The Sociology of Humor: Giselinde Kuipers

The sociology of humor
Giselinde Kuipers
1. Introduction
Humor is a quintessentially social phenomenon. Jokes and other humorous

utterances are a form of communication that is usually shared in social in-
teraction. These humorous utterances are socially and culturally shaped, and
often quite particular to a specific time and place. And the topics and themes
people joke about are generally central to the social, cultural and moral order
of a society or a social group.
Despite the social character of humor, sociology, the discipline that stud-
ies society and social relations, has not concerned itself much with humor.
When sociology emerged in the nineteenth century, it focused mainly on the
great structural transformations of the modern times: modernization, indus-
trialization, urbanization, secularization, etc. It was not very interested in the
“unserious” business of everyday life: interactions, emotions, play, leisure,
private life, and other things not directly related to great developments on the
macro-level of society – such as humor. In the course of the twentieth cen-
tury, sociology became more diverse and increasingly concerned with the
micro-reality of everyday life, but it still remained overwhelmingly devoted
to the study of social problems, great transformations, and other serious mat-
ters. As a result, humor came into focus mainly when it seemed problematic
in itself, or was concerned with important social issues: race and ethnicity,
political conflict, social resistance, gender inequalities.
Meanwhile, questions about the social nature of humor were addressed
by many other disciplines. Many of the classical humor theoreticians (Mor-
reall 1983) touch on social aspects of humor. However, these questions were
mostly answered from a more philosophical or psychological perspective.
Anthropologists and folklorists were much ahead of the sociologists in pay-
ing serious and systematic attention to the social meanings and functions
of humor (see Apte 1985; Oring this volume). Only after the 1970s can we
speak of a serious emergence of a sociological interest in humor (Fine 1983;
Paton 1988; Zijderveld 1983).
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366 Giselinde Kuipers
In this chapter, I will give an overview of sociological thought about

humor. Sociological thought is defined here broadly (and somewhat imperi-
alistically) as any scholarship concerned with the social functions or social
shaping of humor. Since the authors discussed here have used very different
conceptualizations and definitions of humor, I will simply adopt the vari-
ous notions of humor used by the authors discussed, and leave the matter of
the definition of humor to other authors in this volume. First, I will discuss
a number of theoretical perspectives on humor, roughly in chronological
order: the functionalist, conflict, symbolic interactionist, phenomenological,
and comparative-historical approach. After that, I will discuss a number of
issues central to today’s sociological thought about humor: the relation be-
tween humor, hostility and transgression; humor and laughter; and the social
shaping of humorous media and genres.
2. Sociological perspectives on humor
2.1. Pre-disciplinary history
Superiority theory, relief theory, and incongruity are usually described as the
three “classical” approaches to humor and laughter. These approaches pre-
date academic disciplinary specialization, so most of the classical formula-
tions are subsumed today under the heading of philosophy (Morreall 1983;
1987). The earliest sociologist who discussed humor was the British philoso-
pher/sociologist/political theorist Herbert Spencer. His discussion of laugh-
ter can be placed in the tradition of relief theory: laughter, to Spencer, is “the
discharge of arrested feelings into the muscular system . . . in the absence of
other adequate channels.” (Spencer 1861/1987: 108109) However, Spencer
connected this energy release with the experience of incongruity: “laughter
naturally results only when consciousness is unawares transferred from great
things to small – only when there is what we may call a descending incon-
gruity.” (ibid. 110, italics in original) The discharge of tension is still one of
the main functions humor is believed to fulfill, and as such the relief theory
has had great influence on modern humor scholarship, mostly via the work of
Sigmund Freud (1905/1976). However, “pure” relief theorists, explaining all
humor and laughter as release of tension or “safety valve”, cannot be found
anymore in humor scholarship these days.
Of the three “classical” approaches, superiority theory is the most obvi-
ously connected with social relations. This tradition can be traced back to
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The sociology of humor 367
Plato and Aristotle, and has most famously been formulated by Thomas Hob-
bes: “Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden
conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity
of others, or with our own formerly.” (Hobbes 1650/1987: 20) Superiority
theorists state that humor and laughter are expressions of superiority, which
of course reflects a social relationship. However, on close consideration the
classical theorists describe superiority as an individual experience: the com-
municative or relational aspect of the joking and laughing is generally not
examined in these theories. In other words: while addressing a social event,
superiority theories of humor are not very sociological. As will become clear
in this article, the relation between humor and superiority – although referred
to in other terms, such as power, conflict, or hierarchy – is still central to so-
cial scientific studies of humor.
