Researching Humour
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about humour. “What’s humour?” Well, it depends. But when someone combines comedy with tragedy, or laughter with tears, highlights contradictions and then delivers a surprising punchline, that’s often perceived as humorous. Humour can be benevolent or malignant. You’ve probably heard funny, light-hearted remarks or cynical comments. If you watch comedy and satire, you encounter puns, jokes and laughter. These enable people to voice criticism, injustices and opinions. In many cultures, people find irony, absurd elements, caricatures, stereotypes, sadness expressed through witticism, as well as pain and hardship enveloped in black humour. Having the ability to laugh at oneself and life, makes distress more tolerable.
As a group analyst, you probably have read Freud’s book Der Witz, heard the word ‘gallows humour’ and know that humour is classed as a mature defence mechanism. In psychotherapy, clients often resort to humour to express aggression, hatred and love. Skilfully used, humour can be a beneficial therapeutic tool. But there’s more to humour, self-deprecating or masochistic types of humour enable the powerless to rise above their suffering. However, both humour and its use are complex.
That’s why you could research humour. First, you need a good research question. Let me suggest some. While humour is universal, it differs between/amongst cultures and societies. So you could illuminate these differences.
I was intrigued that Holocaust humour is nowadays acceptable in Israel. How and why did this happen? What are the implications? Do patients express such humour in group analytic therapy groups? How is Holocaust humour regarded in Poland, Germany and other countries?
Scanning through fiction and watching movies that employ humour, you may wonder which films, satires, literature and music are acceptable in which society. Does ‘humour tolerance’ differ?
When you read the humour literature and plough through research papers, you’ll notice contradicting results. One researcher finds that Jewish humour entails such and such. Another reaches a different conclusion. Hence, you could explore whether English, Irish, American or Jewish humour really exists. If so, what are its characteristics? You could find out whether the idea of a specific cultural humour is a myth.
I’m curious how other group analysts deal with humour in their groups. How is humour addressed in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Asia or South/America? If you’ve members from different cultures in your groups, what happens when irony, cynicism and other types of black humour are articulated?
Group Analysis is political. Isn’t it natural then to study how humour is affected by politics? Do humour norms exist as a result of prevalent political ideologies? How do you and other group analysts experience such norms? Since Group Analysis is practised worldwide, we’re in an excellent position to explore all these questions quantitatively.
How? You could develop questionnaires and/or surveys. Questionnaire design does not have to be dry. Try to be creative, read the humour and research literature and ask questions that are of interest to you and relevant to your culture.
Comparative studies are also useful. Collaborate with colleagues, we’ve got research networks in Group Analysis.
You could employ quantitative content analysis to find out what kind of humour and how often it’s used in films. Counting frequencies is a starting point, you can of course analyse content further.
Or you could use the Delphi method to gain a consensus regarding a universally accepted definition. You don’t have to only rely on a quantitative methodology. Mixed methods have many advantages. Combining quantitative with qualitative approaches allows you to study experiences as well. Or to research what functions humour serve in groups.
It seems to me that social dimensions are as important as political ones. Hence, analysing psycho-social aspects of humour and studying their functions, could generate interesting and even unexpected findings.
Furthermore, many group analysts believe that theory is vital. Unfortunately, we don’t have a humour theory in Group Analysis. That’s another potential area of research. Use an inductive approach. Come up with hypotheses, test them by first gathering and then analysing data. Formulate a theory.
You may have further ideas how humour could be explored. Hopefully, humour negates any quantitative unease and you’ll start researching laughter, witticisms and all the other types and features of humour. If you’re a novice, read my previous columns to familiarise yourself with quantitative methods, as well as their epistemological and ontological assumptions.
Wishing you a productive and humorous autumn.
Susanne Vosmer, Columnist
Bibliography
Boskin, J. (ed.) The Humour Prism in Twentieth Century America. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Freud, S. (1905) Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten. GW Bd. VI Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.
(1927) Der Humor. GW Bd XIV. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, pp. 383-9.
Lemmas, A. (1999) Humour on the Couch. London: Whurr Publishers.
Steir-Livny, L. (2017). Is It OK to Laugh about It? Holocaust Humour, Satire and Parody in: Israeli Culture. London: Portland.