Babushka<\/em> to soldier, the old cat and mouse game inevitably ending in cat pain brought out a huge smile and laughter.<\/span><\/p>\nIn some cultures, laughing or expressing intense emotions in public is frowned upon, so even if something funny occurs, laughing would be considered impolite. In addition, some language structures make it impossible for humor to be translated across cultures. In America, many of our punch lines appear at the end of our sentences, but that would be impossible to do so in the German language. Certainly language structure accounts for some of the fact that humor can get lost in translation, but that is not the full story.<\/span><\/p>\nI remember reading a story about an article in The Onion, where Kim Jung Un was listed as one of the sexiest men alive. It was reprinted in a Korean newspaper. No one there understood that it was meant to be a joke. All you have to do is look at the scandal surrounding \u201cThe Interview\u201d<\/em> to see how various cultures find completely different things funny. In America, people were lauding the movie as being hysterical and well worth a watch. In many Asian countries, the movie was seen as offensive and rude. Perhaps this is the perfect example of why cross-cultural humor can be so dangerous. It is easy to cross the line from funny into offensive without really being aware that you are doing so. Holocaust jokes are not funny if you are telling them to a Jew. Homosexual jokes are not funny if you are making fun of your gay or lesbian friend. And jokes about North Korea are not funny to the people who live there. It is a fine line, but a line that must be respected non-the-less.<\/span><\/p>\nHumor also has different functions depending on the culture. In America, we learn to use humor to diffuse tension or ease a situation, it a defense mechanism we engage in when we are uncomfortable. In many Asian cultures, however, humor is used as an educational tool, to emphasize a point, or clarify a concept.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Universal Nature of Humor<\/h2>\n
Despite differences in humor, there are some things that are universally funny. The Incongruity-Resolution (IR) theory was first created by Immanuel Kant in the 18th<\/sup> century. This theory states that humor or laughter arises automatically when we are presented by something surprising or unexpected. That\u2019s why the punch line is normally at the end of sentences to surprise people. This also explains why some people laugh when they see someone else fall down or walk into a glass door or do something else embarrassing. Kant explained people in all cultures and religions laugh at incongruity and their resolutions. It\u2019s just that different societal structures prompt different types of incongruities. Of course, Kant also explained the differences between rationalism and empiricism in epistemology (the science of knowledge), so he may not be the most fun of your philosophers.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0Elliot Aronson described when someone finds humor or likableness after they make a mistake or a blunder. He called it the \u201cPratfall Effect.\u201d<\/em> It is often used in marketing with one of our idols doing something out of the character for their competence level. In marketing, some call it the \u201cblemishing effect<\/em>.\u201d So when the cat, who is usually the aggressor in cat-mouse relationships, gets beaten everyone laughs and smiles, but if the cat were to win and eat the mouse, that\u2019s not entertainment. You\u2019re funnier when you lose.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0I returned to Singapore three years later for a shorter speech for the same conference. I tripped on the way to the podium, told an anecdote of pain for me, was unpredictable when I presented a children\u2019s book for every person in the audience instead of talking about police stuff, and made sure to compliment the commissioner of police. It went over big and I went from horse\u2019s rear end to riding the horse. You gotta learn from your failures. The conference is every three years and I\u2019ll be lecturing again this year. I wonder if I should break out Tom and Jerry cartoons for my backdrop!<\/span><\/p>\nBlog Administrator: Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D. ABPP
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nPlease share this article from down below.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nPlease join the email list on the top of the sidebar and you can get these sent to your email.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nCome back regularly for more updated blogs on police psychology<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police Psychology | Humor and Culture \u00a0 I was lecturing on police psychology to a conference crowd in Singapore, and I had included a funny metaphor of the development of the Apollo moon vehicle by NASA to show the rigidity in police organizations. The punch line is that NASA, like police organizations, relied on decisions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17168888],"tags":[17168867,17168797,17168831],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information","tag-culture","tag-police-psychology","tag-police-stress"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1257,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=1257","url_meta":{"origin":974,"position":0},"title":"Police Psychology | Viral Infection","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"February 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Viral Infection \u00a0 There are some things Police Psychology just hasn\u2019t figured out, in fact all of psychology is left puzzled when something goes viral. I was recently sent a video about a woman who has heard her fianc\u00e9 was gunned down in the street after a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Effort"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Effort","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168880"},"img":{"alt_text":"VIRAL MARKETING, police psychology","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/VIRAL-MARKETING-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":630,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=630","url_meta":{"origin":974,"position":1},"title":"Police Psychology | What You Can Learn from a 2-Year Old","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"August 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | What You Can Learn from a 2-Year Old \u00a0 In police psychology, I find a lot of officers who just can\u2019t do it. There are very few things that toddlers know how to do better than adults. For instance, although sometimes when I\u2019m driving I encounter cars\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Effort"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Effort","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168880"},"img":{"alt_text":"Police Stress, women saying no","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/woman-no-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5092,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=5092","url_meta":{"origin":974,"position":2},"title":"Police Psychology | The Obsessed Mind-Body Connection","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"January 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | The Obsessed Mind-Body Connection by Gary S. 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![\"Police](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/horses-ass.jpg\")
<\/a> punch line is that NASA, like police organizations, relied on decisions based on the rear ends of horses centuries before. It is a funny and amusing story and gets from a small chuckle to a major minute\u2019s ovation in America when it is finished. In Asia, the audience felt I was insulting the police commissioner who they liked a lot (and I did too). Since it was my opening story, I sort of lost that audience as they would cringe every time I started a new story or joke. I guess you could say it was Zen \u2013 \u201cbe the horse\u2019s rear end<\/em>.\u201d I became the rear end of the horse. With over 450 keynote addresses in my life, this was one of two that I hated intensely.<\/span><\/p>\n