What's in the News?
What I would like you to do is to start applying what we are learning in class to real world matters. Some might ask, "What good is learning psychology if we can't apply it to real world matters?" So that is what we are going to do with this divergence assignment.
What I would like you to do is to either go to NPR (http://www.npr.org/ ), the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ ) or any news site listed at the bottom of this page (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ listed in their news sources) and read, watch, or listen to something that is interesting to you and relates to what we have been learning in the class.
Please respond the blog by BRIEFLY telling us what the piece you chose was and why you picked it (what made it interesting for you)? What did you expect to see? What did you find most interesting about the piece?
Next discuss IN DETAIL how it relates to the class using terms, terminology, and concepts that we have learned so far in class.
Include the URL in your post.
Make a list of key terms and concepts you used in your post.
Let me know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
The article I chose to blog about came from the huffingtonpost.com. Christine O'Donnell, who is campaigning for the Delaware Senate seat, hired a Fred Davis for the advertising duties of the campaign. Davis is known for creative and funny advertising ideas. The first two ads of Davis's proved to be tame yet created a buzz. However, for the third ad Fred poked fun at a well known youtube legend, Antoine Dodson. Dodson is known for defending his sister's rape and his famous words, "hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband, 'cause they rapin' everybody out here." Fred Davis's third ad suggested that supporters of Christine O'Donnell should "Hide your will, hide your lights, 'cause he's taxing everything out here."
Judging by the title of the article, "Christine O'Donnell's New Web Ad Channels YouTube Star (VIDEO)," I expected to read about a youtube star campaigning for O'Donnell. I had previously posted a blog about this particular youtube video so it was interesting to read that the same clip is being used for campaigning advertisements.
This article relates to the social psychology of humor concepts we have discussed in class. We have learned that humor is often used to communicate ambiguous messages. When humor is used to make disparaging statements about others they can leave open the question of whether they "really mean it" or are "just joking." In this article, Davis pokes fun at Dodson's warning to hide your kids, hide your wife etc. This type of humor allows people to decide if the target should take offense to the joke. Also, we have read about the political correctness debate. This debate occurs when disadvantaged groups or minorities find that disparaging humor in the workplace or in public is offensive. However, others who enjoy the disparaging humor feel that this humor is a right to free speech and this type of humor is used for fun and should not be taken seriously. Also, in this article advertisement is used in a humorous way as a form of persuasion. We've read in chapter five that some politicians frequently use humor in their campaigns simply because they feel this will help people vote for them.
terms: humor and persuasion, political correctness debate, disparaging humor.
url:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/12/christine-odonnell-ad-taxman-antoine-dodson_n_759994.html
URL: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/10/12/130510958/google-robot-cars-again-with-the-skynet-people
I chose this link because I found the idea of totally driven robot cars to be funny and at the same time astonishing. Also, because of the way the writer worded his paragraphs.
A brief synapses of the article is basically that Google has "made" (or funded, or whatever) robot cars that basically drive themselves. Overall, they have driven a 1,000 mile span without a human and 140,000 miles with minimal human intervention. (pretty amazing)
The reason I thought this article was funny was mainly because the keen sense of sarcasm you can pick up in the writers writing. Firstly, the headline says "Google Robot Cars. Again with the Skynet, People?" He jokes sarcastically about the GPS overlord robot whos commands we blindly follow without a second thought, and also he keeps referencing Skynet from the Terminator movies. (Where robots take over)
The writer uses the social element of play very well within his short column. He probes the difficult reality that our country, and world for that matter, are almost overly dependent on machines to do, make, clean etc. for us. Once we realize this reality check, the humor is used as sort of a stabalizer, it stops us from thinking about the seriousness of this situation and instead, makes us laugh it off as harmless. He uses his humor as a way, which can be seen as aggressive, to poke fun at this delicate social aspect. The repetition of the Skynet idea also seems funny to me. Maybe Google and Skynet will team up for the next Terminator movie, and give John Connor more robots to crush.