Incongruity theory – the theory that states that all humor is based on the
perception or recognition of incongruity – is not as obviously related to socio-
logical questions, since it is mainly concerned with the nature of humorous
texts or other stimuli, or with the mental operations involved in processing
these texts. However, as incongruity theory, in several varieties (Attardo and
Raskin 1991; Oring 1992; 2003; Raskin 1985; Ruch 1998), became the dom-
inant perspective in humor scholarship, it has been incorporated in socio-
logical thought in various ways: how incongruities and their humorous poten-
tial are culturally and socially determined (Davis 1993; Oring 1992; 2003);
how the incongruous form permits specific social functions (Mulkay 1988),
and how incongruities get to be perceived and constructed as funny (Douglas
1973).
The first full-fledged theory of humor was developed by Sigmund Freud.
In his Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905) he integrated
elements of relief and incongruity theory, and combined them with his psy-
choanalytic theory. While Freud’s theories on humor (and other topics) are
much disputed, he was the first to systematically address what I have called
here sociological questions about humor, and his influence on the sociology
of humor has been immense. Without attempting to explain Freud’s entire
humor theory (see Martin 2006: 3342; Palmer 1994: 7992), let me note
two important themes. First, Freud discussed the importance of social rela-
tionships between the teller of the joke, his audience, and (when applicable)
the butt of the joke. In other words: he introduced the social relationship into
the analysis of humor. Second, Freud paid attention to the relationship be-
tween humor and – socially constructed – taboos. Jokes, according to Freud,
were a way to avoid the “censor”, or the internalized social restrictions, thus
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enabling the expression (and enjoyment) of drives otherwise inhibited by

society. To Freud, these forbidden drives were mostly sex and aggression.
Freud’s theory has been strongly criticized, especially for the claim that all
humor in the end is based on sex and aggression, although, in all fairness,
Freud is more nuanced about this in his discussion of actual jokes than in
the general statement of his theory. Another main point of criticism is the
unfalsifiability of Freud’s theory: the references to underlying drives are, by
necessity, “veiled” and therefore hard to disprove. However, the notion of
jokes as related to, and attempting to circumvent, social taboos has become
very central to humor scholarship.1
The other early theorist of humor with sociological insight was Henri
Bergson. Like Freud’s theory, Bergson’s Laughter (1900/1999) contains
a number of rather untenable and untestable generalizations (for instance,
that all laughter is a response to “something mechanical encrusted on the
living”), alongside insightful contributions. For sociologists, his most rele-
vant observations have to do with the social character of laughter. Bergson
described humor and laughter as essentially social and shared. Laughing at
someone, on the other hand, functions as a means of exclusion, and hence as
a social corrective and form of social control.
After Freud and Bergson, the various disciplines of humor studies branched
out, and in the course of the twentieth century, a number of approaches
emerged that are more or less specific to the social sciences: the functional-
ist approach; the conflict approach; the symbolic interactionist approach; the
phenomenological approach; and the comparative-historical approach.
2.2. The functionalist approach
The functionalist approach interprets humor in terms of the social functions

it fulfills for a society or social group. Especially in older studies of humor,
functionalist interpretations tended to stress how humor (and other social
phenomena) maintain and support the social order. Functionalist studies of
humor are often ethnographic studies, but humorous texts, events, and cor-
pora have also been analyzed from a functionalist perspective.
The earliest functionalist explanations can be found in the work of anthro-
pologists on so-called joking relationships, a “a relationship between two
persons in which one is by custom permitted and in some instances required
to tease or make fun of the other” (Radcliffe-Brown 1940: 195). Radcliffe-
Brown interpreted such relationships, which exist in various non-Western
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societies, as a way to manage the strain inherent in specific relationships.

They are “modes of organizing a definite and stable system of social behav-
iour in which conjunctive and disjunctive components . . . are maintained and
combined” (Radcliffe Brown 1940: 200). This obligatory joking is a way to
relieve tension in possibly strained relationships, thus maintaining the social
order. Later, a number of studies were done of non-obligatory joking rela-
tionships in industrialized societies, with similar interpretations about the
tension-relieving function of joking in situations that contained some sort of
structural conflict or contradiction (Bradney 1957; Sykes 1966). Other ritu-
alized forms of humor, such as rituals of reversal (like carnival), and ritual
clowning (Apte 1985) were similarly explained as a safety valve to “blow
off” social tension.
