A sense of humor comes from male aggression

Psychologists believe that a sense of humor has come from male aggressiveness, which, in turn, develops in men due to testosterone.

In search of motivation for human behavior, psychologists sometimes turn to exotic sources. Professor Sam Schuster from the University of Newcastle (UK) decided to analyze how a sense of humor is manifested in men and women and how it develops in general with a person with age. The scientist built his conclusions on a very peculiar material: he asked people, riding on unicycle bicycles, about how they are received by the audience.

A unicycle for many of us is seen as a clown affiliation. The little man leaves on a strange device in the arena and begins to laugh: to fall from the bicycle, to let out water from the eyes, to get confused in his own shoes, etc. Monocycles is practiced by other artists, but the association with the clown is so great that even an ordinary person, on this device, runs the risk of turning into a "clown for an hour." Professor Schuster interviewed dozens of heterosexual monocyclists around the world between the ages of 15 and 69, with an experience of handling a monocycle from 2 to 40 years. In an article published in the Journal of Psychology Research and Behavior Management, he writes that he was able to identify several patterns in the behavior of people observing a person on a monocycle, and these patterns do not depend on the social status or cultural affiliation of the viewer.

Women, according to the psychologist, comment on the show benevolently, they are located to the person making an amazing trip on an amazing device. Children at the sight of a single-wheeled bicycle demonstrate a genuine interest - which is also understandable. But there is a problem with growing boys and men. In boys, innocent children's interest in the situation is becoming more aggressive, they start laughing and insulting the one riding on the monocycle, shouting to him that he falls faster and even makes some efforts to do this, literally inserting sticks into the wheels. Adult men, of course, behave more decently, but the aggression still breaks through the socially-hypocritical mask, and they do their best to joke about the theme of a monocycle and a monocyclist.

According to the scientist, the aggressive reaction of boys is associated with the work of male sex hormones, and humor is only a form in which aggression is cast, unable to find a way out. While the boy does not have social skills, his attitude to the "clown" is expressed in the most direct way, but as he grows up, he has to hone his sense of humor. In general, we can say that every man really hates the clown.

However, the connection between humor and aggression is not so doubtful, as you probably thought. The most immediate laughter is associated with tickling, and there are theories that derive a sense of humor from this situation, but Professor Shuster points out that, from the neurophysiological point of view, tickling is akin to pain. The cause of pain can be eliminated by attack - that's the bridge for aggression. The aggressive origin of humor, according to the scientist, is indicated by verbal picks and skirmishes interspersed with jokes about the opponent's personality and ideas: it is not possible to clarify the relationship directly, but you can symbolically defeat the enemy by ridiculing him. Aggressiveness, we will recall, begins to develop under the influence of hormonal changes in the male body. Hence, we can conclude that humanity has learned to laugh because of the aggressiveness of its males.

[1], [2], [3]