Laughter is often associated with humor or comedy, but it is also often associated with awkward situations and intense situations ranging from joy to fear. I will differentiate these in name as humor-laughter and social-laughter, but it is my intention to show that these two forms of laughter have a single cause. Often humor-laughter is thought to be caused by subverted expectations - the set-up and the punchline. Some forms of humor seem to walk the edge of this however. For instance, it might be humorous to see someone repeat their usual behavior, like laughing at a grandmother saying something she’s said a hundred times. Here the humor seems to come directly from the fact that one’s expectations are met. Though perhaps an argument could be made that this is in a way subverting expectation, on its face, the opposite appears true. Some social-laughter is thought to be a way of easing tension, of smoothing over an embarrassing moment, or of filling silence. It would seem the cause of this laughter is some desire to keep things pleasant and avoid confrontation - I will call this awkward-laughter, as it seems to aim to remove awkwardness or avoid awkwardness. There is also laughter associated with overwhelming emotion, and it seems laughter is like a release in these situations. And further, one might laugh in anger during an argument, or we might imagine a villainous person laughing at their planned misdeeds. The causes of these seem a little murky, but may be associated with release. Fake laughter would seem to have a different cause than genuine laughter, so it is not considered here.
I propose that all humor-laughter and social-laughter are spontaneous reactions to the breaking of social rules. This would explain why humor is different in different cultures, but overall similar in principle, as social rules differ between cultures but generally follow similar patterns. It would explain why it seems that the more complex and sophisticated a culture’s social life becomes, the more complex its humor becomes. It would explain why those with very lax social rules often tend towards more comparatively extreme humor specifically in situations related to the social rules that they are relatively more lax on. It would explain why children’s interest in types of humor seems based on their ability to understand the social rules being broken. It would explain why humor is often considered subversive.
I will go through various forms of humor-laughter and social-laughter and show how they are a reaction to the breaking of a social rule. This isn’t to say that all breaking of the social rules is met with laughter, or that all laughter is devoid of anger. Nor do I suggest that one must react to the breaking of any social rule, especially if one doesn’t care much about the rule.
When I say social rule, I mean any generally held rule of behavior for some or all of a population. These rules are not all explicitly taught to members of the population, and some may not be understood, known, or agreed upon by all. For instance, in the same population one might find a person who thinks cohabitation before marriage is quite normal, while another believes it’s a sin. But a social rule may be as small as not having a booger in your nose. Social rules apply to interactions between members of the population, and can also extend to the time when one is alone.
Humor-laughter
Most investigation into laughter revolves around humor-laughter, as people have long wondered why some things are funny. Humorists have largely come down on the side of believing humor is subverted expectation. While I think this comes very close to the cause, I don’t think it covers all humor, nor gets to the root of why subverted expectations make us laugh. Subverted expectations also don’t seem to explain social-laughter. Obviously not all subverted expectations makes us laugh, but nor does any and all breaking of a social rule make us laugh. If we find that subverted expectations make us laugh when they break a social rule, and we find that breaking a social rule can cause laughter even without subverted expectations, then it would seem to be more logical to think the breaking of social rules is the cause of the laughter.
The most basic form of humor may perhaps be potty humor, but slapstick also seems quite primal. Potty humor is clearly drawn from breaking the social rules of keeping the nasty parts of humanity out of sight. The mere sound caused by bad gas is believed inherently funny by most, though it’s also usually believed rude in proper company. Here we see how how strict one feels about a social rule, as well as the context and setting where the joke takes place as it relates to the social rule, can determine when the same joke is considered funny or just rude.
Slapstick humor, where someone falls or is hit, leads us to a social rule that is exploited in much of comedy, even types considered much more sophisticated. Looking foolish breaks a social rule, and we know this because we feel embarrassed by doing something foolish, and are considerably more embarrassed if we are witnessed doing something foolish than if we do something foolish alone. Slapstick is the simplest form of this comedy, as the foolishness is not in speech or thought but in physical interaction with the world. However, any dumb action or speech can cause laughter.