Terms: Stabalizer, sarcasm, social element of play, probing aspect of play, aggressive, repetition of ideas
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130517168
The article that I found was an extremely short piece about a man who was arrested for growing marijuana. Not only was this guy growing it in his yard, but in his front yard, allegedly. So first of all I thought that this was funny because it’s ironic. We all know this stuff is illegal, and he’s not really supposed to be growing it in the first place. But to make this situation even more bizarre, he’s growing it in the front yard—not even trying to hide it, and, I’m guessing, most people growing weed try to at least hide it a little better than that. I also thought this had some incongruity elements to it because, like I just said, usually if you read about someone that’s been caught with marijuana, it talks about where it was found. Whereas in this article, nobody really had to “find” it because it’s right there in the front yard—that’s a little out of the ordinary, even if it is talking about weed. Another aspect I thought about this article and what we’ve been talking about is the disparagement theory. The article itself is not disparaging because they’re not mocking this guy or making fun of him in any way, but I’m sure when people get to talking about the article, that’s the kind of humor it might lead to in talking about how stupid this guy is or basically making fun of him for growing weed in his front yard.
Terms: incongruity theory, ironic, disparagement theory
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130437080
This was another article that I found on the NPR sight entitled, “Whales Help Fertilize Ocean with Floating Dung.” The basic idea of the article was that whales are helping to bring the essential nutrient of nitrogen back to the surface of the ocean—it usually sinks to the bottom. I chose this article right after reading the title of it, and I thought of the Reversal theory. Before I even read this article, I kind got into a humor state of mind because of the title. Even if the article itself isn’t that funny, I was already in a playful state of mind or paratelic state going into it. But then, if the title doesn’t get you into the paratelic state, maybe the use of the word “poop” in the article nine times will. I mean the article probably has some interesting and useful information in it, for those who care about marine biology, but I was kind of distracted by how many times the author used the word “poop” in a scientific article like this. It made me laugh. So while I was reading this article, I also thought I could relate this to the incongruity theory as well because I don’t often see a lot of news stories like this one or stories that are written in this way (almost like they were trying to be funny in order to get more readers).
Terms: Incongruity theory, reversal theory, paratelic state
What is the most logical solution to fight prostitution? – apparently it is deforestation, at least in Italy. After many other attempts to halt prostitution, the central region of Italy, Abruzzo is resorted to chopping down 69 acres of trees which will prohibit prostitutes from traveling inland to sell themselves.
I chose this article because the title was catchy. I also actually think prostitution is quite interesting. I took a class a few summers ago where we watched a video about the benefits of legalizing prostitution and thought there were some pretty good arguments (mainly that it would be more regulated which lessens the spreading of diseases), but ever since then, I have an interest in the business – as an outsider of course!
Cognitive theory, particularly the concept of incongruity, best explains the humor in this situation. According to incongruity theory, the process of having multiple schemas activated simultaneously produces humor (bisociation). In this case, the schema activated when thinking about ways to fight prostitution probably consists of stepping up law enforcement, giving out fines, etc. However, when you think of deforestation, you think of trees being chopped down for wood or to clear land for new land developments and businesses, not to fight prostitution. Because these two schemas do not correspond and are not related to one another, the resulting incongruity is humorous.
The text is somewhat contradictory as to whether or not resolution to incongruity is necessary to complete the humor. On page 64, according to the “incongruity-resolution” theory, resolution is what allows us to “get” a joke; however, on page 88, the text states that the incongruity, not the resolution, that makes something humorous. In this example, the incongruous title is resolved when the article continues to explain the reason and process by which deforestation will help fight prostitution.
Here is a link to the article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/12/italy-prostitution-cutting-trees
Terms used: cognitive theory, incongruity, schema, bisociation, incongruity-resolution theory, resolution
For my blog I went to the www.npr.org website and found an article titled, “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” The article talks about how twenty years ago the Brazilian inflation rate was up to eighty percent forcing approximately twenty million into poverty. Constant price changes in everyday items like milk and eggs were causing the people to not trust or believe in Brazilian money and government. In order to build the people’s trust, four economists developed a plan to create a fake currency, URVs, along with the original currency, cruzeiros. The new currency remained stable and how much each URV was worth changed in the cruzeiro amount. Because the URV was an unaffected, prices for items remained constant and the people began to trust the rates more. Eventually the fake currency became the real currency and caused the inflation in Brazil to stop resulting in the turnaround of the country’s economy.
