustainable water management.
Landscape approaches intend to include different sectors, and thus
achieve the multiple objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals –
for example, working within catchment area of a river to enhance
agricultural productivity, flood defence, biodiversity and carbon
storage.
Climate change and agriculture are intertwined so production of food and climate mitigation can be a part of landscape management. The agricultural sector accounts for around 24% of anthropogenic emissions.
Unlike other sectors that emit greenhouse gases, agriculture and
forestry have the potential to mitigate climate change by reducing or
removing greenhouse gas emissions, for example by reforestation and landscape restoration. Advocates of landscape management argue that 'climate-smart agriculture' and REDD+ can draw on landscape management.
The marketing of products from specific landscapes can assist conservation. This is apple juice from Tukuche village in the Kali Gandaki Gorge, Nepal
Regional
Germany
Because
a large proportion of the biodiversity of Germany was able to invade
from the south and east after human activities altered the landscape,
maintaining such artificial landscapes is an integral part of nature
conservation. The full name of the main nature conservation law in Germany, the Bundesnaturschutzgesetzes, is thus titled in its entirety Gesetz über Naturschutz und Landschaftspflege, where Landschaftspflege translates literally to "landscape maintenance" (see reference for more). Related concepts are Landschaftsschutz, "landscape protection/conservation", and Landschaftsschutzgebiet, a "nature preserve", or literally a (legally) "protected landscape area". The Deutscher Verband für Landschaftspflege
is the main organisation which protects landscapes in Germany. It is an
umbrella organisation which coordinates the regional landscape
protection organisations of the different German states. Classically, there are four methods which can be done in order to conserve landscapes: maintenance, improvement, protection and redevelopment. The marketing of products such as meat from alpine meadows or apple juice from traditional Streuobstwiese can also be an important factor in conservation. Landscapes are maintained by three methods: biological - such as grazing by livestock, manually (although this is rare due to the high cost of labour) and commonly mechanically.
Staatsbosbeheer, the Dutch governmental forest service, considers landscape management an important part of managing their lands. Landschapsbeheer Nederland
is an umbrella organisation which promotes and helps fund the interests
of the different provincial landscape management organisations, which
between them include 75,000 volunteers and 110,000 hectares of protected
nature reserves. Sustainable landscape management is being researched in the Netherlands.
Peru
An example of a producer movement managing a multi-functional landscape is the Potato Park in Písac, Peru, where local communities protect the ecological and cultural diversity of the 12,000ha landscape.
In Sweden, the Swedish National Heritage Board, or Riksantikvarieämbetet, is responsible for landscape conservation. Landscape conservation can be studied at the Department of Cultural Conservation (at Dacapo Mariestad) of the University of Gothenburg, in both Swedish and English.
Thailand
An example of cooperation between very different actors is from the Doi Mae Salong watershed in northwest Thailand, a Military Reserved Area under the control of the Royal Thai Armed Forces. Reforestation activities led to tension with local hill tribes. In response, an agreement was reached with them on land rights and use of different parts of the reserve.
Among the leading exponents of UK landscape scale conservation are the Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). There are 49 AONB in the UK. The International Union for Conservation of Nature
has categorised these regions as "category 5 protected areas" and in
2005 claimed the AONB are administered using what the IUCN coined the
"protected landscape approach". In Scotland there is a similar system of national scenic areas.
The UK Biodiversity Action Plan protects semi-natural grasslands, among other habitats, which constitute landscapes maintained by low-intensity grazing.
Agricultural environment schemes reward farmers and land managers
financially for maintaining these habitats on registered agricultural
land. Each of the four
countries in the UK has its own individual scheme.
Studies have been carried out across the UK looking at much wider range of habitats. In Wales the Pumlumon Large Area Conservation Project focusses on upland conservation in areas of marginal agriculture and forestry. The North Somerset Levels and Moors Project addresses wetlands.
Other
The landscape to the left is known as satoyama; a traditional human-influenced secondary forest bordering agricultural fields in Japan. The satoyama conservation movement spread in the 1980s in Japan and by 2001 there were more than 500 environmental groups involved.
The Mount Kailash region is where the Indus River, the Karnali River (a major tributary of the Ganges River), the Brahmaputra River and the Sutlej
river systems originate. With assistance from the International Centre
for Integrated Mountain Development, the three surrounding countries
(China, India and Nepal) developed an integrated management approach to
the different conservation and development issues within this landscape.
Six countries in West Africa in the Volta River
basin using the 'Mapping Ecosystems Services to Human well-being'
toolkit, use landscape modelling of alternative scenarios for the
riparian buffer to make land-use decisions such as conserving
hydrological ecosystem services and meeting national SDG commitments.
Variations
Ecoagriculture
In a 2001 article published by Sara J. Scherr and Jeffrey McNeely, soon expanded into a book,
Scherr and McNeely introduced the term "ecoagriculture" to describe
their vision of rural development while advancing the environment, claim
that agriculture is the dominant influence on wild species and
habitats, and point to a number of recent and potential future
developments they identified as beneficial examples of land use. They incorporated the non-profit EcoAgriculture Partners.
in 2004 to promote this vision, with Scherr as President and CEO, and
McNeely as an independent governing board member. Scherr and McNeely
edited a second book in 2007. Ecoagriculture had three elements in 2003.
Integrated landscape management
In
2012 Scherr invented a new term, integrated landscape management(ILM),
to describe her ideas for developing entire regions, not at just a farm
or plot level. Integrated landscape management is a way of managing sustainable
landscapes by bringing together multiple stakeholders with different
land use objectives. The integrated approach claims to go beyond other
approaches which focus on users of the land independently of each other,
despite needing some of the same resources. It is promoted by the conservation NGOs Worldwide Fund for Nature, Global Canopy Programme, The Nature Conservancy, The Sustainable Trade Initiative, and EcoAgriculture Partners.
Promoters claim that integrated landscape management will maximise
collaboration in planning, policy development and action regarding the
interdependent Sustainable Development Goals. It was defined by four elements in 2013:
Large scale: It plans land uses at the landscape scale. Wildlife
population dynamics and watershed functions can only be understood at
the landscape scale. Assuming short-term trade-offs may lead to
long-term synergies, conducting analyses over long time periods is
advocated.