Making funny faces is a clear instance of my theory - where laughter can be induced by making faces that one would not usually make. Is this a social rule? Of course, if someone made funny faces in the wrong situation or to the wrong person, it would be quite odd and could easily even offend.
Mockery would appear to be another rather basic form of humor, but there are actually quite a number of different types of laughter related to mockery. The first we must consider is the laughter that may be caused by the thing that will be mocked. For example, if a man has a particularly feminine or a woman has a particularly masculine speaking voice, they may be mocked for it, but they may also simply be laughed at. What causes this laughter?
Like having a booger in your nose makes the person you’re speaking with unable to concentrate, having an atypical voice can cause the same kind of distraction. In some places where this social rule is more strictly believed in, people with atypical voices might change their voice to sound more typical, showing us clearly that it’s a social rule - as people follow it to fit in socially. One might say, but it seems that the laughter is coming from the very surprise of the odd voice, and I think that’s correct in some situations. But in that situation, we would expect that the speaker would then be some kind of authority figure or figure of importance, and it would be the lack of seriousness with which you’re taking someone that “should” be considered important that is the broken social rule. This laughter is for yourself or your chums, you laugh because you’re breaking the social rule, and not taking an authority figure seriously.
This is an important point, the breaking of the social rule can be on the side of the person being laughed at, but people can also laugh at their own breaking of a social rule, or even just if their instinctual inclination would be to break a social rule. If we would laugh at someone else breaking a social rule, why wouldn’t we also laugh at ourselves breaking a social rule?
Here again we can see that the social rules of the person or the context can determine the funniness of this kind of humor. The empathetic leader of a support group may not even have the inclination to laugh at an unusual voice.
But once someone has done something mockable, there is the laughter in response to the mocking of that act. Here is another major social rule broken for comedy - the saying of rude, mean, or hurtful things. Being mean to someone is obviously not socially acceptable, so any mockery, even mockery that is not very funny and is really quite rude, can elicit laughter. And again, that one shouldn’t be laughing can make one laugh more - as one breaks a social rule oneself by joining in the rudeness.
This laughter derived from saying rude things can be expanded to all racist, racial, gross out, and dirty humor, where laughter is evoked through breaking social taboos. Dark humor or gallows humor causes laughter through a similar rule breaking. This is why statements that aren’t particularly funny, but which are quite depressing, can cause some people to laugh.
Nonsense, turn of phrase, wordplay, and puns are all related, as they all center around the breaking of the same social rule. Nonsense may seem out of place, but it is the basis of this humor, as the rule being broken is that one shouldn’t say things that mean nothing. This is why this humor usually has a deflating feeling - these jokes are often “groaners.” They require a certain amount of cleverness, but the joke is often that they “make sense” while still conveying nothing important or relevant. Absurd humor works in a similar way. Anti-humor deliberately evokes that deflating feeling.
Most misdirection jokes fit in with nonsense, as the punchline is often a quite simple misdirection that means very little. There is also the aspect that you’ve been fooled, which on its face breaks a social rule, but even one’s embarrassment at being fooled can allow one to laugh at oneself.
An extremely common form of day-to-day humor is simply saying the worst thing you could possibly say or the opposite of what someone wants to hear. For instance, if a friend apologizes for forgetting something, one may act upset and say something as if they’re mad. Here a social rule is deliberately crossed but jokingly. Usually this humor is phrased in an obviously joking, over the top way, but even if this humor is delivered deadpan, when phrased properly or done between close acquaintances, these jokes are not misinterpreted. However, occasionally these jokes are misinterpreted, and then it’s quite obvious that one has crossed a social line.
Similarly, exaggeration and under-exaggeration can be used for rather simple humor. Exaggeration humor can play off being deliberately unhelpful, or it can play off character humor (e.g. a character who is constantly overwhelmed, or a character who is not phased by anything, even quite extreme things), or it can incorporate another type of humor in its exaggeration (e.g. using vulgarity or mockery in the exaggeration). Along similar lines, saying the opposite of what someone wants to hear and sarcasm break a social rule in that you are lying and being unhelpful.