I picked this article because I was curious to see how one economy was able to come out of a recession. I was interested to see how Brazil handled their country’s economic crisis compared to how the U.S. is handling our current crisis. I expected the article to be about how a group of kids printed off fake money and began using it throughout the country. Once the kids started to disperse the money throughout the country I expected the fake money to get lost within the real money resulting in more money for the people. I don’t really know how I could have expected something like that to happen because if that was the case, it would only have ended up creating higher inflation rates. The part that I found most interesting about this piece was when the inflation rates were at their highest, prices in grocery stores were changing every day. What was funny was that as the clerk would be going through isles remarking prices, people would be trying to run ahead of him so they wouldn’t have to pay for the new prices.
This article is a good example of how humor may be found in situations that are not obvious laugh-out-loud jokes. Similarly, this article shows how humor may come in many different forms. This article illustrates the importance of cognition and the necessity to have a certain level of intellect in order to understand the humor for some things. According to the Incongruity Theory, one reason for a certain level of intellect to understand this article’s humor is because without understanding the absurdity of creating a fake currency, one will never understand the bizarre idea of the fake currency actually working to help reverse a country’s economic crisis. This article illustrates the idea of incongruity as a part of humor; however, based on one’s individual schema, a person still may not find the humor in this article if he or she has not been exposed to this type of governmental humor. The humor from this article requires a person to dedicate a certain amount of effort and time to understand what it being said to activate an alternative schema that is found to be incongruent with the first schema. Cognitive elaboration is necessary because it deals with different schemas being able to work together in order to understand certain concepts that create a mental image. All of these aspects are able to work together to elicit different elements of humor in all types of social situations, not just jokes.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil
Terms: cognition, incongruity theory, schema, alternative schema, incongruent, cognitive elaboration, social situations
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/10/12/130509380/-the-simpsons-tries-to-get-its-edge-back-with-a-kind-of-daring-opening
This story is about a recent Simpsons opening where a sweatshop is shown making Simpsons paraphernalia. This article caught my attention because I have watched The Simpsons many times in the past and I know how dark the humor can be. I also know the show often brings real-world issues of the time into the plot. The first time I watched the video, I thought it was just another random dark usage of humor. The video includes hazardous materials in the sweatshop, mulching of kittens as stuffing for Bart dolls, and a chained up unicorn whose horn was being used to punch the middle hole in Simpsons DVDs. The second time I watched the video, I noticed the end where the shot pans out to show the “20th Century Fox” logo. I’m pretty sure it’s just a joke but it’s touchy.
Of course The Simpsons is supposed to be humorous even when using dark topics. The issue with the opening is if it was meant to be a real depiction of how outsourcing takes place at the Fox network or if it is just meant to be a funny fantasy. Either way it brings to light the serious topic of sweatshops or outsourcing even though the producer, Al Jean said it was just meant to be funny.
I think this relates to the class because it’s one of those things that some may find funny and others may not see the humor at all. Because the humor is concentrated around a serious topic than many may have strong opinions about, you may not be sure if you are supposed to find this funny or not. The Simpsons puts the viewer in a paratelic state because it is expected to be funny. When it switches to the sweatshop, the music turns dark and the mood changes. It’s incongruous but not necessarily in a humorous way. I find this clip amusing but not really funny. Obviously, it’s not meant to be completely serious but it’s not meant to be completely funny either. I think this kind of video can be seen as a way of saying “just kidding.” The underlying message is real but the humorous or silly overtones are a way to dodge the responsibility of conveying such a message. I think it’s an example of decommitment as a way to avoid conflict. Jean was very nonchalant in talking about the specific opening and kept saying it’s fanciful and just funny. On a less related note, this may be just a way of attracting attention to an aging cartoon.