Emphasis on synergies: It tries to exploit "synergies" among conservation, agricultural production, and rural livelihoods.
Emphasis on collaboration: It can not be achieved by individuals.
The management of landscapes require different land managers with
different environmental and socio-economic goals to achieve
conservation, production, and livelihood goals at a landscape scale.
Importance of both conservation and agricultural production:
bringing conservation into the agricultural and rural development
discourse by highlighting the importance of ecosystem services in
supporting agricultural production. It supports conservationists to more
effectively conserve nature within and outside protected areas by
working with the agricultural community by developing
conservation-friendly livelihoods for rural land users.
By 2016 it had five elements, namely:
stakeholders come together for cooperative dialogue and action;
they exchange information systematically and discuss perspectives to
achieve a shared understanding of the landscape conditions, challenges
and opportunities;
collaborative planning to develop an agreed action plan;
This approach includes continual learning and adaptive management:
including monitoring, the expectation that actions take place at
multiple scales and that landscapes are multifunctional (e.g. supplying
both goods, such as timber and food, and services, such as water and
biodiversity protection). There are multiple stakeholders, and it
assumes they have a common concern about the landscape, negotiate change
with each other, and their rights and responsibilities are clear or
will become clear.
Criticisms
A literature review identified five main barriers, as follows:
Terminology confusion: the variety of definitions creates
confusion and resistance to engage. This resistance has emerged, often
independently, from different fields. As stated by Scherr et al.:
"People are talking about the same thing ... This can lead to
fragmentation of knowledge, unnecessary re-invention of ideas and
practices, and inability to mobilize action at scale. ... this rich
diversity is often simply overwhelming: they receive confusing messages"
This problem is not unique to landscape approaches: since the 1970s it
has been recognised that the constant emergence of new terminology can
be harmful if they promote rhetoric at the expense of action.
Because landscapes approaches develop from, and aim to integrate, a
wide variety of sectors, makes it vulnerable to overlapping definitions
and parallel concepts. Like other approaches to conservation, it may be a fad.
Time lags: substantial time and resources are invested in developing
and planning, while resources are inadequate for implementation.
Operating silos: Each sector pursues its goals without giving
consideration to the others. This may arise because of a lack in
established objectives, operating norms and funding that effectively
bridge different sectors.
Working across sectors at the landscape scale requires a range of
skills, different from those traditionally used by conservation
organisations.
Engagement: Stakeholders may not desire to be engaged in the process, engagement may be trivial or inaccessible, and the discussions may hinder efficient decision-making.
Monitoring: There is lack of monitoring to check whether the objectives have been achieved.
The organic movement broadly refers to the organizations and individuals involved worldwide in the promotion of organic food
and other organic products. It started during the first half of the
20th century, when modern large-scale agricultural practices began to
appear.
Definition
An organic product can broadly be described as not containing toxic chemicals (including synthetic pesticides, arsenic-containing herbicides, fertilization biosolids, chemical food additives, antibiotics, synthetic hormones, and industrial solvents). In addition to the absence of artificial chemicals, "organic" means not genetically engineered, and having not used ionizing irradiation, which can cause free-radicals and the removal of vitamins. For example, USDA organic restricts against such things, including genetic engineering in products or in the products' animal feed, and automatically disallows the use of GMO products as being labelled as Organic and allows the use of "Non-GMO" labelling similar to The Non-GMO Project.
In the United Kingdom, the term used with food is natural food.
Today, organic foods stores have captured a significant share of the grocery shopping market, specifically, Whole Foods Market, Wild Oats, Trader Joe's and others.
Timeline
In the summer of 1924 Rudolf Steiner
presented what has been called the first organic agriculture course to a
group of over one hundred farmers and others at Koberwitz, now Kobierzyce, Poland. In Germany Rudolf Steiner's Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of Agriculture, published in 1924, led to the popularization of biodynamic agriculture, probably the first comprehensive organic farming system, that was based on Steiner's spiritual and philosophical teachings.
The first use of the term "organic farming" is by Lord Northbourne (aka Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne).
The term derives from his concept of "the farm as organism", which he
expounded in his book, Look to the Land (1940), and in which he
described a holistic, ecologically balanced approach to farming.
Northbourne wrote of "chemical farming versus organic farming". http://www.orgprints.org/10138.
In 1939, strongly influenced by Sir Howard's work, Lady Eve Balfour launched the Haughley Experiment
on farmland in England. It was the first, side-by-side comparison of
organic and conventional farming. Four years later, she published The Living Soil,
based on the initial findings of the Haughley Experiment. It was widely
read, and lead to the formation of a key international organic advocacy
group, the Soil Association.
Sir Albert Howard's 1940 book, An Agricultural Testament,
was influential in promoting organic techniques, and his 1947 book "The
Soil and Health, A Study of Organic Agriculture" adopted Northbourne's
terminology and was the first book to include "organic" agriculture or
farming in its title.
During the 1950s, sustainable agriculture was a research topic of
interest. The science tended to concentrate on the new chemical
approaches. In the U.S. J. I. Rodale
began to popularize the term and methods of organic growing. In
addition to agricultural research, Rodale's publications through Rodale, Inc. in Emmaus, Pennsylvania helped to promote organic gardening to the general public.
In 1962, Rachel Carson, a prominent scientist and naturalist, published Silent Spring, chronicling the effects of DDT and other pesticides on the environment drawing on the research of biodynamic agriculture advocates Marjorie Spock, Mary T. Richards and Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. A bestseller in many countries, including the US, and widely read around the world, Silent Spring was instrumental in the US government's 1972 banning of DDT. The book and its author are often credited with launching the environmental movement.
In the 1970s, worldwide movements concerned with environmental
pollution caused by persistent agrichemical increased attention on
organic farming. One goal of the organic movement was to promote consumption of locally grown food, which was promoted through slogans such as "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food".
In 1972, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM),
was founded in Versailles, France. IFOAM was dedicated to the diffusion
of information on the principles and practices of organic agriculture
across national and linguistic boundaries. In the same year, John Battendieri founded Santa Cruz Organics, which marketed some of the first packaged organic products.
