Shawn

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Shawns Humor Lecture

• This better be funny.

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Outline

• I. Explanations of humor
• II. Mindful Humor
• III. MIBsMental Interior Benefits
• IIII. Positive Social benefits (dating, business,
  politics)
• IIIII. Pragmatic steps
• IIIIII. The greatest power of humor

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Why talk about humor?

• Hard to define slips through our fingers
• Dead Frog Problem--Can you study humor?
• Are some people funny and some arent?

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Working Definition

• Humor is a way of mindfully perceiving the
  world--analogous to peak experiences and flow
  where an individual is aware of potentialities in
  a situation or environment.
• Potentials positive change, things are good now
  compared to alternatives, or there is an
  alternative to the status quo.

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The Philosophy of Funny

• Freud Humor as psychological release
• Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious
• Social acceptable envelope of id desires
• Henri Bergson Humor as a corrective

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Dale Sturtevant
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• Freud Humor as psychological release
• Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious
• Social acceptable envelope of id desires
• Henri Bergson Humor as a corrective

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Social Rule Breaking
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Humor as a mindful lens

• How we perceive social rule breaking
• Humor shift in evaluative stance
• Positive spin on life Alpha vs Beta Press
• Alpha press- objective constraints of reality
• Beta press subjective construal of reality
• Affected by affect

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Super Scientific Silliness Test
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Humor as a mindful lens

• How we perceive social rule breaking
• Humor shift in evaluative stance
• Positive spin on life Alpha vs Beta Press
• Alpha press- objective constraints of reality
• Beta press subjective construal of reality
• Affected by affect
• Humor as mindfulness (Langer)

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Humor as transcendence

• Transcending the world as it should be (Berger)
• Relationship to Peak Experiences
• Momentarily take on self-actualization
• Ordinary becomes extraordinary (Seinfeld)
• Momentary suspension of reality (Sacks)
• Rebuttal Life IS beautiful

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The MIBs Mental Interior Benefits

• Laughing as medicineDeep Thoughts
• Activates parasympathetic response
• Even small dose increases immune system
• (Kimatabronchial asthma and humor)
• Increases pain tolerance (Zweyer)
• Decreases stress/ increases remission rates
• (Chapple and Zieland Testicular Cancer)

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Positive Social Effects (How to trick friends
into liking you and then assert power over them)
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Positive Social Effects (How to trick friends
into liking you and then assert power over them)

• InterpersonalBondage in first encounters
• DatingDesirability in mates
• Differences between men and women
• Negotiations (Forester)

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Humor in society

• Fox and American society
• Politics (Wickberg)
• Self-deprecating (Katz)
• Side note spilling water
• Less War

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Positive Political Love
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Shawns 6 steps to Funny

• Funny gene?
• 1. Journal funny stories unique to you
• 2. Watch funny peoplebecome an observer
• 3. TQPTwo question process
• Why am I so funny?
• And why dont others recognize this?
• Builds self-esteem

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Shawns six steps to funny (cont)

• 4. The permission to be subhuman
• 5. Finding a balance
• 6. Go 100

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The Greatest Power of Humor

• Humor as therapy (Pennybaker)
• Cuddle parties, laughing groups in India
• Transforming horror (The Shining, Dr. Strangelove)

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Shining with Humor Lens
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The greatest power of humor (cont.)

• Orring and the Challenger
• Jon Stewart post 9/11
• The suffering Onion
• Beginnings of Transformation (Family Guy)

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Jon Stewart
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Slow Transformation
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Conclusion

• Humor is a lens like optimism
• Demands a mindfulness to potentialities
• Increased health, increased sociability, and
  decreased stress
• Humor as therapy and transcendence
• The power that humor holds