Another function ascribed to humor is social control. Stephenson (1951),
in an analysis of American jokes about stratification, concluded that these
jokes make fun of transgressions of the social order, and in that way “reveal
an adherence to a set of values regarded as the traditional American creed”
(Stephenson 1951: 574). This reasoning is reminiscent of Bergson’s interpret-
ation of humor and laughter as a social corrective: by laughing at something,
it is defined as outside of the normal. A more sophisticated version of this
corrective function of humor was developed by Powell (1988), who placed
humor among other possible responses to things out of the ordinary, and de-
fined it as one of the milder forms of social corrective (stronger forms being,
for instance, declaring someone crazy). Very recently, social control theory
has been revived by Billig, who in Laughter and Ridicule (2005) puts forward
a theory of humor as a social corrective, closely linked with embarrassment,
arguing that “ridicule, far from being a detachable negative, lies at the heart
of humor.” (Billig 2005: 190; see also Billig 2001b)
From a very different angle, Coser also noted the social control functions
of humor. In one of her two influential and oft-cited microsociological stud-
ies of humor in a hospital ward, she looked at the patterns of laughter dur-
ing the staff meetings (Coser 1960). This study showed how the amount and
direction of joking reflected the social hierarchy. By counting the number of
laughs, she discovered that doctors got significantly more laughs than resi-
dents, who got more laughs than the nurses. Moreover, everybody tended to
“joke down”: doctors tended to joke about residents, residents joked about
the nurses or themselves, and the nurses joked about themselves, or about
the patients and their families. According to Coser, this joking helps to main-
tain the social order: it keeps people “in their place”. The hierarchy-build-
ing function of humor, with the associated correlation between status and
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successful humor production, has been noted in various other studies (Pizzini
1991; Robinson and Smith-Lovin 2001; Sayre 2001).
In her second paper on humor, on the use of joking by patients in the hos-
pital ward, Coser explored another function of humor, which also contributes
to the social order: social cohesion. In the more egalitarian and less formally
structured life of the ward’s patients, humor served to create solidarity, share
experiences, and build an identity within the group. This cohesive function
may seem at odds with the hierarchy-maintaining function. However, hier-
archical groups need cohesion too. Joking apparently manages, more than
most other forms of combinations, to combine the seemingly contradictory
functions of hierarchy-building and bringing about solidarity (e.g. at work, in
the military, cf. Koller 1988: 233260). Moreover, Coser describes the use of
humor in two very different contexts: a formally structured situation among
people who know each other versus a more disorganized and egalitarian situ-
ation, which is likely to affect the functions humor can, and needs to, fulfill.
In her article on the cohesive functions of laughter, Coser wrote that
“to laugh, or to occasion laughter through humor and wit, is to invite those
present to come closer. Laughter and humor are indeed like an invitation, be
it an invitation for dinner, or an invitation to start a conversation: it aims at de-
creasing social distance.” (Coser 1959: 172) One of the reasons for humor’s
cohesive function is that a joke is “an invitation” the acceptance of which is
immediately apparent: a laugh or a smile. There are very few forms of in-
teraction that are connected as closely with social acceptance and approval
as laughter (Provine 2000). Also, collective joking takes people outside of
everyday life into a more playful “non-serious” atmosphere, creating what
the anthropologist Victor Turner called communitas (Fine 1983).
Hence, humor not only is a sign of closeness among friends, it is also an
effective way of forging social bonds, even in situations not very conducive
to closeness: it “breaks the ice” between strangers, unites people in different
hierarchical positions, and creates a sense of shared “conspiracy” in the con-
text of illicit activities like gossiping or joking about superiors. The flip side
of this inclusive function of humor is exclusion. Those who do not join in the
laughter, because they do not get the joke, or even worse, because the joke
targets them, will feel left out, shamed, or ridiculed. The excluding function
of humor is often mentioned as the basis for the corrective function described
above (Powell 1988; Billig 2005)
What these three functions – relief, control, cohesion – have in common is
their focus on humor and joking as contribution to the maintenance of social
order. The insistence that all social phenomena maintain the social structure
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has become the focus of much criticism leveled at the (structural-) function-
alism of the 1950s and 1960s: it makes functionalist explanations circular
and basically untestable. Social phenomena do not necessarily have the same
function for all concerned, and they may well be dysfunctional, at least from
some people’s perspective.