Observational humor poses an interesting question, as the humor seems to come from the fact that what’s being said is so relatable and true to life. But usually the laugh lines in this style of humor come from what’s embarrassingly true, the parts of the recounting that make you feel foolish. One’s laughter may even seem to correspond directly to how “pegged” one feels, while the information that is relatable but not embarrassing in any way is just the context for the getting to the punchlines. Here we see how laughter can be caused not just by feeling embarrassed for someone else looking foolish, but, if we associate ourselves with the fool, we will also laugh at our own foolishness and the embarrassment we feel for having broken that social rule (either in our own life or through allegorical proxy).
Political humor capitalizes on this ability to laugh at the perceived foolishness of others. This is why political humor can evoke particularly self-righteous and proud laughter, because one is usually laughing at another side being made to look foolish. Epigrams tend to be funny on a similar basis, but instead of making just the other side look foolish, everyone and oneself may be made to look foolish.
Contradicting oneself often generates a laugh. This is a bit different from laughing at someone’s foolishness, as the laugh seems aimed directly at the contradiction.
Awkward humor would seem to be an exploitation of the laughter caused by awkward situations, and the laughter here is almost always caused by embarrassment for someone breaking social rules, or your own identification with the person who is breaking social rules.
Sad sack humor is what I’m calling humor about someone repeatedly receiving misfortune. Often this humor works off absurdities, where a person must interact with people who break all kinds of social rules, like being reasonable, nice, friendly, understanding, etc.
Character humor typically gets its laughs from one’s embarrassment for the character, we laugh when we feel we have the character “pegged,” though again, we may identify with the character and laugh at our own embarrassment. This first type of feeling explains our earlier example of laughing at a grandmother for her doing something she always does. Though there may also be the element that someone doing something repeatedly breaks a social rule.
Anthropomorphic humor is humor where one laughs at an animal or object. Usually, with an animal, one laughs at the animal behaving in way that would be funny for a human to act, or at the fact that the animal is acting like a human. The former’s broken social rule will be whatever it would be for a human, and in the latter it’s the idea of applying social rules to a non-human. This is the broken social rule for most object humor as well, and it only works because we can easily and even tend to imagine animals and objects as having human like experiences (and so social rules can be applied to them in our minds).
Callback jokes require a small detour. Callback jokes seem to cause a different kind of laughter, and I think they partially do. It appears to me that amazing things can also cause laughter, for instance, seeing a particularly impressive display in sport, martial arts, magic, music, or other arts may cause laughter that can seem to stem from one’s amazement. Some of this laughter may be caused by the quite unordinary actions being taken by the object of one’s amusement, which in my theory would stem from any strange act being against social rules. But the element of the laughter that comes from amazement I believe is caused by one’s own breaking of social rules, in that you are having an uncontrolled reaction to something. Here, oddly enough, it appears that laughter is what you do to avoid breaking social rules by freaking out over the amazing thing. There might be some who do not respond with laughter but with gasps or shock or screams, all of which are alarming social reactions. Your laughter comes in reaction to the feeling that’s been evoked in you to respond in an out of control way, and obviously being out of control is against social rules. So rather than freak out, one laughs. Callback jokes are usually funniest when they incorporate a form of humor from above (which relies on a broken social rule) with the amazement of having woven a previously mentioned topic or idea into another joke, but bad callbacks, even ones with no real attempt at any other form of humor, can still get a laugh simply from the amazement aspect of the callback.
The phrase subverted expectation can be translated directly into breaking a social rule - subverting being roughly a synonym for breaking, and social rules being essentially expectations. But will a subverted expectation be funny without breaking a social rule? Though it may be possible, I can not find or come up with an example.
For instance, if one is expecting their train to arrive, and instead the train arrives three hours late, that is not inherently funny. There are many ways that information can be passed and not be mistaken for humor, but there are many ways one can imagine that the story could be funny. Say one has been promised that the train will arrive on time - we can easily see how that might be a scene in a comedy film, where the contradiction (as mentioned above) breaks a social rule and elicits a laugh.
