Do chimps have real humour?

[Spurius]

This question just crossed my mind yesterday - you see pics of chimps grinning etc but I just wonder if there's any research into their sense of humor, expressions of it, and if it's comparable to what we experience.

Also wonder if that's really a unique genetic trait not shared with others, or that other animals have a form of it too, but we don't pick up on the (facial) clues that chimps do have.

Lastly ofcourse - what's the point of having humour? This from a evolutionary perspective: is it just a nervous tic, or a beneficiary trait?

Just curious.

[Ummagumma]

Lastly ofcourse - what's the point of having humour?

Laughter is the best medicine. It also releases all kinds of chemicals in your brain - I'll have to double check what they are. Comedy and tragedy, Laughter and crying. I suppose they are all just extremes of those things we call emotions.

[Spurius]

Sure, all emotions are chemical in nature. So is agression, but the *mechanism* isn't really what I'm interested in here.

There undoubtedly IS one, although I think humour is a complex one, not a simplex, like a euphoric feeling *alone* - it needs quite a few ingredients.

So, is that unique to homo and pan, or do other animals play jokes, and *understand* a joke is being played on them, for instance.

And *why* the behaviour, not the *how*. What's the advantage of humour, I can understand the benefits of sedation, or painkilling, but for pure (constant) euphoria there are NO benefits, it would be harmful even I think - but that's not what makes humour what it *is*, those are just chemically triggered phenomena that accompany it.

Humor is quite a characteristic human trait, maybe shared by chimps/dolphins (which I'd like to see confirmed).

But why have it in the first place - euphoria alone cannot explain it fully.

[Ummon]

In psychoanalytic terms humour is a defense mechanism, it helps reduce the negative effects of stressing situations. More modernely, it is a coping strategy (although how can a strategy be unconscious?).

It has also positive social effects. In evolutionary terms, it helps to establish relationships: people will perceive the positive stimulus, and therefore the feedback will be positive.

All the opposite if one started to show affliction and to lament about his misery, etc.

[Gary88]

i read somewhere recently that a research team had come to the conclusion that testosterone was an important factor in a human sense of humour, annoyingly i can't remember where.


here we go

Genetics may underlie humour
Men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone, an expert claims.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7153584.stm

don't know what this means for chimps. the guy seems a bit nutty though so i wouldn't take much from this.

[Spurius]

Nutty maybe, but not exactly bollocks, I believe.

He may have a point, there - have to think on it a bit more.

[Gary88]

indeed, the worry of course is a natural bias to believe based on the fact that his conclusion could suggest men are somehow inherently funnier (which of course we are)

[Spurius]

Would explain laughing hyenas - their females got more testosterone than our males.

Seriously, the man has a point, although I suspect the story is a bit more complex than it's portrayed in the article, but indeed there is a harsh side to humour as well.

I am quite a joke collector, I must have heard thousands literally, and several versions of most, but as far as I can tell only 3 have no victim, really.

In all others there is someone or something you'd rather not be.

Also think Monty Python 'Killing Joke' concept (even had a band named after it), or when Bruce Willis sends his captor in the Last Boyscout silly with the giggles over a joke, then kills him.

Humour and our dear friends disgrace/violence/disaster are close bedfellows, it would seem.

[Ummon]

If testosterone as proven well enough induces greater aggressiveness, it is only logical that it induces humour as a counterbalance, as well.

[Sebdeas]

Well there are more male comedians, so that could be a sign.
Aren't the best jokes someone making jokes about other people?
But out of experience, girls have a very different sense of humour, which is not very funny if you ask me.

[Spurius]

I think it has to do with the fact that we're neotenous animals.

Those have retarded youthful features well into adulthood, like our babyheads compared with chimps. Some other mammals have it too, BTW. One other feature is 'playful' violence, like training for the real thing.

I think humour developed as a feigned attack, by youthful animals against full adults. Normally such playful behaviour is condoned, but not always, and a quick bite or slash will make that clear. In that case a ****-eating grin is the most gracious way out.

This beside the fact youthful appearances are abused by neotenous animals, to fool others into forgiving behaviour - and then attack in a group. Like a bear has difficulties hitting a dog, since it registers in his brain as some kind of pup, not an adult - until the pack is upon him.

The attack is real, not feigned. We're horrible opportunists. We make jokes, and mean the content. If the victim is of the no-nonsense type and attacks us right back, we can always say we were only kidding.

Humour, agression, and opportunistic violence are indeed very closely related, it would seem.

[Ummon]

A valid complement to any existing PoV for sure. In any case if we assume the original concept of Freud and A. Freud that humour as a defense mechanism works by diverting attention from those aspects of a situation which we cannot control and/or are a source of stress, this includes aggressiveness, and obviously works both as a way to keep cool in difficult situations and to elicit the desired response in others.

What goes inside by necessity has effects outside as well.