Terms: humor, paratelic state, incongruity, decommitment
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11511574
My article was titled “US Republican candidate Rich lott in Nazi uniform row.” It was about Rich lott, a representative from Ohio who had pictures on a website of him wearing a Nazi uniform. The pictures showed him in a specific wing of Hitler’s Schutzstaffel. The acronym for this is the much more recognized SS. It turns out that these were from a group that re-enacts historical events. Lott came forward saying he meant no harm, or offence and soon after these photos came out, Mr. lott released photos of himself in a US uniform re-enacting WWI.
Furthermore, another member of the republican party, who is also a part of the Tea-Party and was (key word) going to be a senator, questioned the civil rights laws from the 1960’s. Yet another has admitted to experimenting in witch craft and suggested that scientist are most likely putting human brains into rats.
I found this article especially humorous because a lot of my friends and family are republican, while I am a democrat. The few who I shared this article with were a bit at a loss of words at how to defend their party after reading this article. Also, the idea that it is the opposing party to mine, makes this funny simply because it is representing the opposing party in a weird light.
As far as what we have been learning in class, there has been a few theories that this article that could tie in with. The first of these being the Superiority theory in a few ways. The first is that a good schema for republicans I think would be old, rich people, who are very big on rules and propriety. So the idea that there are people who are so radical to this schema I have made about the members of the republican party, makes my imagined republicans go into shock, at the behavior displayed by those representing their party. The other part of this theory is that for me, it is sort of an aggressive way to make fun of the political party that some of my friends and family support.
I think the biggest theory that is represented by this article is the Incongruity Theory. There are a few incongruous situations here. First, a man who is trying to represent the American people, who defeated the Germans in this awful war, should not be dressing up as the very people we despised and fought so hard to bring down. These two ideas are very incongruous. What makes it funny is what we were discussing in class the other day, about racist jokes or woman jokes, and jokes that could be offensive if told to the wrong people, at the wrong time, in the wrong light. This article was kind of funny because this guy, totally by accident, offended so many people with these politically incorrect pictures.
In the linguistic approach to humor, this falls in with the semantic distance. Of the three categories, it would fall under Normal Vs Abnormal. The two words would be Republican Candidate and Nazi SS Soldier. The distance between these two ideas is pretty big. Republican Candidate represents a free country, someone who wants to better the free world and be apart of the American Government. A Nazi SS soldier represents someone who wants to kill Jews, and is ultimately going for a superior race. These are completely conflicting ideas, so the switch from the first script (Republican Candidate) to the second script (a Nazi), is a pretty big one.
Terms used : Schema, Script, Incongruency Theories, Linguistic Theory, Sematic Distance, Normal Vs Abnormal, Superiority Theory
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130563115
I found a story about how a man flying a small plane dropped a piece of soiled, soggy, toilet paper and it landed on a high school's athletic field in Westwood, New Jersey while there were some kids practicing on the field. When the pilot landed, he was taken into custody and is now facing a couple of federal charges, including reckless operation of an aircraft and dropping objects from a plane without authorization.
This story cracked me up. I think that the funniest part was that whoever wrote it felt the need to include the fact that no one was injured on the practice field. How sad would that be to have to go to the hospital because someone dropped a used piece of toilet paper from an airplane and you were unlucky enough to have it hit you in the head? Although this would have been unfortunate the someone would have been hurt, since no one was, it's safe to say that someone injured by toilet paper would be the "butt" of many jokes (Get it?) which would be consistent with the Superiority theory of humor.
I think this article is humorous because we have an idea about pilots and how they act. To be a pilot, a person must go through a lot of training, and there is usually the preconceived notion that a pilot is someone who is brave and adventuresome, and is a role model. A person does not think of a pilot as throwing waste out of their aircraft, and so these two things are incongruous in our mind. I'm sure he knew that this was not something that he should do, especially as a pilot, and so I think that he could be getting charged with federal charges for doing something so stupid.