For another example let’s imagine that the train is fourteen years late. On its face it appears there is humor that comes from the absurdly subverted expectation, but I would argue it’s only humorous in a social context where a rule can be crossed. The humorous part of a train that is fourteen years late is that someone is describing the train as “late,” when obviously a fourteen year disappearance of a train would be an infamous event which likely had some Homeric odyssey behind the journey home, and so would be very much under sold by the description of “late.”
There are other elements of a train that is fourteen years late which could be played for humor, such as imagining the actions of the people stuck on the train - perhaps they’re humorously nonchalant about their “delay” of many years, or perhaps they’ve developed their own train society. But again we see the humor must be in the context of social rules.
Subverted expectation as an explanation of humor really says little more than something unusual happened. For subverted expectation to explain, for instance, the simple humor of a naked person running by, it must be as broad as just saying something out of the ordinary is happening. But what is the context that these unusual things are happening in? It seems to always be in the context of social rules, and specifically the unusual happening breaking a social rule.
I think all joke, stand-up, improv, and narrative humor is covered by the categories above. It's possible that there are jokes that are not covered by one of the above categories, but I would like to see one that didn't still revolve around breaking social rules.
Social-laughter
Laughter in social situations which is not in response to humor is actually the bulk of laughter. This kind of laughter is thought to have many different causes. Some say it’s a release of nervous tension, some say it’s a sign of play or learning time (that what’s happening isn’t serious), some say it’s a form of manipulation or a way of making oneself seem agreeable and friendly, some say it’s a way delude oneself in a tense situation. I think elements of these are correct, but that the root cause of each is the breaking of social rules, or, as discussed before, a person’s response to their own breaking of a social rule or even just to having a feeling or urge that would break a social rule. And, as was the case with amazement laughter (which falls under social-laughter), laughter may be used by a person to override a reaction that would break a social rule, by replacing that reaction with the acceptable reaction of laughing.
The main type of identifiable social laughter would seem to be awkward laughter, but there’s also a sort of empty laughter that seems frequent nowadays, which is often in response to seemingly nothing. That different societies have different amounts of this filler laughter seems likely, and I would hypothesize that the more neurotic a society, and the more ambiguous the social hierarchy in a society is, the more necessary this filler laughter becomes. This would make sense in my theory, since in such a society, the social rules would be less clear, which could cause people to laugh frequently, as they would be worried they might have broken a social rule or that the person they’re speaking to may have - in which case the laughter shows one is not offended.
Some people might see this laughter as an attempt to keep things light and happy, and might see it as signaling that things are okay and no one is upset. But where the laughter punctuates a conversation tells us something. We don’t see people laughing at literally nothing, or interrupting the person they’re speaking with with laughter. The laughter tends to trail an ambiguous statement or play off a possible implication of what was said.
Which brings us back to awkward laughter, which I think very understandably fits into my theory. When we say something that falls flat, or wish to smooth over a friends’ out of place or even rude comment, we laugh over the moment. When there’s silence among a group for very long, someone or often many of the people there will start laughing. Laughter in these situations seems to quite clearly stem directly from social tension - which is caused by the breaking of social rules. Yes, the laughter may also relieve some tension, but the tension is only there because of the broken social rules. To say that we laugh to relieve tension would seem to miss the root cause - the tension, which is there because the social rules are not being followed.
In big moments, like in response to someone say something we perceive as rude, it’s clear that awkward laughter is in response to social errors, but I propose that the many small moments of laughter that punctuate conversations are related to similarly small contradictions of social rules. The moments may be as simple as feeling one phrased something a little oddly (and so may be misunderstood), or a brief pause in the conversation which could be perceived as awkward silence.
In An Essay on Laughter: Its Forms, Its Causes, Its Development and Its Value, James Sully describes laughter caused by not being able to hold up an enforced behavior. He says:
“When an enforced attitude, difficult to maintain for the required length of time, brings on the impulse, this will gather strength from the growth of a feeling of apprehension lest we should not be equal to the test imposed.” [1]
Though this laughter seems to be a release of nervousness, I think there’s a clear connection to one’s anticipation of breaking a social rule.
