WHY WE LAUGH

Hokitika Guardian, 28 August 1929, Page 6

WHY WE LAUGH

, GIVING THE MIND A REST

PROFESSOR SHELLEY’S ANALYSIS.

Why, when, and how we laugh was explained by Professor J. Shelley to members of the Practical Psychology Club in the Jellicoe Hall, Christchurch, on Monday night in a lecture oh “The Psychology of Laughter.” The professor said that the investigation of laughter psychologically began with the investigation of the subconscious mind. Laughter did not belong wholly to the realm of reason. There were many things that we would not laugh at were we wholly rational animals. Nor did it belong wholly to the realm of the subconscious, where there was little that was comic. In sleep, for example, where the sub-con-scious held sway, it was not usual to laugh. Laughter was a kind of relaxation from the strain of keeping our wits about us and from the suppression of some desires and the non-fulfilment of others. The mind took a holiday every night when we lapsed into sleep. In tire same way it took a momentary holiday when we laughed. Man, continued the lecturer, seemed to be the only animal which laughed, though this trait in him was not universal. Uuncler what conditions did we laugh best? One important factor 'seemed to be the close proximity of others. Everyone appreciated the jokes better in a crowded theatre than in one where the attendance was poor. When people were assembled together a good laugh, created .sympathy amongst them. It reduced all the different members of the audience to the same llvel and made for common ,ground amongst them. “Any politician will tell you,” added the professor, “that the way to get your message to your audience is to start them off with a good laugh. If you get them at the beginning you can lead them anywhere.” The lecturer proceeded to ask why we laughed at puns, for example, which some people thought that they wer« duty bound not to laugh at. It was because the words forming the subject of the pun were acting mechanically, because they were not obeying reason. We found two words in the same sentence, one of. which we saw to be in incongruous surroundings and because we had caught the language out so to speak, we laughed, just as we did when we saw someone trip over a banana skin or an orange peel even though the person might injure himself. The nearest thing to the human lalugh, continued . Professor Shelley, was the bleat of a sheep. It was a vocal gesture of a kind, but riot of a very high order. Laughter was social because when we were one with another we laughed, hut when, we did not agree with our»friends and felt compelled to take a stand on our own as individuals we roared—much the same as the lion did.

Man was, in part at any rate, a gregarious animal, and it was natural for him to get over many of his difficulties by flocking together as sheep dm. There was obviously a close connection between laughter and imagination. A person who laughed heartily generally had a. vivid imagination and a person with a vivid imagination could generally enjoy a good joke. The effect of jokes on human beings depended on their seasonableness. Often, if the subject of a joke meant too much to a person, he was unable to laugh about it. Whether we could laugh about anything or not was a good test whether or not we were retaining our sense of proportion of things. Curiously enough the things wo laughed at were those we could not reduce to terms 'of reason. Sex was one olf these. This was one of the most serious things in life, yet it formed the basis of a' big proportion of jokes—at least among a certain class. Then