In the 1980s, around the world, various farming and consumer groups
began seriously pressuring for government regulation of organic
production to ensure standards of production. This led to various
legislation and certification standards being enacted through the 1990s
and to date. Currently, most aspects of organic food production are
government-regulated in the US and the European Union.
In the 2000s, the worldwide market for organic products (including
food, beauty, health, bodycare, and household products, and fabrics) has
grown rapidly. More countries are establishing formal,
government-regulated Organic certification.
Monitoring and challenging certification rules and decisions have
become a regular, high profile aspect of activists in the organic
movement.
Organic food, also known as ecological or biological food, refers to foods and beverages produced using methods that comply with the standards of organic farming.
Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming features practices that
cycle resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Organizations regulating organic products may restrict the use of certain pesticides and fertilizers in the farming methods used to produce such products. Organic foods are typically not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or synthetic food additives.
Demand for organic foods is primarily driven by consumer concerns
for personal health and the environment, such as the detrimental environmental impacts of pesticides. From the perspective of scientists and consumers, there is insufficient evidence in the scientific and medical literature to support claims that organic food is either substantially safer or healthier to eat than conventional food.
Organic agriculture has higher production costs and lower yields, higher labor costs, and higher consumer prices as compared to conventional farming methods.
Organic companies
The
recent interest in the organic industry has sparked the interest of
many businesses from small local distributors to large companies that
distribute many products nationally. The organic market is now a
13 billion dollar a year industry, that continues to grow especially
from large corporations such as Wal-Mart that are now offering organic
choices to their customers.
Other companies that offer organic options include General Mills and
Kraft. Some large companies have bought smaller already established
organic companies such as Earth's Best, Rice Dream soy milk, Garden of
Eatin', Celestial Seasonings and Health Valley. When larger companies
buy smaller companies it is called stealth ownership.
Organic cosmetics
Organic
cosmetics are products that are made with organic ingredients that were
produced without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides,
fungicides, and fertilizers.
The FDA does not have a definition of “Organic” in terms of organic cosmetics. FDA regulates cosmetics under the authority of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) and the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA).
The USDA (the U.S. Department of Agriculture) requirements for
the use of the term “organic” are separate from the laws and regulations
that FDA applies for cosmetics. For more information on "organic"
labeling for cosmetics, see the NOP publication, "Cosmetics, Body Care Products, and Personal Care Products."
Cosmetic products labeled with “organic” must follow both USDA
regulations and FDA regulations of organic claims for labeling and
safety requirements for cosmetics.
The Agricultural Marketing Service of USDA supervises the National Organic Program
(NOP). The NOP regulations have the definition of "organic" and provide
certification for agricultural ingredients if they have been produced
under conditions that would meet the definition. Moreover, the
regulations also include labeling standards based on the percentage of
organic ingredients in every product.
Organic farming, also known as organic agriculture or ecological farming or biological farming, is an agricultural system that emphasizes the use of naturally occurring, non-synthetic inputs, such as compost manure, green manure, and bone meal and places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation, companion planting, and mixed cropping. Biological pest control methods such as the fostering of insect predators are also encouraged. Organic agriculture can be defined as "an integrated farming system that strives for sustainability, the enhancement of soil fertility and biological diversity while, with rare exceptions, prohibiting synthetic pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, and growth hormones".
It originated early in the 20th century in reaction to rapidly changing
farming practices. Certified organic agriculture accounted for
70 million hectares (170 million acres) globally in 2019, with over half
of that total in Australia.
Organic agricultural methods are internationally regulated and legally enforced by transnational organizations such as the European Union and also by individual nations, based in large part on the standards set by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), an international umbrella organization for organic farming organizations established in 1972, with regional branches such as IFOAM Organics Europe and IFOAM Asia. Since 1990, the market for organic food
and other products has grown rapidly, reaching $150 billion worldwide
in 2022 – of which more than $64 billion was earned in North America and
EUR 53 billion in Europe. This demand has driven a similar increase in organically managed farmland, which grew by 26.6 percent from 2021 to 2022.
As of 2022, organic farming is practiced in 188 countries and
approximately 96,000,000 hectares (240,000,000 acres) worldwide were
farmed organically by 4.5 million farmers, representing approximately 2
percent of total world farmland.
Organic land care, organic landscaping, or organic lawn management
is a form of horticulture that relies on organic land management
techniques such as mowing high, proper watering, the use of compost,
soil amendments, and organic pest control.
In the late 20th century, a movement to manage lawns organically
began to grow out of the practices of the organic farming movement.
Activists in several U.S. cities have pushed local governments to
require organic landscaping. Many private properties worldwide are
managed organically, but some locations require organic land care.
Local regulations are often responding to a lack of regulation from the
federal government and billion-dollar settlements against pesticide
manufacturers.
The organic land care movement gained public recognition in 1996 when England's Prince Charles announced that the Highgrove House gardens and landscaping were under organic management. In 2009, then Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust
announced that the campus and grounds were under organic management
there implemented by landscape director Wayne Carbone and with savings
of two million gallons of irrigation water and resulting in cure of leaf
spot and apple scab in the campus orchard. In 2018, Portland, Maine
became the largest city in the United States to restrict all synthetic
pesticide applications across all public lands and private property. The
pesticide ordinance passed by the City Council that includes a fine of
up to $500 for violations was lobbied for by environmental groups and
community organizer Avery Yale Kamila. In 2019, Rafael Tornini, head of the Garden and Environment Service of the Vatican, announced the 37 acre Gardens of Vatican City had been transitioning to organic management since 2017.
Criticisms
There
have been multiple criticisms regarding organic food and organic
marketing practices. Scientists at the University of Washington did a
test of the urine of children who are on organic food diets and children
who are on conventional food diets. The result was that the urine of
children on organic food diets had a median level of pesticide
byproducts only one-sixth of children on conventional food diets.
However, at the same time French, British and Swedish government food
agencies have all concluded that there was no scientific proof that
organic food is safer or has more nutrition than conventional foods.