Another thing that I thought was funny about this story, wasn't even really the story itself, but the comments that other people left about it. Some people were worried that this guy was a terrorist. They bring up a valid point of if some guy could do this with toilet paper, someone else could do it with a bomb. Going along with the idea of Semantic Distance, toilet paper and a bomb are not similar, but the fact that they could both be dropped by someone flying an airplane makes them associated.
Others make jokes that he obviously was not a terrorist because he was there the day in pilot school when they learned how to land. Jokes about terrorism might not be funny in every context, but after reading this bizarre story in the news, going along with the Reversal Theroy, I think that many people have gone from a telic state (reading the newspaper) to a paratelic state (reading a funny story as opposed to more serious stories that are in the paper) and are more open to humor.
Terms: Superiority theory, Incongruity theory, Semantic Distance, Reversal theory, telic, paratelic
I actually came across this article while researching for the web divergence activity for your behavior modification class, which also deals with smart phones and technology. I am extremely behind in the technological world, especially when it comes to smart phones. The phone that I have isn’t the newest, but it still works! Even though I think that smart phones are a great idea, I believe that we are becoming too wrapped up in the concept of using your phone all the time and for everything. Obviously, the phone companies are becoming more aware of this, so that may be why Microsoft has chosen to do such a commercial.
This video interests me because I have seen it while flipping through channels one day, and initially, I thought it was kind of funny. After reading this article though I think it is actually funnier than what I had first thought because it seems that Microsoft is using a form of self-deprecating humor because they are poking fun at themselves for making another smart phone in a world where there are already enough smart phones. The sarcastic phrase “really?” said throughout the video also adds to the self-deprecating humor.
I think this video is humorous because it was unexpected. When trying to sell a product, the company usually doesn’t make fun of their product to sell it. It is somewhat refreshing though to see a commercial where instead of listing the pros of their product, they are being creative in an ironic sense. The first few scenes in the video set the script to where you expect to see people being distracted while using the phone. Since the video is about selling a smart phone, the schema becomes obscured when the characters say “really?” in response to the person who is obviously too interested in their smart phone. This coincides with the schema theory because the punch line does not fit with the schema. Also, the commercial seems to represent the superiority theory, because it demonstrates that their phone is the best because it will make you stop doing what others have previously done in the commercial. It’s as though the expression of saying really at the end of each scene where the actor is doing outrageous things with their smart phone seems to beat the other smart phones that are available in the market.
Terms used: sarcasm, self-deprecation, irony, schema, script, superiority theory
URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/11/new-microsoft-phone-video_n_758419.html
This is an articule is about a NOW chapter calling a GOP candidate in the California race a “political whore”. First this is an example in chapter 3 of the book of using incogrent schemas to form humor. instead of pulling together the incongruent ideas of Woody Allen and Quiche like the book does, this case pulled together a degrading term of a woman and a political candidate. This could be humorous to some people, maybe if they have certain feelings about women, or women in power. Or maybe one is just familiar with certain stereotypes or ideas about women in power and so they find this statement alone to be amusing or humorous.
However to me this is an example of irony. If activist women are trying to stop prejudice and discrimination against women, especially sex-based on women with power, they should not be doing it themselves. On the other hand, I could not help but think about the arguments in class, when is it ok to make sure a joke? Could an argument be make that because it was a woman saying it, or endorsing the statement could it be ok to say these sort of things towards other women, but when a man does it it is not ok?
terms: irony, schemas incogrent
here is my website
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/14/meg-whitman-whore-now_n_763211.html
I choose a media new article from huffingtonpost.com about a son and his father. The son wrote a book on the shit his dad says which is actually pretty hilarious. It all started out when he moved back home with his father at age 73. There are numerous clips to watch from the television series of his dad saying things we find funny but he is actually being serious about. For example he won’t let his son have any new technology such as internet or cable even if he pays for it because any technology just allows his son to masturbate.
I expected to see a lot of his father cursing because of the heading of the article “Justin Halpern Talks $#*! My Dad Says, Life at Home and Farting on Celebrities.” But it was more of comments that were funny to the audience due to irony of the situations at hand. In addition, I think this is the first article that actually made me laugh out loud, due to the funny clips presented. I liked how its so real, because some people can relate to this kind of life, because a lot of men have a hard time showing their true feelings.