Despite the demise of functionalism as a theoretical framework after
the 1960s, functionalist explanations of humor still are common in humor
studies. Since the 1970s, sociologists have not employed functionalism as
a complete theory or comprehensive framework, but instead have attempted
to combine functional analysis of humor with analysis of content and context.
Humor obviously fulfills important social functions, but more recent studies
tend to stress the multiple functions of humor, which can be a threat as well
as a contribution to the social order: cohesion, control, relief, but also the
expression of conflict, inciting resistance, insulting, ridiculing or satirizing
others (Holmes 2000; Martin 2006; Mulkay 1988; Palmer 1994).
Martineau (1972), in an early attempt to move away from one-dimension-
al functionalism, constructed a model connecting the functions of humor with
specific social relations. He distinguished esteeming and disparaging jokes,
within and outside a group, targeting people within or outside the group.
Depending on the conditions, he expected humor to solidify social bonds,
demoralize, increase internal or external hostility, foster consensus or rede-
fine relationships. Powell and Paton (1988) edited a volume concentrating
mainly on the complex interplay between resistance and control functions of
humor, summarized under the heading of “tension management”, but illus-
trating a variety of other, positive and negative, functions along the way.
The functions humor fulfills can be psychological as well as social. Black
or sick humor, for instance in disaster jokes, has often been explained as
a way to cope with unpleasant experiences, both individually and collec-
tively, and more generally to distance oneself from negative emotions such
as fear, grief, or shame (Dundes 1987; Morrow 1987. For a critique, see
Oring 1987). Sociologist Peter Berger (1997) stressed the psychological ef-
fects of humor, describing (some forms of) humor as consolation, liberation,
and transcendence. Thomas Scheff described humor and laughter as catharsis
(Scheff 1980) and “anti-shame” (1990). As in the social functions stressed
by humor scholars, psychological functions ascribed to humor tend to be
beneficial. Scholars focusing on the “dark” side of humor will be discussed
below.
Robinson and Smith-Lovin (2001), in an excellent recent paper, attempted
to test functionalist explanations by looking at the use of various types of
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humor in task-oriented groups in slightly differing social constellations. They

discern four main social functions of humor: meaning making (derived from
the symbolic interactionist perspective described below), hierarchy building,
cohesion building, and tension relief. In their study, which looked at groups
consisting of strangers in task-oriented interaction, they found most support
for the hierarchical and (slightly less so) cohesive functions. They replicated
Coser’s finding that high status group members get more laughs and make
more jokes. The cohesive functions of humor were shown to depend both on
the type of humor (cohesive versus differentiating, outward vs. inward -dir-
ected), on the status of the joker, and on the composition of the group. In
other words, the functions of humor are not fixed, but very much dependent
on type of relation, social context, and on the content of the joke.
2.3. Conflict approach
Conflict theories see humor as an expression of conflict, struggle, or antago-

nism. In contrast with the functionalist theories described above, humor is
interpreted not as venting off – and hence avoidance or reduction – but as an
expression or correlate of social conflict: humor as a weapon, a form of at-
tack, a means of defense (Speier 1998). Conflict theories of humor have been
used especially in the analysis of ethnic and political humor, both cases where
the use of humor has a clear target, and tends to be correlated with conflict
and group antagonism.2
This approach is clearly indebted to the Hobbesian tradition of humor
as “sudden glory”. However, the literature about humor and conflict suffers
somewhat from conceptual unclarity: in writings about the use of humor as
a “weapon” hostility, aggression, superiority, and rivalry are often used in-
terchangibly, and are not clearly distinguished or delineated. Superiority im-
plies the (experience of) a higher position, a form of social ranking which is
not necessarily related to the urge to hurt someone, which forms the basis of
hostility and aggression. As Coser’s findings in the psychiatric ward suggest,
there can be superiority without conflict – although some conflict sociolo-
gists would contest this, claiming that all inequality entails conflict.3 Conflict,
on the other hand, typically implies hostility. However, superiority (power,
hierarchy) is an important moderator of how a conflict plays out.
In 1942, Obrdlik published a paper on the “gallows humor” in Czecho-
slovakia under the Nazi regime (in place at the time of publication). He inter-
preted this form of anti-Nazi joking in two ways: as resistance and “morale
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booster” for the Czech (which resembles the relief theory), but also as hav-
ing a “disintegrating influence” on the Germans occupiers. Moreover, Obrd-
lik pointed out that such humor was an index of the strength of the oppres-
sors: “if they an afford to ignore it, they are strong; if they react wildly, with
anger. . . they are not sure of themselves, no matter how much they display
their might on the surface” (Obrdlik 1942: 716). Thus, humor has positive re-
inforcing functions for the ingroup, but in the context of intergroup relations
humor was more like a weapon: an expression of aggression and resistance.
