(This post appears on the Humor Code’s Huffington Post and Psychology Today blogs.) Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are garnering lots of attention these days. Some see large-scale, web-based classes as the new frontier for colleges and universities, a great leap forward that could revolutionize higher education. Duke University professor of psychology and behavioral [...]
(This blog was originally posted on The Humor Code’s Psychology Today blog) With the holidays upon us, we’re taking a break from deconstructing what makes things funny and instead pondering the tradition that is Thanksgiving. We’re not talking about gathering with friends and family to express gratitude for what we have been provided. We’re referring [...]
With the holidays upon us, we’re taking a break from deconstructing what makes things funny and instead pondering the tradition that is Thanksgiving. We’re not talking about gathering with friends and family to express gratitude for what we have been provided. We’re referring to the national customs of eating to the point of pain on [...]
Some of civilization’s great thinkers pondered the meaning of humor long and hard. Thomas Hobbes put forth the idea that humor emerges from superiority or “sudden glory” over an enemy. Immanuel Kant believed humor arose from a process of incongruity in which a “strained expectation” is transformed into “nothing.” Unfortunately, these theories and many others, [...]
Featured on Psychology Today Humor has been around for as long as there has been humanity — and considering that chimps and other primates laugh, humor has likely been around even longer than that. In comparison, psychological research on humor is just getting cracking. Sure, Freud took a stab at it, but he didn’t have the scientific tools to get the [...]
Featured on Psychology Today “Trying to define humor is one of the definitions of humor.” So said Saul Steinberg, someone who wielded humor so expertly that he became one of America’s most beloved cartoonists. If Steinberg didn’t need to define humor in order to use it beautifully, why should anyone else need to? It doesn’t [...]
