Tickling Our Neurons: History of Humor

In his 1998 paper "The Neurology and Evolution of Humor, Laughter, and Smiling: The False Alarm Theory," Dr. Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran, hypothesized that laughter originated and developed from a false-alarm call among animals. The idea was that after animals thought predators were nearby and produced a vocalization, they would realize there was no actual threat and produce the 'laugh' as a false-alarm sound.

Other neuroscientists hypothesized that laughter was an innate reaction to surprise. According to the requirements of humor, in many situations, the funniness comes from incongruity.

Although some neurologists thought of surprise as an inherently negative reaction, a 1977 humor experiment led by Lambert Deckers showed how incongruity and surprise caused laughter and a ‘positive’ experience among participants. In the experiment, participants guessed the weights of certain objects, and then the researchers revealed the actual weight of each item. The weight of the objects surprised the participants, and most of them reacted with a laugh. 

Play and social bonding among species is a powerful tool for conflict diffusion and even survival, as those bonds can promote physical support among animals. Past studies suggest that men tend to use more aggressive humor styles than women, and that adolescents who used teasing and bond-building humor styles were more popular in their social contexts. Moreover, finding mates by analyzing their humor is an adequate indicator of physical and mental fitness, as higher levels of humor are associated with higher levels of intelligence, creativity, and divergent thinking.⁴