This morning I was considering to myself, what determines what we find funny? Babies laugh all the time, they take pleasure in absolutely everything, but what if we could find a way to calculate how to cheer someone else up. I can see a psychology experiment idea forming for next year's class here! I came up with some determining factors which I have thought about.
1. Age: smaller children laugh at anything whereas adults tend to restrain themselves which is a shame as we could really do with some more laughter.
2. Culture: different societies have certain things which simply are well 'funny', a universal humour being anything related to toilets.
3. Personality or perhaps intellectualism, smarter people will understand some subject related jokes which are on their radar. There is an example below which I found hilarious (but I am bring driven mad by chemistry revision so I'm losing my mind).
Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar.
One says, “I think I’ve lost an electron.”
The other says, “Are you sure?”
The first replies, “Yes, I’m positive…”
5. Who told the joke. I feel so much more comfortable when my best friend tells me a story, than if it was my head teacher.
6. Personality: some people like slapstick comedy whereas others prefer dry humour, whatever floats your boat.
I have no idea whether I will ever come back to this idea but it would be great to be able to cheer up the population of Britain, especially with all the rain!
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