The jokes described by Obrdlik are reminiscent of political humor in many
oppressive regimes, such as the Nazi regime (Stokker 1995) or the former
Communist regimes (Benton 1988; Davies 2007). Typically, the direct voic-
ing of dissent in such regimes is impossible or very dangerous, and even
joking may be a risky enterprise, as was memorably (though unscholarly) de-
scribed in Czech novelist Milan Kundera’s The Joke (1967). While this form
of humor is clearly correlated with conflict and antagonism, there has been
considerable disagreement about the effects of such humor. Humor in repres-
sive circumstances is usually clandestine – they were called Flüsterwitze or
“whispered jokes” in Nazi Germany (Speier 1998). This would imply that
the internal “morale-boosting” functions are more important than the effects
on the powerful “outgroup” that the jokes target. Because such humor “from
below” remains backstage or anonymous, many humor scholars conclude
that the effects of such humor are relatively marginal.
The 1988 collection of Powell and Paton on humor as “resistance and con-
trol” is organized around the interplay of these resistance and control func-
tions of humor. Most of the authors in this volume adhere to some version
of the conflict theory of humor, focusing on conflictive or unequal situations
that range from political humor under Communist rule to the much less dra-
matic example of humor in the workplace. Generally, the authors conclude
that the control function is the more important, and that resistance through
joking provides mostly temporary relief but stabilizes potentially conflictive
situations. As Benton states in his contribution on jokes under communist
rule: “… the political joke will change nothing. It’s the relentless enemy of
greed, injustice, cruelty and oppression – but it could never do without them.
It is not a form of active resistance. It reflects no political programme. It will
mobilize no one. Like the Jewish joke in its time, it is important for keeping
society sane and stable. It cushions the blows of cruel governments and cre-
ates sweet illusions. . . . its impact is as fleeting as the laughter it produces.”
(Benton 1988: 54). Or, as Speier (1998: 1395) succinctly put it: “Accommo-
dation, however much one peppers it with scorn, remains accommodation.”
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However, other authors have more faith in the subversive potential of

humor, and have argued that such “weapons of the weak” (Scott 1985) may
be important in making people reflect critically on their situation, allow them
to express hostility against those in power, create an alternative space of re-
sistance, or even give people the courage to take up more concrete actions
(Gouin 2004; Hiller 1983; Jenkins 1994; Stokker 1995). Goldstein, in her
provocative ethnography of poor women in a Brazilian shantytown, which
she organized around the subjects and places of these women’s laughter, ar-
gued that “While the humor of the poor may not necessarily lead directly to
rebellions and political revolutions, it does open up a discursive space within
which is becomes possible to speak about matters that are otherwise natural-
ized, unquestioned, or silenced.” (Goldstein 2003: 10).
This debate on the subversive or conservative nature of humor is partly
the result of underlying theoretical disagreements that cannot be resolved
by empirical considerations. However, the dynamics of humor in conditions
of conflict, and hence humor’s revolutionary potential, strongly depends on
the power division and status relations between jokers and their targets. To
illustrate this using the case of political humor: in very repressive or unequal
conditions, the humor of those without power tends to be clandestine and
relatively toothless. “Downward” humor by those in power in such situations
easily becomes aggressive to the point of cruel. A recent example, described
by Paul Lewis (2006) is the cruel joking by American prison guards in Bagh-
dad. Such humor by the mighty has received relatively little scholarly atten-
tion, but as Speier remarked in his essay on “wit and politics”: “Jests ‘from
above’, from those of higher status, rather than those ‘from below’, that is,
jokes born of triumph instead of resistance, may be the prototypical political
jokes.” (Speier 1998: 1353).
In more open societies and conditions power differences tend to be less
marked, and the dynamics of humor and conflict is quite different: there are
fewer restrictions on humor, and joking is more likely to transcend bound-
aries or mobilize people. Open societies generally have a wide range of in-
stitutions, persons, genres and publications devoted (in part) to satire and
political humor (Lockyer 2006; Shiffman, Coleman and Ward 2007; Spei-
er 1998). Such institutionalized humorous genres are “free spaces” where
those in power can be mocked and ridiculed: within their assigned spaces
and clear limitations, much is allowed, and politics can be criticized or ad-
dressed quite clearly (Palmer 2005). On the other hand, political humor in
the private sphere tends to have much less of an edge than political humor in
repressive regimes – a familiar complaint in former Communist countries is
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that, while everything else has become better, humor has worsened since the
“fall of the Wall”.