A 2014 study by a non-profit academic think tank funded by the
Council for Biotechnology Information alleged consumers are "routinely
deceived" by intentional and endemic misleading health claims in organic
marketing. Organic products typically cost 10% to 40% more than similar conventionally produced products. According to the UK's Food Standards Agency,
"Consumers may choose to buy organic fruit, vegetables and meat because
they believe them to be more nutritious than other food. However, the
balance of current scientific evidence does not support this view." A 12-month systematic review commissioned by the FSA in 2009 and conducted at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
based on 50 years' worth of collected evidence concluded that "there is
no good evidence that consumption of organic food is beneficial to
health in relation to nutrient content."
Although the source of the organic movement was small family farms,
large corporations have started distributing more organic products and
certain categories of organic foods, such as milk, have been reported by
Michael Pollan to be highly concentrated and predominantly sourced to mega-farms.
Although humor is a phenomenon experienced by most humans, its exact cause is a topic of heavy debate. There are many theories of humor which attempt to explain what it is, what social functions it serves, and what would be considered humorous. Although various classical theories of humor and laughter may be found, in contemporary academic literature, three theories of humor appear repeatedly: relief theory, superiority theory, and incongruity theory. Among current humor researchers, there is yet no consensus about which of these three theories of humor is most viable, though the incongruity theory is very often considered the most dominant.
Some proponents of each of these most commonly known theories
originally claimed that theirs and theirs alone explained all humor.
There is, however, consensus that these theories, especially
incongruity, have been building blocks for some later ones. Many
theorists also now hold that the three main theories are of narrower
focus than originally intended, and that there are examples of humor
where various theories explain different aspects.Similarly, one view holds that theories have a combinative effect;
Jeroen Vandaele claims that incongruity and superiority theories
describe complementary mechanisms that together create humor. Another such combinative view involves incongruity and relief, that Terry Eagleton considers in his 2019 book, Humour.
Relief theory
Relief
theory suggests humor is a mechanism for pent-up emotions or tension
through emotional relief. In this theory, laughter serves as a homeostatic mechanism by which psychological stress is reduced. Humor may thus facilitate ease of the tension caused by one's fears, for example. Laughter and joy, according to relief theory, result from this release of excess nervous energy. According to relief theory, humor is used mainly to overcome sociocultural inhibitions and reveal suppressed desires. It is believed that this is why we laugh while being tickled, due to a buildup of tension as the tickler "strikes."
From the idea of humor being a release of tension, philosophers
and researchers developed a relief theory, and a notion of comic relief
over time.
In the eighteenth century, English drama theorists John Dryden and Samuel Johnson
argued that relief theory was to be used as a dramatic tool. John
Dryden (1668) believed mirth and tragedy would make for the best plots.
On the other hand, Shurcliff (1968) argued that humor is a
mechanism to relieve tension. When in anticipation of a negative
experience, one may begin to feel some heightened arousal. According to
Shurcliff, the heightened arousal is then reduced through mirth or
laughter.
Comparably, an English Scholar, Lucas (1958), wrote that audiences
respond better based on the "strain-rest-strain-rest" idea in which a
tragic event may happen with moments of relaxation.
According to Herbert Spencer,
laughter is an "economical phenomenon" whose function is to release
"psychic energy" that had been wrongly mobilized by incorrect or false
expectations. The latter point of view was supported also by Sigmund Freud. Immanuel Kant also emphasized the physiological release in our response to humor.
Eddie Tafoya uses the idea of a physical urge tied to a psychological
need for release when describing relief theory in his book The Legacy of the Wisecrack: Stand-up Comedy as the Great Literary Form. Tafoya explains "…that each human being is caught in a tug-of-war: part of us strains to live free as individuals, guided by bodily appetites and aggressive urges, while the other side yearns for conformity and acceptance. This results in every normal person being continually steeped in psychic tension, mostly due to guilt and lack of fulfillment. This tension can be relieved, albeit temporarily, through joking."
Superiority theory
The superiority theory of humor traces back to Thomas Hobbes'sLeviathan. It is also very widely claimed to be associated with Plato and Aristotle.
The general idea is that a person laughs about the misfortunes of others because they feel superior.
There is a lack of consensus, however, as to exactly what the
superiority theory means and the purpose of the claim it makes about
humor.
Plato described the laughable as being both a pleasure and pain in the soul.
One may experience these mixed emotions during the malicious person's
happiness at the victim's misfortune. For Aristotle, we laugh at
inferior or ugly individuals. Aristotle observed that many jokes relied on a combination of incongruity and hostility. He explained that jokes are funny because they catch the listener off guard, introducing a surprising and unexpected twist
that amuses them. However, this incongruity alone does not entirely
explain the mechanics of laughter. There also appears to be a component
of hostility from both the comedian and the audience. What makes something funny often involves ridiculous features, such as a physical deformity
or a slip-up. Therefore, whether through jokes, situations, or physical
characteristics, while humor's laughter-inducing quality primarily
stems from incongruity, aggression is also intertwined with it.
In the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes described superiority theory in two pieces, Human Nature (1650) and Leviathan (1651), which have very similar views. Hobbes describes laughter as the sudden glory one feels that one is better than the target of the humorous narrative. The sense of glory comes from the recognition of power. Hobbes also mentions the theory of passion in which laughter is not passion; however, laughter is how the body manifests a particular emphasis. Hobbes proposed there are several which typically evoke this feeling of glory:
Success in one's actions beyond one's expectations.
The perception of infirmities and defects in others.
The perception of infirmities and defects in one's past.
The conception of some absurdity is abstracted from individual persons.
According to Hobbes, laughter evoked by these circumstances always has connections with the feeling of superiority.
While Kant
is not usually recognized as a superiority theorist, there are elements
of superiority theory in his account. Kant thinks that there is a place
for harmless teasing. In addition, philosopher of humor Noël Carroll
observes that even the structure of a narrative joke, on Kant's view,
requires the joke teller to "take in" or outdo the joke receiver, even
if only momentarily. Because such joking is recognized as joking and it
is carried out in a playful way, it does not imply that the joker feels
or thinks they are actually superior.
