The time I used humor to reduce uncertainty

    Humor is not only something people can feel, express, or find in their daily lives but it is also something people can use when starting new relationships. Starting new relationships can be difficult and scary since it requires people to get to know one another more personally. During these situations people tend to have a lot of uncertainty about each other and about what they share with one another. This uncertainty, however, can be reduced with humor since people can use it to open up a door in their new relationships to allow for more transparency between the people in those relationships.

    Using humor to reduce uncertainty in new relationships is something I recall doing when I was on my high school drill team. Every year we had some new girls join the team and during the summer we had practices and team building activities to get to know one another. I particularly remember that we could not do these things as a full team during COVID-19 and instead did them by squads, which were smaller groups of people that our team was broken up into. There was one specific time when I got together with the squad I was put into, and my team director had older team members like me partner up with newer team members so that we could bond with them and help them improve their skills. When this happened, I was partnered with a girl who seemed like a nice and fun person. To help her improve her skills I had to demonstrate how to do them, observe if she could replicate them correctly, and point out the ones she needed to improve on. Doing this was very awkward since we were both uncertain about each other, but she may have been more uncertain about me since she probably thought that I was judging her in my mind. I especially noticed that she felt this way when she nervously kept asking me if she was doing the skills okay and because she would try to justify herself when she could not get them right. When sensing her uncertainty and nervousness I used humor to lightly joke about how bad my skills were when I had first started and my team director who was near us further added onto my humor by saying that I had greatly improved, which lastly eased the uncertainty between us by providing my teammate with some background information about me, by making us more comfortable about the situation, and by later allowing us to create a closer relationship as teammates.

    On a final note, the personal example I shared above provides an overview of how I was able to reduce the uncertainty between my teammate and I by using humor. Such an example additionally highlights that humor is certainly an effective way to reduce uncertainty within new relationships. People, however, must be mindful of the humor they use since not doing so can possibly lead to problems in their new relationships.

The meaning of the Relief Theory

    Distressful feelings are inevitable. However, they do not always prevent humor since letting them go can sometimes actually lead to humor. A theory that explains the reasoning behind this is the Relief Theory. This is the theory that I will be teaching within this blog post by first explaining it and by lastly offering an example of it.

    The Relief Theory to start off is a theory through which an often-sudden reduction of stressful feelings or tension causes humor that can additionally expel nervous energy (Meyer, 2015). This itself means that people experience humor when something commonly abrupt allows them to minimize stress or tension but that such humor can also let their nervous energy break free. The tensions released with humor, however, are either previously existent or they get immensely accumulated until they must suddenly be released (Meyer, 2015). This more simply means that people must feel these tensions way before they can even be released or that something must create them until they can eventually be released. Humor with this theory is specifically created when some event that is humorous unexpectedly violates a social norm or makes the idea of violating a norm enjoyable since this allows people to feel the release of tensions that then leads to humor (Meyer, 2015). This means that when something frequently takes people by surprise, they will feel that their tensions are let go of, which then lets them experience humor. The most important things about this theory are that the release and relaxation of tense feelings are the key to humor regardless of how those tensions were actually created and that humor is physiological since laughter is important for people to be relieved (Meyer, 2015). This alone means that how people's tensions are created does not matter since letting go of them is what allows humor to occur, and that the actual expression of laughter is a necessary factor to feel relief from tensions. Another thing about this theory is that it is less dependent on people's reasoning since it makes it possible for people to happily laugh without a reason (Meyer, 2015). This lastly means that this theory simply lets people freely laugh even when no actual reasons exist for them to laugh.

    One example of this theory is the time that I could not find my sweater. Before this happened, I had a lot of tension from being busy and not getting to eat dinner until really late. My tension, however, worsened when I could not find my sweater anywhere and which further led me to ask my mother to help me find it. Then once we looked for it inside our laundry room dryer, I saw something with the same color as my sweater, and I excitedly pulled it out saying "Here it is" only to realize that I had actually pulled out my father's shirt. When realizing this my previous tensions were released because I ultimately laughed with my mother about how unexpected the overall situation was.

References

Meyer, J. C. (2015). Understanding Humor Through Communication: Why Be Funny, Anyway?. Lexington Books.

My moment with the Benign Violation Theory

    Finding humor when social norm violations are present can be challenging since people tend to perceive norm violations differently. On one hand social norm violators might not find humor because they might not even be aware that they are committing a norm violation. The witnesses of norm violations on the other hand might believe that norm violations are far too serious to find humor in them. Thus, one theory that looks at how humor is found in social norm violations is the Benign Violation Theory. This theory requires the simultaneous occurrence of two aspects for there to be humor. One aspect is a social norm violation. Whereas the other aspect is a judgement of that social norm violation that ultimately identifies the norm violation as acceptable through humor.