The clips show irony because what the father is trying to say isn’t what he is actually saying he means when he somewhat does…so I think. In clip #3 the dad and son are arguing and the son says “you don’t want me here do you” and the father goes no which irritates the son and so he moves because he is standing on fresh dirt which his father doesn’t want him on. Furthermore, everything the son says the farther remarks back with a comment that seems like he cares and then says he is talking to his vegetables. For example, the father states “look who grew a pair” and the son mentions something back and he states he was talking to the pear tree.
In addition, this article relates to unintentional humor because the father is not trying to be funny by his witty comments, but to his son and the audience it is. He uses wit in such a way to be clever with his word choice towards his son. I guess you could say it relates to incongruity because what he says at times is not funny to him but to others. An example similar to this is the fact that he told his son he couldn’t have internet but he ended up installing it anyway and the father pulls a gun on the technology installer who is just doing his job and threatens to blow his penis off. But in the end the son fires the gun and the father doesn’t want his fingerprints on the gun so he rubs his sons hand prints all over it. I found this funny, its just something you have to watch for yourself.
Key Terms: Irony, unintentional humor, wit, incongruity.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-zalaznick/justin-halpern-talks-my-d_b_763010.html#s156939
I watched a video clip from the television show The View that aired this morning. In the clip Bill O’Reilly is the guest and the discussion topics get heated. The topic being discussed turns towards the debate over the mosque being built near ground zero. O’Reilly states that 70 percent of Americans do not want the mosque to be built. Joy Behar doesn’t believe that statistic for a minute. O’Reilly then makes the statement “Muslims killed us on 9/11.” Behar and Whoopie Goldberg explode in disagreement. Behar immediately stood up and warned that she wasn’t going to sit there and listen to that ‘crap.’ Goldberg stood up in agreement and the two walked off stage. Barbara Waters immediately stepped in to dissipate the situation. Eventually Goldberg and Behar rejoined the group on set because O’Reilly apologized and clarified what he meant by the statement. He assumed people knew he meant they were Muslim extremists.
I choose this video and article clip because I thought it was funny regardless of what side you are on politically. The tension that is on the stage between the co-hosts and O’Reilly is obvious. This article relates to what we’ve been learning about in our class. This type of humor is very aggressive. Nothing they are talking about is funny, it’s actually a very serious debate they were trying to have. What I felt was funny was the awkwardness between everyone. O’Reilly said to Behar “Listen to me, you’ll learn.” This is a sarcastic comment. Sarcasm is aggressive humor that targets and individual rather than an institution. This comment was targeting Behar and his belief that she would become more intelligent if she stopped talking for a minute and listened to what he had to say. This talk show attempts to discuss various topics and be a forum where people with different beliefs can speak and have a healthy debate and discussion. O’Reilly was guilty of stereotyping Muslims by stating that they were the ones that killed us on 9/11. Only after clarifying that he thought it was clear he meant it was the extremists did things somewhat calm down.
Terms: Aggression, sarcasm, stereotyping
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/14/joy-behar-whoopi-goldberg_n_762844.html
The article I chose was from The Huffington Post. The article “Good Samaritan? Rapper T.I. Helps Talk Down Suicidal Man,” grabbed my attention because of the incongruity present in the title. The article explains how T.I. heard on the radio while driving about a man who was on top of a twenty two floor building and was threatening to jump. T.I. drove to the building and told cops that he wanted to help. The jumper agreed to come down after being promised a few minutes with the famous rapper.
This article demonstrates incongruity. We normally don’t think of rappers as being good Samaritans, which is evident in the title where a question mark is placed behind Good Samaritan. If this article was regarding a normal lay person there would be no doubt that he/she was a good samaritan. My schema of a rapper is mostly made up of being a criminal, gang member, and a drug/alcohol user. There is also a large semantic distance between the word rapper and Samaritan.
