•We studied the Covid-19 humor appreciation during Italy's lockdown in March 2020.•Humor inspired by Covid-19 showed a mark of aversiveness, but not of funniness.•With increasing age and in women, ...Covid-19 humor was judged more aversive.•The use of humor as a coping mechanism increased the appreciation of Covid-19 humor.•Perceived risk of contagion raised the disturbing potential of Covid-19 humor.
We often see an upsurge of humor inspired by tragic circumstances: this happened also during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) outbreak. However, little is known about the emotional response to tragedy-triggered humor, let alone Covid-19 humor. With a large-scale survey completed during the early stages of Italy's lockdown, we studied the appreciation (funniness and aversiveness) of different formats of Covid-19 humor shared on social media. Results of an analysis of the role of demographic, personality, and psychological distance factors with linear mixed models showed that Covid-19 humor lacks a “signature” of funniness, but displays a mark of aversiveness. Among demographics, age and gender were key factors: with increasing age and in women, Covid-19 humor was judged as more aversive. Individuals using humor to cope with uneasy circumstances judged Covid-19 humor as funnier and less aversive. Furthermore, the perceived risk of infection amplified Covid-19 humor aversiveness, while kilometrical distance from the first Italian contagion hotspot raised the amusement in global terms. These findings expand our knowledge about dark humor and should raise awareness of the great variation in the emotional impact of Covid-19 humor and of the need to ponder where and with whom to share the laugh about the pandemic.
Jokes and Targets takes up an appealing and entertaining topic -- the
social and historical origins of jokes about familiar targets such as rustics,
Jewish spouses, used car salesmen, and dumb ...blondes. Christie Davies explains why
political jokes flourished in the Soviet Union, why Europeans tell jokes about
American lawyers but not about their own lawyers, and why sex jokes often refer to
France rather than to other countries. One of the world's leading experts on the
study of humor, Davies provides a wide-ranging and detailed study of the jokes that
make up an important part of everyday conversation.
Despite popular opinions of the ´dark Middle Ages´ and a ´gloomy early modern age´, many people laughed, smiled, giggled, chuckled, enternained and rediculed each other. This volume demonstrates how ...important laughter had been at times and how diverse the situations proved to be in which people laughed. The contributions examine a wide gamut of significant cases of laughter in literary texts, historical documents, and art works. Laughter reflected a variety of concerns, interests, and intentions, and the collective approach in this volume to laughter in the past opens many new windows to the history of mentality, social and religious conditions, gender relationships, and power structures.
This is an updated edition of Good Humor, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke, published in 2006. Using a combination of interview materials, survey data, and historical materials, it explores the ...relationship between humor and gender, age, social class, and national differences in the Netherlands and the United States. This edition includes new developments and research findings in the field of humor studies.
Pornind de la ideea unui demers cumulativ, Cosmina-Maria Berindei compară imaginarul cu un „muzeu etnografic ce se compune din obiecte care au, fiecare în parte, o poveste: au fost confecţionate de ...către un meşter, au avut unul sau mai mulţi proprietari şi au cunoscut un traseu propriu, înainte de a deveni obiecte de inventar.Iadul este locul în care îşi vor petrece eternitatea cei care nu fac parte din universul social al comunităţii, fiind vinovaţi de practici amendate de către aceasta.CosminaMaria Berindei apreciază că „îngăduinţa nemăsurată privitoare la posibilitatea omului de a avea un destin postum fericit nu vine (...) dintr-o atitudine identică cu aceea care se articulează în modernitatea noastră, în care iadul aproape că a dispărut din imaginar" (p. 351), ci din faptul că, bazându-se pe o religiozitate arhaică, imaginarul culturii tradiţionale româneşti nu conţine ideea judecăţii morale prin care să fie legitimat accesul la un destin fericit.Sunt reprezentări iconografice ale temelor enumerate mai sus, realizare pe pereţii unor biserici din România: biserica de lemn din Şurdeşti (MM), biserica de lemn din Ieud-Deal (MM), Biserica reformată din Mungeni (HR), Mănăstirea Voroneţ (SV), biserica de lemn din Fereşti (MM), Mănăstirea Humor (SV), biserica de lemn din Pojori-Cema (VL), biserica din Fârtăţeşti (VL), Biserica din Dozeşti (VL), Mănăstirea Hurezi (VL) şi alte câteva.
Why do modern Americans believe in something called a sense of humor and how did they come to that belief? Daniel Wickberg traces the cultural history of the concept from its British origins as a way ...to explore new conceptions of the self and social order in modern America. More than simply the history of an idea, Wickberg's study provides new insights into a peculiarly modern cultural sensibility.
The expression "sense of humor" was first coined in the 1840s and the idea that such a sense was a personality trait to be valued developed only in the 1870s. What is the relationship between Medieval humoral medicine and this distinctively modern idea of the sense of humor? What has it meant in the past 125 years to declare that someone lacks a sense of humor? How is the joke, as a twentieth-century quasi-literary form, different from the traditional folktale? Wickberg addresses these questions, among others, using the history of ideas to throw new light on the way contemporary Americans think and speak.
The context of Wickberg's analysis is Anglo-American; the specifically British meanings of humor and laughter from the sixteenth century forward provide the framework for understanding American cultural values in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The genealogy of the sense of humor is, like the study of keywords, an avenue into a significant aspect of the cultural history of modernity. Drawing on a wide range of sources and disciplinary perspectives, Wickberg's analysis challenges many of the prevailing views of modern American culture and suggests a new model for cultural historians.
The book is intended to provide a definitive view of the field of humor research for both beginning and established scholars in a variety of fields who are developing an interest in humor and need to ...familiarize themselves with the available body of knowledge. Each chapter of the book is devoted to an important aspect of humor research or to a disciplinary approach to the field, and each is written by the leading expert or emerging scholar in that area. There are two primary motivations for the book. The positive one is to collect and summarize the impressive body of knowledge accumulated in humor research in and around Humor: The International Journal of Humor Research. The negative motivation is to prevent the embarrassment to and from the "first-timers, " often established experts in their own field, who venture into humor research without any notion that there already exists a body of knowledge they need to acquire before publishing anything on the subject-unless they are in the business of reinventing the wheel and have serious doubts about its being round! The organization of the book reflects the main groups of scholars participating in the increasingly popular and high-powered humor research movement throughout the world, an 800 to 1, 000-strong contingent, and growing. The chapters are organized along the same lines: History, Research Issues, Main Directions, Current Situation, Possible Future, Bibliography-and use the authors' definitive credentials not to promote an individual view, but rather to give the reader a good comprehensive and condensed view of the area.
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