Sully adds a few pages later:
“Can we find a common element in these different forms of nervous or apparently unmotivated laughter? We appear to have in all of them a preceding state of consciousness which is exceptionally intense and concentrated. The situation of fear, of constraint on being made the object of other’s unusual observation, of suddenly hearing news of deep import for which the mind is not prepared, of prolonged emotional agitation, these all involve an intensification of the psycho-physical processes which immediately condition our states of consciousness. Looking at these intensified forms of consciousness more closely, we observe that they include something in the nature of physical pressure of the presence of forces which make for disorder, whereas the situation calls for severe self-control.” [2]
A situation that calls for severe self control would impose some severe social rules. As mentioned before in relation to amazement-laughter, laughter can sometimes be used to prevent oneself from losing control (which would break a social rule). But clearly we are more disposed to nervous-laughter when we are under a certain amount of pressure - and what causes pressure? Either demands, real or perceived, that one follow social rules, or demands, real or perceived, of self control in a time when self control is difficult. But what is self control? Is it not being able to act normal, to act socially acceptable? So, while I agree with Sully that the demands of self control can inspire laughter through mental agitation - I think that the agitation and the demands are a result of social rules.
Just as ridicule works for humor-laughter, any outright rudeness in a social situation can evoke laughter. We may also laugh as we are cruel, because we know we are breaking a social rule. As was mentioned in the opening, this is similar to a villainous person laughing at their misdeeds - they laugh knowing they’ve broken one or many social rules.
We saw that embarrassment was a large part of humor-laughter, and similarly, we sometimes laugh at our own embarrassing moments or at those of people who are associated with us.
Laughter caused by tickling is likely caused by a mixture of being out of control - as you are unable to help but react to the perceived danger of someone touching your sensitive areas - and the obviously inappropriate behavior of touching someone’s sensitive areas. Tickling is a non-harmful way for parents or others to teach a child to protect their sensitive areas when someone tries to touch them, which is why tickling doesn’t just induce laughter, but also usually instigates attempts at protection or even fighting back.
Re-Thinking Laughter
If we accept that laughter is caused by broken social rules, how does that fit with when and where we see laughter? We often see laughter more among close friends and family than among strangers. This makes sense, as we would be much more free to break social rules with friends, and those breakings would be much more likely to elicit laughter than anger. It seems likely that humans become closer when they are able to comfortably break social rules together, as they feel more unconditionally loved if they are able to break social rules and still be friends. This would seem to mean that, while social rules are important, especially with strangers, we don’t necessarily want to follow all social rules, and certainly don’t want to feel obligated to follow all of them all the time.
We also tend to see more awkward laughter among strangers, which makes complete sense, as with strangers we are unsure how strict they take certain social rules. Alcohol and other intoxicating drugs usually make one care less about following and enforcing social rules (as even their ingestion may be against social rules), and as we’d expect, an intoxicated state is associated with increased laughing.
Laughter, and humor more generally (especially satire), can be subversive and undercut authority. Again, this fits perfectly in with the idea that laughter is from breaking social rules - which is inherently disobedient. This is why laughter is not accepted times where someone is trying to control another, like in a military boot camp for instance, nor is it typically accepted in serious situations, like at church or at a funeral. Though we do sometimes see laughter at a funeral, usually, when it’s not in reaction to one losing control or overwhelming emotion (although sometimes then too), there’s a tinge of guilt associated with the laughing.
A funny person would be someone who knows how to break social rules in such a way that people laugh instead of being upset or offended. Since we’re more free to break social rules with friends and family, a funny person usually seems friendly, and it’s comfortable to be around them. A humorist is someone who has practiced at breaking social rules in such a way as to make people laugh, and a good humorist can seem like a good friend, someone worth spending time with. Many people nowadays like to watch television comedy to relax and feel comfortable. So perhaps we enjoy comedy because it makes us quite comfortable and makes it seems as is we’re with friends.