Criticisms of Superiority Theory
The
main criticisms scholars make of the superiority theory, are the
following. Philosophers, beginning with James Beattie in response to
Thomas Hobbes, have objected that there are many types of humor that do
not, in themselves, have anything to do with feelings of superiority
(Beattie, 1778/79). More recently and broadly, it is argued that even in
humor that is always directly accompanied by feelings of superiority,
those feelings are in fact always distinct from the humor itself and
they are never identical with it (Morreall 1983, Levinson 2006, Marra
2019). There is a wide consensus among theorists of humor that the
feeling of superiority is extraneous to humor, and this discrepancy
contributes to the dominance of the incongruity theory.
Disposition theory
Feelings of superiority in humor are examined more closely in disposition theory. Disposition theory is explained in Zillmann
and Cantor's disposition theory, which states that in media and
entertainment, audiences make moral judgments, and the attitude
(disposition) towards a person can affect the audience's experience of
humor.
Audiences enjoy the attempts of humor more when good things happen to
good people and bad things happen to bad people. Thus, for good
characters, good fortune is hoped, or tragedy is feared—while characters
who are disliked are the complete opposite. If what the audience hopes
for is achieved, then they may feel a sense of enjoyment or, in this
case, humor. Similarly, audiences may find a comedian's jokes more
humorous if they like the person delivering jokes.
However, when good things happen to people who deserve it, very
little amusement is experienced by the audience. Thus, it is more
beneficial to mirth in situations of misfortune rather than instances of
fortune.
Disposition Toward Victim
The more intense the negative affective disposition toward the disparaged agent or entity, the greater the magnitude of mirth.
The more intense the positive affective disposition toward the disparaged agent or entity, the smaller the magnitude of mirth.
Disposition Toward the Victor
The more intense the negative affective disposition toward the disparaging agent or entity, the smaller the magnitude of mirth.
The more intense the positive affective disposition toward the disparaging agent or entity, the greater the magnitude of mirth.
These guidelines examine how amusement is expected when an extremely
liked individual disparages an extremely disliked individual. On the
other hand, one may experience less amusement when a disliked individual
disparages the desired individual.
However, It is not in every instance of disparagement that humans
experience mirth and laughter. In some cases, the comment or act of
disparagement can be too much of a tragedy for such a reaction.
Aristotle mentioned the emotions that come with instances of death,
serious harm, or tragedy overpower laughter and instead evoke pity.
Superiority and disposition theories also play into the idea of punching up or punching down in comedy.
Making jokes about someone who is superior to us is considered
"punching up," while making jokes about someone who is inferior to us is
considered "punching down". Due to these power imbalances, punching up
is seen as ethical, where punching down is seen as the opposite. Note that punching up in this context is different to punching up a script (such as in improvements made by a script doctor).
Humor is complex, and different theories attempt to explain its
various aspects. The disposition theory adds a psychological perspective
by suggesting that individual differences play a crucial role in
determining what people find funny.
Incongruity theory
A beer glass made by Camden Town Brewery (London).
The physical presence of beer in the glass's lower part, exactly where
the inscription is: 'HALF EMPTY', sets a collision between two frames of
reference. This incongruity results in a humorous effect at the moment
of its realization.
Incongruity theory, otherwise known as incongruous juxtaposition
theory, suggests that humor and laughter rely on incongruity, which
denotes anything contrary to expectation according to some norm.
The type of humor most often described by this theory is that of a play
on words. Zillmann (200) says that linguistic humor "requires the deciphering of ambiguities, a process that can be likened to problem-solving."
For example, "What is black and white and re[a]d all over?" "A
newspaper!" The part before the punchline can evoke puzzlement due to
the cognitive dissonance of not anticipating the punchline.
Subsequently, the punchline itself might puzzle the hearer until they see the resolution of incongruity, when humor is perceived.
Francis Hutcheson in Thoughts on Laughter
(1725) was the first modern thinker to account for humor by the term
"incongruity," which became a major concept in the evolution of this
field.
In this early version, incongruity was mostly a singular clash between
two opposing ideas. It can be compared to Aristotle's notion of ugliness,
but is much broader. After Hutcheson thus initiated the incongruity
theory, later thinkers developed it. Now a dominant version states that
humor is perceived in the realization of incongruity between a concept
involved in a certain situation and the real objects thought to be in
some relation to the concept. In that explanation, which is from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, he meant by a "concept," in most cases, a word.
Hence, he was referring to the type of joke cited above. It is
primarily due to Schopenhauer's fame that his expression on this topic
is granted such prominence.
Accordingly, such a version of this theory is not original to Schopenhauer, so much as to the Scottish poet James Beattie
who wrote only fifty years after Hutcheson. Although not widely read
today, historically, Beattie's presentation of the theory has,
consequently, been very influential. He made the theory more universal, and instead of incongruity per se, emphasized its partial appropriateness by the idea of "assemblage."
In turn, incongruity has been described as being resolved (i.e., by
putting the objects in question into the real relation), and the
incongruity theory is often called the incongruity-resolution theory (as
well as incongruous juxtaposition).
A famous version of the incongruity theory is that of Immanuel Kant, who claimed that the comic is "the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing." Kant explained laughter at humor as a response to an "absurdity." We first expect the world. Still, that expectation is then disappointed
or "disappears into nothing." Our response to humor consists of a "play
with thoughts." According to Kant, humor must involve the element of surprise. It creates a sense of cognitive dissonance and builds up tension, which is a pleasurable relief or laughter.
While Kant is an incongruity theorist, his account also has elements of release theory (emphasizing the physiological
and physical aspects). It also evokes the superiority theory. He
thought that teasing was acceptable as long as it occurred in the right
setting and did not harm the person being teased.
Schopenhauer argued that humor results from the sudden
recognition of an incongruity between the representation of an object
and its actual nature. He also proposes the more unexpected incongruity,
the more violent one's laughter will be. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel shared almost the same view but saw the concept as an "appearance" and believed that laughter negates that appearance.
Henri Bergson attempted to perfect incongruity by reducing it to the "living" and "mechanical." He proposed that comedy/humor lies in the portrayal of situations experiencing mechanical rigidity.
Bergson emphasizes that humor involves an inappropriate relationship
between habitual or mechanical behaviors and human intelligence. In
Bergson's many types of combinations of the mechanical and the living,
there is much similarity with the incongruity theory.