At the end of the article it states that T.I. has recently been released from severing a one year sentence in prison for felony weapon charges and will be attending court on Friday for allegedly possessing drugs. The fact the person who wrote this article felt that it was necessary to make T.I.’s criminal history known is funny. You first read about how this rapper saved this guys life and then at the end you are presented with information that can change your whole perspective of him. After reading this article I thought some people would think that T.I. was doing this as an ingratiatory deed considering he would be standing in front of a judge on Friday.
Another aspect of this article that I found amusing was that they video recorded T.I. on a cell phone and took it to the “jumper” to prove that T.I. was present at the scene. When I read this I chuckled. If someone got close enough to the “jumper” to hand him a cell phone couldn’t they just have grabbed him? I think I found this funny because it makes the rescue team seem inadequate of doing their job without help from a celebrity. This represents the superiority theory; I found this funny because I viewed the rescue team as inferior to the rapper.
Terms: schema, incongruity, superiority theory, semantic distance
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/13/atlanta-police-ti-helped-_n_762011.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130287352
I found this interview of actress Marlo Thomas very interesting and decided to use it for this project because it covers a lot of the issues we've been reading about in this chapter.
The interview focuses on a couple of stories in Marlo's recent autobiography "Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny." She discusses how laughter and humor were a large part of her life, and also the lives of many other famous comedians and funny people. Clearly Thomas believes strongly in the healing and restorative powers of humor and laughter, she even says at one point that with all the bad things happening in the world she doesn't understand how anybody survives without a sense of humor.
We have read that people who suffer terrible stress often use humor as a coping strategy, and also that humor can help promote pro-social behaviors in general, or also be used to perpetuate and/or strengthen social ties--like when one or more groups may make fun of a common enemy bringing them all closer together, yet distancing the enemy even more.
Thomas tells a story about one of the only times she saw her dad get mad. After an argument he walks to the stairs turns and says "I just can't live like this anymore" before falling to the floor in laughter. The idea was that he suddenly recognized the incongruity of the situation given that he had a beautiful home with an elaborate stair-case and chandelier. Here Thomas describes that there are three kinds of people; people who get the humor right away, people who get it after a while, and people who can not see it at all.
I thought this was interesting because she is putting forth the idea that really everything is incongruous; or maybe, that there is incongruity in everything. Every situation has humor so why not recognize it and accept that it's there and laugh?
If this is the case it may help explain some of the evolutionary explanations for the development of humor put forth by the text. We can imagine that after we developed the capacity for symbolic or abstract thoughts it is possible to (through abstraction or the ambiguity inherent in symbolism) to find or recognize incongruity in every situation. Then we can use the helpful type 1 and type 2 errors often discussed with hypothesis testing to help explain how humor and laughter may act as a 'fitness indicator.'
A type 1 error would be not laughing at something that actually is funny. A type 2 error would be committed if you laugh at something that isn't funny. If you never laugh (lots of Type 1's) you would be seen as overly serious; whereas excessive laughter (lots of Type 2's) would make you a buffoon of some kind. Naturally you want the best of both worlds, the ability to laugh at funny things and not at unfunny things. It seems than that the person with the greatest ability to recognize incongruity would be in the best position to avoid Type 1's, and then must only guard against Type 2's. It would seem much easier to avoid laughing even if you yourself perceive an incongruity than it would be to laugh in spite of the fact that you see no incongruity.
But this is a really good research question. When we see people who are overly serious or 'class clowns' are they this way because they either lack the ability to see incongruity (serious) or see incongruity everywhere (clown)? Or do both of them have an inability to recognize when situations are incongruous and thus both make too many type 1 and type 2 errors as a result? One hypothesis would suggest that the better you are at recognizing incongruity the fewer type 1 AND 2 errors you'll make whereas the other hypothesis would suggest that the number of type 1 and 2 errors you make depends on your ability to recognize incongruity.
I've gotten off track slightly but this article and the book have started to make me think of a lot of different research experiments that would be interesting to look into in the future.