    A time I remember coming across this theory is the time that I went outside and got my pair of Crocs dirty. When I went inside my house it was late at night, so I did not want to clean them. Instead, I remembered that I had another pair of Crocs in my room, so I quickly went to get them. These Crocs, however, were not the ones that people would typically wear since they had really high and thick platform heels. Regardless of this I still decided to put them on and when I first left my room everything was going perfectly well. This of course did not last too long since my peaceful walk was soon disrupted when I got to my living room. What had happened was that my ankle twisted to the side, and I almost fell but I was luckily able to lean onto my couch. As this happened my mother was in the kitchen where she had a direct view of my incident. Right when she saw me, she asked what had happened and if I was okay. Then once I said yes and showed her my shoes the two of us started laughing. When showing her my shoes the two of us were able to notice that I had committed a social norm violation since people do not normally wear high heeled crocs around their house. In that same moment though we were also able to make a judgement about my social norm violation being acceptable since the two of us realized that violating the norm had not caused me any harm. By effectively making note of the social norm violation and simultaneously making a judgement about it the two of us were lastly able to find humor with the Benign Violation Theory.

    To conclude, my example above shows how a social norm violation can positively lead to humor with the Benign Violation Theory. A key thing to remember about this theory though is that it involves both a social norm violation and a judgement of that norm violation. However, it is also important to remember that these two aspects must simultaneously occur for this theory to apply to a humorous situation.

A discussion of the Clarification Function of Humor

    Humor and social norms often go hand in hand together. For many people the breaking of social norms is a sufficient and common reason to find humor. However, an interesting point to consider is that people may also find humor when others point out the nature of social norms. This itself leads me into the topic that I will be teaching today, which is known as the Clarification function of humor. To teach this function I will begin by explaining what it is about. Then I will go over the effects that it has on the interactions between people, and I will ultimately discuss an example that highlights this function.

    The clarification function of humor is about finding humor in the comments that others make about social norms. Meyer (2015) specifically mentions that this function involves the capturing of an opinion or a belief that is expressed through a unique concise phrase or through an anecdote. This alone means that people state their beliefs in the brief comments that they make. However, another thing about this function is that people's comments clarify norms and beliefs by focusing on the expected norms and not on the possible or real violations of the norms (Meyer, 2015). What this means is that people do not look at the violations of norms that are occurring but that they instead emphasize the expected norms to uncover what their norms and beliefs are. Aside from this the function also looks at the mistakes that people make in the messages they express since the mistakes themselves help people reinforce their original intended message with humor (Meyer, 2015). This lastly means that when people's messages have issues people can turn those issues around with humor to actually make the point of their message.

    The effects of the clarification function of humor include some different things for people's interactions. Meyer (2015) first mentions that it can improve people's relationships because it allows them to laugh at comments that empower their social norms. However, he also mentions that this function allows people to use their unique and brief comments to persuade others and to make them think about things differently. All of which ultimately make it seem like this function can be both positive and negative for people.

    One way to illustrate this function is with a comment that my mother frequently makes. Anytime that someone asks her how she made or moved something she has a habit of saying "Obviously with my hands. I wasn't going to do it with my feet." This is a comment that always causes both me and her to laugh since the image of her actually making or moving something with her feet is not something that one would normally expect to see. However, aside from causing both of us humor this comment ultimately shows how my mother clarifies the norm that people tend to do things with their hands and not with their feet.

References

Meyer, J. C. (2015). Understanding Humor Through Communication: Why Be Funny, Anyway?. Lexington Books.

The Arousal Theory showcased in Bizaardvark

    Humor in people's lives is often caused by a wide variety of things. It may be caused by listening to a joke, by seeing something funny, and by doing something that one thinks is funny. Humor, however, can also be caused when people feel pleasure. This specific cause of humor goes along with one of the theories of humor known as The Arousal Theory. This is a theory that people can see occurring when someone expresses feelings of pleasure by letting out their laughter. One common feeling of pleasure that often causes people to laugh is being tickled. There are of course some people who are not ticklish, so the feelings of pleasure that can cause people to laugh vary from person to person. The main point of this theory, however, is that some sort of pleasurable feeling immediately leads people to find humor by laughing.

    A clip that captures the essence of The Arousal Theory is the one I included below from "Bizaardvark." The clip shows two characters known as Frankie and Paige who are fighting each other during an MMA class. At the start of the clip Frankie complains about Paige's approach to fighting while also questioning how it is possible for her to be so good at this sport. Paige when hearing this question says that one of the reasons, she is so good is that she understands what her opponents' weaknesses are. Her response soon causes Frankie to say that she also knows what weaknesses her opponents have, which further prompts Frankie to attack her with tickles. As this tickle attack occurs both Frankie and Paige show how they find humor through the use of The Arousal Theory. Paige herself finds humor by laughing at the feeling of tickles since that feeling seems to cause her pleasure right before she pushes Frankie away. Frankie, however, also seems to find humor through this theory by laughing a bit since it seems like tickling Paige is something that causes her pleasure. Finally, after they both use this theory Paige seems to be mad at Frankie for the tickles, but she regardless shows how a pleasurable feeling like tickles can result in laughter through The Arousal Theory.

    In sum, the clip shows that The Arousal Theory involves a pleasurable feeling that causes people to laugh. While also showing how the theory itself can occur among people. However, one thing to note is that the clip only shows two of the various pleasurable feelings that can cause people to laugh, which in this case includes being tickled and tickling someone.

Midterm: The Barbie Movie From The Perspective Of The Incongruity Theory