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.