There has been some debate attempting to clarify the roles of
juxtaposition and shifting in humor, hence, the discussion in the series
Humor Research between John Morreall and Robert Latta.
Though Morreall himself endorses a cognitive shift theory, in this
particular dialogue he indicated examples of simultaneous contrast,
while Latta emphasized the mental shift.
Humor frequently contains an unexpected, often sudden, shift in
perspective, which the incongruity theory assimilates. This has been
defended by Latta (1998) and Brian Boyd (2004).
Boyd views the shift from seriousness to play. Nearly anything can be
the object of this perspective twist; it is, however, in the areas of
human creativity (science and art being the varieties) that the shift results from "structure mapping" to create novel meanings.
Arthur Koestler argues that humor results when two different frames of
reference are set up and a collision is engineered between them.
Benign violation theory
The benign violation theory (BVT) was developed by researchers Peter McGraw
and Caleb Warren. Their ideas build on the work of Linguist Tom Veatch,
who proposed that humor emerges when one's sense of how the world
"ought to be" is threatened or violated. BVT claims that humor occurs
when three conditions are satisfied:
Something threatens one's sense of how the world "ought to be."
The threatening situation seems benign.
A person sees both interpretations at the same time.
From an evolutionary perspective, humorous violations likely originated as apparent physical threats, like those present in play fighting and tickling.
According to Benign violation, people often laugh when being tickled or
play fighting because laughter signifies the situation is somehow
threatening but safe.
As humans evolved, the conditions that elicit humor likely expanded
from physical threats to other violations, including violations of
personal dignity (e.g., slapstick, teasing), linguistic norms (e.g., puns, malapropisms), social norms (e.g., strange behaviors, risqué jokes), and even moral norms (e.g., disrespectful behaviors).
There is also more than one way a violation can seem benign.
McGraw and Warren tested three contexts in the domain of moral
violations. A violation can seem benign if one norm suggests something
is wrong, but another salient norm suggests it is acceptable. A
violation can also seem benign when one is psychologically distant from
the violation or is only weakly committed to the violated norm.
For example, McGraw and Warren find that most consumers were
disgusted when they read about a church raffling off a Hummer SUV to
recruit new members, but many were simultaneously amused. Consistent
with BVT, people who attended church were less likely to be amused than
people who did not. Churchgoers are more committed to the belief that
churches are sacred and, consequently are less likely to consider the
church's behavior benign.
One must have a slight connection to the norm that is being
violated but, at the same time, cannot be too attached or committed. If a
person is too attached, then there will be no humor. The violation will
then not be considered benign. On the contrary, the violation will not
be a moral norm if a person is not slightly attached. Thus, both of
these must simultaneously be categorized as benign violations to emerge
as humor.
The benign violation theory helps explain why some jokes or
situations are funny to some people but not to others. It emphasizes the
importance of context and individual differences in humor appreciation.
A violation that one person finds amusing might be offensive or
upsetting to another, and the perception of benignity plays a crucial
role in determining the overall humor response.
Other theories
Script-based semantic theory of humor
The script-based semantic theory of humor (SSTH) was introduced by Victor Raskin in "Semantic Mechanisms of Humor", published 1985.
While being a variant on the more general concepts of the Incongruity
theory of humor (see above), it is the first theory to identify its
approach as exclusively linguistic. As such it concerns itself only with
verbal humor: written and spoken words used in narrative or riddle
jokes concluding with a punch line.
The linguistic scripts (a.k.a. frames) referenced in the title
include, for any given word, a "large chunk of semantic information
surrounding the word and evoked by it [...] a cognitive structure
internalized by the native speaker". These scripts extend much further than the lexical definition
of a word; they contain the speaker's complete knowledge of the concept
as it exists in his world. Thus native speakers will have similar but
not identical scripts for words they have in common.
To produce the humor of a verbal joke, Raskin posits, the following two conditions must be met:
"(i) The text is compatible, fully or in part, with two different [semantic] scripts
(ii) The two scripts with which the text is compatible are opposite
[...]. The two scripts with which the text is compatible are said to
overlap fully or in part on this text."
Humor is evoked when a trigger at the end of the joke, the punch line,
causes the audience to abruptly shift its understanding from the
primary (or more obvious) script to the secondary, opposing script.
As an example Raskin uses the following joke:
"Is the doctor at home?" the patient asked in his bronchial
whisper. "No," the doctor's young and pretty wife whispered in reply.
"Come right in."
For this example, the two scripts contained in the joke are DOCTOR and LOVER;
the switch from one to the other is triggered by our understanding of
the "whispered" reply of the "young and pretty wife". This reply only
makes sense in the script of LOVER, but makes no sense in the script of a bronchial patient going to see the DOCTOR
at his (home) office. Raskin expands further on his analysis with more
jokes, examining in each how the scripts both overlap and oppose each
other in the text.
In order to fulfill the second condition of a joke, Raskin
introduces different categories of script opposition. A partial list
includes: actual (non-actual), normal (abnormal), possible (impossible),
good (bad), life (death), obscene (non-obscene), money (no money), high
(low) stature. A complete list of possible script oppositions for jokes is finite and culturally dependent. For example, Soviet political humor does not use the same scripts to be found in Jewish humor.
However, for all jokes, in order to generate the humor a connection
between the two scripts contained in a given joke must be established.
"...one cannot simply juxtapose two incongruous things and call it a
joke, but rather one must find a clever way of making them make
pseudo-sense together".
General theory of verbal humor
The general theory of verbal humor (GTVH) was proposed by Victor Raskin and Salvatore Attardo in the article "Script theory revis(it)ed: joke similarity and joke representation model".
It integrated Raskin's ideas of Script Opposition (SO), developed in
his Script-based Semantic Theory of Humor [SSTH], into the GTVH as one
of six levels of independent Knowledge Resources (KRs).
These KRs could be used to model individual verbal jokes as well as
analyze the degree of similarity or difference between them. The
Knowledge Resources proposed in this theory are:
Script opposition (SO) references the script opposition
included in Raskin's SSTH. This includes, among others, themes such as
real (unreal), actual (non-actual), normal (abnormal), possible
(impossible).