There is also the aspect of comedy that something has happened, so some of the joy may come simply from experiencing anything, which seems better than experiencing nothing. That is to say, much of life is filled with moments where nothing out of the ordinary happens, whereas in comedy, since social rules must be broken, odd things must happen. So while the experience of watching comedy might make us comfortable, we may also be enjoying the odd and unusual things that we are seeing. And similarly, funny people seem fun to be around, since it seems as though things are happening - rules are being broken and people are reacting volatility, either with anger or spontaneous laughter or whatever.
But there are of course some funny people who we would not feel comfortable around, and some humor that makes us a little uncomfortable. We would expect this, as humor can also come from being honestly rude, or just rude, or absurdly rude, or many other behaviors that can be obnoxious, and obviously these are not behaviors everyone would want to be around. It’s clear that what social rules you find important has an immense affect on what kind humor you like, and in what context you’re willing to laugh at something. A dark person who feels social rules are archaic might enjoy extremely dark humor that attacks society and family, while a person who has sincere beliefs that give them social rules might never find a joke that crosses those social rules humorous even in a comedy club.
Strangely enough, in comedy entertainment we often laugh at things that would annoy us and make us upset in real life. This laughter comes from a place of superiority, we’re laughing at people breaking social rules we care about. That’s why in a cringe comedy, one might laugh at a man saying something racist, not because that racist joke was a shared rule breaking among friends, but because one is embarrassed for the racist, for being too socially unaware. But of course that humor only works in a society that believes racism is embarrassing. Yet this laughter of superiority still makes us comfortable, by mocking people one disagrees with, one feels like they’re with a friend in the actors or writers or directors - with the spirit and meaning of the piece of entertainment.
Laughter and humor only happen in the context of a social life. This is not to say that one doesn’t laugh or find things amusing alone, but that laughter by oneself is only possible because we can see the world in a social context, even while alone. This is why laughter can be quite nuanced and say quite a bit. Laughter can come with varying degrees of judgement. Laughter among friends is usually free and bubbly. Laughter at the embarrassment of others can evoke a haughty, proud laughter. Something very disagreeable and seemingly foolish can evoke an angry, superior laugh. A particularly difficult to understand joke can elicit a laugh that signals that one understands. Sometimes one laughs louder to help others into the act. Sometimes laughs are stifled from respect or embarrassment.
A Unified Theory
I believe I have laid the groundwork for a unified theory of laughter, which explains all laughter as a spontaneous reaction to the breaking or potential breaking of social rules. We have seen that while subverted expectations as an idea does seem to strike at why some things are funny, it’s too superficial to get at what humor is playing off of - what expectations are being messed with. And for subverted expectations to even explain all types of humor, it must be expanded so broadly that it says very little. I suggest it is only in the context of breaking social expectations that humor works.
This explains humor’s subversive element, and shows why humor may even demand bad behavior. However, acknowledging that people sometimes enjoy breaking social rules together, there’s not an inherently subversive element to humor (societally speaking) - humor (the breaking of social rules) can bring people together. But it appears all humor must have this aspect of someone breaking a social rule. Even humor that might be described as “inclusive” which is aimed at mocking a racist, for instance, must display the racist’s behavior for there to be something to laugh at.
We’ve also seen that, while social-laughter can have different proximal causes than humor-laughter, the breaking of social rules is the root cause of both. With this connection, we can see that laughter is often in response to being embarrassed or being embarrassed for someone else. Humor would seem to some extent to exploit this embarrassment-laughter connection by applying it in constructed scenarios, but as humor has evolved, it’s made its connections to embarrassment more oblique and complex, resulting in what’s considered more sophisticated humor. This has led to the obscuration of the direct connection between humor-laughter and social-laughter, but as we have seen, it appears all laughter has a common cause.
1. An Essay on Laughter: Its Forms, Its Causes, Its Development and Its Value
By James Sully, pg 66
Longmont, Green, and Co. 91 and 93 Fifth Avenue London and Bombay 1902
2. pg 68