Profs and Pints Online presents: “Looking at Laughter,” a serious, scholarly examination of how our brains produce and process what folks find funny, with Janet Gibson, professor of psychology at Grinnell College and author of An Introduction to the Psychology of Humor.

[This talk will remain available in recorded form at the link given here for tickets and access.]

Do “dad jokes” delight you—or do they make you wince? Have you watched an old sitcom rerun and been baffled that people ever found it funny rather the stupid or offensive? Have you gotten caught up in a heated debate over whether The Three Stooges were comic geniuses or numbskulls?  Have you ever found yourself saying “I don’t get it” while those around you were busting a gut?

Then you might want to join Profs and Pint Online in giving a big round of applause to Professor Janet Gibson, who literally wrote the textbook on the relationship between our brains and that which makes at least some of us chuckle or guffaw. She’ll discuss the cognitive, social, and emotional processes needed to detect, appreciate, and produce humor, and shed light on how our gender, age, and personality all play a role in determining what we think of as funny and how we respond to “sick jokes” or irony.

You’ll learn how it takes a lot of mental work to get a joke, to fluently think of its possible meanings, and to resolve ambiguous feelings about that which violates expectations, stereotypes, or social norms. Involved in all of this are mental processes through which we understand the intentions of others, monitor others’ feelings and reactions, feel empathy, and modify our behavior according to what we sense among those around us. These mental skills make humor a tool for increasing our creativity, social intimacy, and life satisfaction. Although cultures around the world do value a good sense of humor as a character strength, cultural norms shape whether we respond well to sexual humor, ambiguity, or predictable punchlines.

We’ll examine how humor serves various functions—such as coping with stress, engaging in play, or harming others—and how much of humor makes use of stereotypes. Although slapstick, nonsense humor, or story-telling jokes all trigger similar mental processes, the mixture of cognitive, social, and emotional processing involved varies by the gags’ content, helping to explain why when we’re tired at the end of a day we might prefer slapstick to story-telling humor that takes more effort to absorb and appreciate.

Professor Gibson also will discuss research showing that humor and laughter activate areas of the brain that benefit our physical and mental health, with damage to certain areas of the brain impairing how humor is experienced. She’ll close with suggestions for how for how we can practice appreciating or producing humor, to perhaps become funnier or laugh more readily.

Profs & Pints Online: Looking at Laughter