Terms: coping strategies, pro-social behavior, incongruity, evolutionary explanations, fitness indicator, laughter, Type 1 and Type 2 errors
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/14/robert-keller-dmv-crash_n_763293.html#comments
I chose an incredibly brief article from the Hufffington Post site; it does have video for the event though. The article’s title, “Robert Keller Crashes Car At DMV After Completing Driver’s Test”, caught my eye due to its ironic nature. The title is all you really need to know. A guy plowed through the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) building while returning the car outside Pittsburgh in Collier Township, Pennsylvania. The police officer stated, "He thought he had it in park but he didn't. He panicked and hit the accelerator, and went through the front." The man apparently would have passed the test had he not run into the building.
This can be found humorous according to the concept of irony, the incongruity theory, and the disparagement/superiority theory. When thinking about the DMV, one of my schemas that my mind uses consists of the DMV being a place where one is tested and then if successful, given a driver’s license. The outcome though (crashing into the DMV building after completing the entire test) causes incongruity, because my expectations were set to a certain outcome. The normal outcome would be the guy getting his license and happily ever after, but this time around the unthinkable happens, and due to this he does not get his license. One could guess without any knowledge from the DOT study booklet that crashing into a building is a big disqualification in proving your driving skill. Regardless that it was an honest mistake, this guy will be labeled as a bad driver making it even funnier because it makes one feel superior. Discovering that someone can make such a ridiculous mistake is relieving and funny, because I can think of many times that I have looked like a fool like this and it involved driving too. In conclusion, one would find this story humorous because it makes everyone feel better about their own driving (superior/disparagement), there is a clear incongruence in the whole situation, and because of the setting and scenario taking place it can be seen as ironic.
Terminology: Incongruence, Superiority/Disparagement, Schema, & Irony
Personality is a concept that we developed to try to draw conclusions about individuals in a scientific manner. We know from our experiences in our lives that every person is different and individual differences account for most of the perception of humor. We generally gravitate toward friends who have the same type of humor, perhaps because this is an indicator that they have similar personality traits. The word personality is very vague in a scientific context but a common model has accepted two personality factors as being key traits and these are extroversion and neuroticism. Our book cites several studies suggesting that more extroverted individuals were more likely to appreciate humor that involved sexual content or simple jokes. Perhaps these jokes are more likely to initiate a social interaction therefore extroverted individuals are attracted to them. A study found that the traits of neuroticism and extroversion did not mediate the amount of humor one appreciated, so more extroverted individuals did not necessarily find more stimuli funny. This study attempted to analyze fMRI scans that were taken while participants were viewing humorous material. The Prefrontal Cortex or PFC is associated with humor appreciation. A particular area of the PFC called the orbitofrontal cortex of the OFC is thought to play a role in reward systems. This area responds to stimuli with ascending dopamine releases forming a cognitive "reward value" for each stimuli. The study found that extraversion was positively correlated with PFC activation while viewing humorous stimuli meaning that more extroverted individuals were committing more cognitive energy to analyzing, appreciating and storing these stimuli. Another study found that cartoons with easily understood humorous content were more likely to be remembered than cartoons containing not humorous or incongruous material. I believe this is because the OFC associates its reward value assigned to a stimulus with that stimulus. So when the stimulus is shown for the first time dopamine is released from the OFC. This level of dopamine sets a standard activation value for this stimuli. The orbitofrontal cortex recieves projections from the mediodorsal thalamus which is a nucleus in the thalamus associated with memory. Perhaps this link to a memory center gives the OFC the ability to recognize the unique dopamine activation value for a stimulus. So now the brain does not have to analyze features to remember to determine if it recognizes this feature, it must only intake the humor information and determine if it is familiar. The OFC may use humor as a sort of memory cue, allowing our brain to quickly access stored information based on a preassigned dopamine reaction rather than the physical properties that the brain usually has to go through the laborious process of analyzing.
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/45/16502.full
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitofrontal_cortex
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=123&sid=979db008-1ac6-445b-a508-1c9b4f1949a9%40sessionmgr115&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=psyh&AN=2001-17618-012