Logical mechanism (LM) refers to the mechanism which connects
the different scripts in the joke. These can range from a simple verbal
technique like a pun to more complex LMs such as faulty logic or false
analogies.
Situation (SI) can include objects, activities, instruments, props needed to tell the story.
Target (TA) identifies the actor(s) who become the "butt" of
the joke. This labeling serves to develop and solidify stereotypes of
ethnic groups, professions, etc. This is an optional KR.
Narrative strategy (NS) addresses the narrative format of the
joke, as either a simple narrative, a dialogue, or a riddle. It
attempts to classify the different genres and subgenres of verbal humor.
In a subsequent study Attardo expands the NS to include oral and
printed humorous narratives of any length, not just jokes.
Language (LA) "...contains all the information necessary for
the verbalization of a text. It is responsible for the exact wording
...and for the placement of the functional elements."
To illustrate their theory, the authors use 7 examples of the light bulb joke, each variant shifted by a single Knowledge Resource.
Each one of the KRs, ordered hierarchically above and starting with the
Script Opposition, has the ability to "determine the parameters below
themselves, and are determined [circumscribed] by those above
themselves. 'Determination' is to be intended as limiting or reducing
the options available for the instantiation of the parameter; for
example, the choice of the SO [script opposition] DUMB/SMART will reduce the options available to the generation in the TA (in North America to Poles, etc.)"
One of the advantages of this theory (GTVH) over Raskin's
script-based semantic theory (SSTH) is that through the inclusion of the
Narrative Strategy (NS) any and all humorous texts can be categorized.
Whereas Raskin's SSTH only deals with jokes, the GTVH considers all
humorous text from spontaneous one-liners to funny stories and
literature. This theory can also, by identifying how many of the
Knowledge Resources are identical for any two humorous pieces, begin to
define the degree of similarity between the two.
As to the ordering of the Knowledge Resources, there has been
much discussion. Willibald Ruch, a distinguished German psychologist,
and humor researcher, wanted to test empirically the ordering of the Knowledge Resources, with only partial success.
Nevertheless, both the listed Knowledge Resources in the GTVH and their
relationship to each other has proven to be fertile ground in the
further investigation of what exactly makes humor funny.
Computer model of humor
The computer model of humor was suggested by Suslov in 1992.
Investigation of the general scheme of information processing shows the
possibility of a specific malfunction, conditioned by the need that a
false version should be quickly deleted from consciousness. This
specific malfunction can be identified with a humorous effect on
psychological grounds: it exactly corresponds to incongruity-resolution
theory. However, an essentially new ingredient, the role of timing, is
added to the well-known role of ambiguity. In biological systems, a
sense of humor inevitably develops in the course of evolution, because
its biological function consists of quickening the transmission of the
processed information into consciousness and in a more effective use of
brain resources. A realization of this algorithm in neural networks
justifies naturally Spencer's hypothesis on the mechanism of laughter:
deletion of a false version corresponds to zeroing of some part of the
neural network and excessive energy of neurons is thrown out to the
motor cortex, arousing muscular contractions.
The theory treats on equal footing the humorous effect created by
the linguistic means (verbal humor), as well as created visually
(caricature, clown performance) or by tickling. The theory explains the
natural differences in susceptibility of people to humor, the absence of
humorous effect from a trite joke, the role of intonation in telling
jokes, nervous laughter, etc.
According to this theory, humor has a purely biological origin, while
its social functions arose later. This conclusion corresponds to the
known fact that monkeys (as pointed out by Charles Darwin)
and even rats (as found recently) possess laughter like qualities when
playing, drawing conclusions to some potential form of humor.
A practical realization of this algorithm needs extensive
databases, whose creation in the automatic regime was suggested
recently.
Misattribution theory
The misattribution theory
of humor describes an audience's inability to identify precisely what
is funny and why they find a joke humorous. The formal approach is
attributed to Zillmann & Bryant (1980) in their article,
"Misattribution Theory of Tendentious Humor." However, they derived
ideas based on Sigmund Freud. Initially, Freud proposed that audiences do not understand what they find amusing. Freud suggested the tendentious elements paired with the jokes evoke people to experience laughter. It is the taboo
and hostility that create such a reaction. Thus, the theory explains
how individuals misattribute their responses and believe they laugh at
the innocent elements; in reality, the hostility has individuals rolling on the floor.
Freud made distinctions between tendentious and non-tendentious
humor. Tendentious humor is that of a victim, someone whose shortcomings
are used for humor. Non-tendentious humor is victimless. Although Freud
determined tendentious elements pushed individuals to potential laugh
attacks, innocuous elements were still essential. Hostility alone cannot
be enjoyed because society deems it wrong. In society, one cannot laugh
when told a story of tragedy. The only way it is accepted is if they
are embellished with jokework. Freud argued that innocent jokework was a disguise for the hostility in humor. The elements of innocuous (innocent) features make such wordplay socially acceptable.
Zillmann and Bryant (1980) conducted a study to test Freud's
ideology and combine or separate non-tendentious and tendentious humor.
The results confirmed their expectations. Amusement was high when 'good comedy' was presented. As predicted, participants laughed at instances of victimization and demise
of the individuals. Zillman and Bryant proved Freud's finding to be
accurate. Innocuous cues only amused to double in response to the
misfortune.
Ontic-epistemic theory of humor
The
ontic-epistemic theory of humor proposed by P. Marteinson (2006)
asserts that laughter is a reaction to a cognitive impasse, a momentary
epistemological difficulty, in which the subject perceives that Social
Being itself suddenly appears no longer to be real in any factual or
normative sense. When this occurs material reality, which is always
factually true, is the only percept remaining in the mind at such a
moment of comic perception. This theory posits, as in Bergson, that
human beings accept as real both normative immaterial percepts,
such as social identity, and neological factual percepts, but also that
the individual subject normally blends the two together in perception in
order to live by the assumption they are equally real. The comic
results from the perception that they are not. This same result arises
in a number of paradigmatic cases: factual reality can be seen to
conflict with and disprove social reality, which Marteinson calls
Deculturation; alternatively, social reality can appear to contradict
other elements of social reality, which he calls "Relativisation".
