Pratfall:
–a fall on to one’s buttocks
–a staged tumble, often onto one’s buttocks, for comedic effect
–a stupid and humiliating action
[Etymology: A compound word, combining “prat,” slang for “buttocks,” and “fall”.]
Why do we laugh at a pratfall? Why do we laugh at someone’s misfortune? More generally, why do we laugh at all?
These may all have different reasons, they may all stem from the same general considerations, or they may have no reason at all.
Psychiatry and psychology, not to be left out of any discussion that may produce a new patient or treatment, have their own contributions. Here is one: The Pratfall Effect is a theory developed by psychologist Elliot Aronson in 1966, and according to the theory one can become more appealing or likeable by admitting or demonstrating one’s own flaws [“the attractiveness of a superior person is enhanced if he commits a clumsy blunder; the same blunder tends to decrease the attractiveness of a mediocre person.”]
To be sure, these dubious conclusions were made from observing only 48 male sophomores recruited from an introductory psychology course at the University of Minnesota.
But it does not answer the question “why is it funny?”
Psychiatry does pose this question, but gets lost in the complexities of neurobiological psychiatry. By ascribing it all to the brain and various chemical neurotransmitters, psychiatry loses its way.
Here are some good observations. The visible sign of these is often laughter.
1. Humor may arise from the sudden perception of something that defies our expectations. In other words, the rejection of something incongruous or illogical. This depends upon an individual’s ability to differentiate and to see and reject situations which do not fit. The individual is surprised into rejecting.
2. Humor may arise from the release of nervous energy or painful emotional tension. This relief is actually rejection as well, since the person has now found out the truth of some situation or consideration and is rejecting the falsity under which they were previously laboring.
3. Humor may arise from the perceived flaws or misfortunes of others. In this case, however, the laughter expresses antagonism or other lower-toned emotions such as fear, and may be disparaging of others. In other words, not really funny. A person exhibiting this kind of “humor” is unable to differentiate; they identify things as the same which are really not the same, and reject things that may be restimulative.
The tendency of psychiatry to say “it’s all in the brain” unfortunately leads to the use of harmful drugs for treating any perceived impairments in one’s sense of humor, such as when one’s emotional responses do not align with the social context. Ultimately these conclusions come from psychiatric observations of people with a physically damaged brain or nervous system. Diagnoses of autism, for example, may follow from neurological dysfunction.
Psychiatry has a tendency to needlessly complicate the simplicity of humor and laughter, with extensive characterizations of humor styles, stress hormones, brain injuries, mental disorders, the ethics of using humor in psychiatric or psychological counseling, endless speculation about how to measure humor in a clinical setting, differences in humor due to some imagined difference in social, racial, genetic, age, or other category; so they can call their treatments “evidence-based.”
Let’s just make it quite simple. Laugh until you can enjoy a laugh without any reason whatsoever.
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