P-sychology of humor?
A story on MSNBC.com vaguely discussed a recent study on age and humor. Apparently, "The research conducted by graduate student Wingyun Mak and psychology professor Brian Carpenter showed that the younger adults did 6 percent better on the verbal jokes and 14 percent better on the comic portion than did older participants"
First off, 6%? In a psychological study? Isn't that the same thing as "0%"?
There is a quote from the article that is bothering me. “This wasn’t a study about what people find funny. It was a study about whether they get what’s supposed to be funny,” Carpenter said.
Aside from the fact that Carpenter has a case of the 'spostas, I don't grant the premise that there is inherently some quality of "funny" universally found in those things which can be considered to be "funny" which exists in such a way as to denote inherent "funny" values in different things. Funny is subjective.
Example:
1) Cocksdickslol
2) A man walks into a bar, then falls down because it hurt.
3) Ziggy
4) Peas
Compare the "funny" value of each of those. My position is that if every person, ever, were asked to rank those in order of "funny" many people would create different lists depending upon what they think is funny.
Carpenter goes on to say, "There are basic cognitive mechanisms to understanding what’s going on in a joke. Older adults, because they may have deficits in some of those cognitive areas, may have a harder time understanding what a joke is about.”
Couple more things:
1) In that second sentence, doesn't using the word "may" twice refute any absoluteness the sentence may have? (See what I did there?)
2) Wouldn't anyone with a deficient cognitive mechanism, not just adults, experience this problem of identifying funny?
3) Does the second "may" in the second sentence mean that if a person has that deficit they may still "get" the joke?
Also, I didn't understand why the article had a reference to The Simpsons.
cocksdickslol.
8 comments:
Seems to me a lot depends on who's telling the joke, as well... and .. .. wow.. it's so context sensitive as to be worthless, unless it's measuring a specific cultural response, isn't it?
I think it was measuring how asinine psychological studies could be and found that psychology can reach levels of asinine heretofore unknown.
1) I've read a lot of psychological research dealing with humor in the last few months...this study crap, at least based on the asshat msnbc thing. I'll see if i can track down the full text of the study, if anyone is really interested.
2) i hate quantitative studies because i hate math, but talking about this sort of thing in % differences tells me that that was the only number they got out of this study. Normally these sorts of things are talked about in terms of correlations.
3) "may" = wiggle word.
Yeah...well...I've read a lot of Harry Potter in these last few months. And usually, usually, the answer is "a wizard did it".
Also, yeah, studies that use "may" are poo.
And i'm pretty sure the numbers they gave for people involved in those studies don't neatly break down into 6% or 14%.
I offer my agreement.
That a wizard did it?
And don't get me started on the MONTH. It's not a dance off, people!
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