Laughter, according to Marteinson, serves to reset and re-boot the
faculty of social perception, which has been rendered non-functional by
the comic situation: it anesthetizes the mind with its euphoria, and
permits the forgetting of the comic stimulus, as well as the well-known
function of communicating the humorous reaction to other members of
society.
Evolutionary psychologistGeoffrey Miller
contends that, from an evolutionary perspective, humour would have had
no survival value to early humans living in the savannas of Africa. He
proposes that human characteristics like humor evolved by sexual
selection. He argues that humour emerged as an indicator of other traits
that were of survival value, such as human intelligence.
Detection of mistaken reasoning
In
2011, three researchers, Hurley, Dennett and Adams, published a book
that reviews previous theories of humor and many specific jokes. They
propose the theory that humor evolved because it strengthens the ability
of the brain to find mistakes in active belief structures, that is, to
detect mistaken reasoning.
This is somewhat consistent with the sexual selection theory, because,
as stated above, humor would be a reliable indicator of an important
survival trait: the ability to detect mistaken reasoning. However, the
three researchers argue that humor is fundamentally important because it
is the very mechanism that allows the human brain to excel at practical
problem solving. Thus, according to them, humor did have survival
value even for early humans, because it enhanced the neural circuitry
needed to survive.
Humor as defense mechanism
According to George Eman Vaillant's (1977) categorization, humor is level 4 defense mechanism:
overt expression of ideas and feelings (especially those that are
unpleasant to focus on or too terrible to talk about) that gives
pleasure to others. Humor, which explores the absurdity inherent in any
event, enables someone to call a spade a spade, while wit is a form of displacement (level 3).
Wit refers to the serious or distressing in a humorous way, rather than
disarming it; the thoughts remain distressing, but they are "skirted
round" by witticism.
Sense of humor, sense of seriousness
One must have a sense of humor
and a sense of seriousness to distinguish what is supposed to be taken
literally or not. An even more keen sense is needed when humor is used
to make a serious point.
Psychologists have studied how humor is intended to be taken as having
seriousness, as when court jesters used humor to convey serious
information. Conversely, when humor is not intended to be taken
seriously, bad taste in humor may cross a line after which it is taken seriously, though not intended.
The O'Shannon model of humor was introduced by Dan O'Shannon in "What Are You Laughing At? A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event", published in 2012.
The model integrates all the general branches of comedy into a unified
framework. This framework consists of four main sections: context, information, aspects of awareness, and enhancers/inhibitors.
Elements of context are in play as reception factors prior to the
encounter with comedic information. This information will require a
level of cognitive process to interpret, and contain a degree of
incongruity (based on predictive likelihood). That degree may be high,
or go as low as to be negligible. The information will be seen
simultaneously through several aspects of awareness (the comedy's
internal reality, its external role as humor, its effect on its context,
effect on other receivers, etc.). Any element from any of these
sections may trigger enhancers / inhibitors (feelings of superiority,
relief, aggression, identification, shock, etc.) which will affect the
receiver's ultimate response. The various interactions of the model
allow for a wide range of comedy; for example, a joke need not rely on
high levels of incongruity if it triggers feelings of superiority,
aggression, relief, or identification. Also, high incongruity humor may
trigger a visceral response, while well-constructed word-play with low
incongruity might trigger a more appreciative response. Also included in
the book: evolutionary theories that account for visceral and social
laughter, and the phenomenon of comedic entropy.
Unnoticed fall-back to former behavior patterns
This
model defines laughter as an acoustic signal to make individuals aware
of an unnoticed fall-back to former behaviour patterns. To some extent
it unifies superiority and incongruity theory. Ticklishness is also
considered to have a defined relation to humor via the development of
human bipedalism.
Bergson
In Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, French philosopher Henri Bergson, renowned for his philosophical studies on materiality, memory, life and consciousness, tries to determine the laws of the comic and to understand the fundamental causes of comic situations.
His method consists in determining the causes of comic instead of
analyzing its effects. He also deals with laughter in relation to human
life, collective imagination and art, to have a better knowledge of society.
One of the theories of the essay is that laughter, as a collective
activity, has a social and moral role, in forcing people to eliminate
their vices. It is a factor of uniformity of behaviours, as it condemns
ludicrous and eccentric behaviours.
In this essay, Bergson also asserts that there is a central cause
that all comic situations are derived from: that of mechanism applied
to life. The fundamental source of comic is the presence of
inflexibility and rigidness in life. For Bergson, the essence of life is
movement, elasticity and flexibility,
and every comic situation is due to the presence of rigidity and
inelasticity in life. Hence, for Bergson the source of the comic is not ugliness but rigidity.
All the examples taken by Bergson (such as a man falling in the street,
one person's imitation of another, the automatic application of
conventions and rules, absent-mindedness, repetitive gestures of a
speaker, the resemblance between two faces) are comic situations because
they give the impression that life is subject to rigidity, automatism
and mechanism.
Bergson closes by noting that most comic situations are not laughable because they are part of collective habits.
He defines laughter as an intellectual activity that requires an
immediate approach to a comic situation, detached from any form of emotion or sensibility. Bergson finds a situation to be laughable when the attention and the imagination
are focused on the resistance and rigidity of the body. Bergson
believes that a person is laughable when he or she gives the impression
of being a thing or a machine.
Complex systems theory
A budding area of interest within humor studies is the application of complex dynamic systems theory. Also referred to as complexity or chaos theory,
complex systems theory "aims to account for how the interacting parts
of a complex system give rise to the system's collective behaviour and
how such a system simultaneously interacts with its environment", with
"change [being] central to theory and method" (Larsen-Freeman &
Cameron, 2008).
In his 2020 book The linguistics of humor: An introduction
Attardo calls for a pivot toward transdisciplinary research in humor
studies, noting the potential that complex systems theory has in regard
to this.
Applications of this theory include Tschacher and Haken's (2023) study
of incongruity and resolution using visual puns or verbal jokes, in
which they connected the results of their research with dynamics seen in
psychotherapy.
Demjén (2018) also applied complex systems theory to conversational
humor to better describe how jokes, puns, and memes originate in a
discourse community using complexity based models of understanding
language and language use.
.jpg)