In open societies, the morale-boosting and resistance functions of pol-
itical humor can be played out more openly. Many political organizations,
factions and social movements have used humor to manifest themselves and
make their point, at times forcing politicians to seriously address topics raised
humorously. Political humor in such conditions becomes part of the pol-
itical landscape: it highlights social rifts and disagreements because polit-
ical conflicts are performed and dramatized in the humorous realm. And in
such cases, humor can sometimes “spill over” into serious political discourse
(Lewis 2006, esp. chapter 3; Lockyer and Pickering 2005b; Wagg 1996).
Finally, humor also can play a more direct role in politics when it is used
within political conflict and debate, for instance to criticize or ridicule polit-
ical opponents. This form of humor seems increasingly important in today’s
media democracies, and has again different dynamics: unlike the professional
comic genres, it is not played out in a “free space”, and the connection with
actual, serious antagonisms and disagreements can be very real (Morreall
2005). Although the way such humor is used varies strongly, such humor
between political adversaries may contain very visible forms of “aggressive”
and “defensive” joking – while at the same time, politicians using such humor
play to the public with their wit (Speier 1998).
Besides political humor, the other type of humor frequently analyzed from
a conflict perspective is ethnic humor, which is by far the most contested
form of humor in modern Western societies (Lockyer and Pickering 2005a).
The earliest studies of ethnic humor were done in the United States in the con-
text of racial segregation, which highlighted the relationship between jokes
and acute racial conflict and inequality. Burma (1946), in an article on “the
use of humor as a technique in race conflict”, concluded from his analysis
of jokes Whites told about Blacks, and vice versa: “From the huge welter of
humor, wit and satire which is current today, both written and oral, it is pos-
sible to isolate and examine a not inconsequential amount of humor which
has as its primary purpose the continuation of race conflict. Even more com-
mon is the borderline type: its chief purpose is humor, but it has secondary
aspects which definitely can be related to racial competition and conflict and
the social and cultural patterns which have arisen from them.” (714) This
quotation aptly illustrates the problem of ethnic humor. While some of it
may be geared to the continuation of ethnic conflict, the complicated aspect
is the “not inconsequential amount” of humor that is primarily intended as
humorous, but it is concerned with groups that have a hostile or antagonistic
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relation – such as Whites and Blacks in the highly segregated United States
of the 1940s. Burma interprets ethnic humor, even when primarily for fun, as
a “technique”, and hence a weapon in racial conflict.
After Burma, there have been many studies in which corpora of ethnic
jokes, the repertoire of comedians, or other “standardized” forms of humor
were linked with ethnic conflict, hostility, or some other problematic social
relationship (Draitser 1998; Dundes 1987; Dundes and Hauschild 1983; Gun-
delach 2000; Kuipers 2000; Oshima 2000). Generally, these studies attempt
to link the existence of ethnic humor, as well as the particular “ethnic scripts”
(Raskin 1985) about these groups to the – conflictive or strained – relation-
ship between joke-tellers and their targets. However, not all cases are as obvi-
ously related to conflict and inequality as the jokes described by Burma. As
Davies (1990, 1993, 2002) has pointed out, there are many ethnic joke cycles
that are not related to conflict or hostility, whereas there are other very con-
flictive relationships that are not reflected in jokes. Moreover, there are sev-
eral reported cases of groups who very often joke about themselves, the most
famous example of course being Jewish humor. This complicates the notion
that ethnic humor is necessarily the result of inter-ethnic conflict or hostility.
Another approach to the relationship between ethnic humor and ethnic
conflict is by looking at people’s appreciation of ethnic humor, and the way
this is related to their ethnic background or their opinion of the ethnic group
targeted. Middleton (1959) found that, while (as expected) Blacks have higher
appreciation of anti-White jokes than Whites, these groups didn’t differ sig-
nificantly in their appreciation of jokes targeting Blacks. This led him to con-
clude that identification with a superior group (or the social order as a whole)
is more important than ethnic affiliation in the appreciation of humor. A line
of research inspired by Middleton’s findings explores the role between the
appreciation of ethnic humor and identification. The studies conducted by
LaFave (1972) show that people tend to appreciate jokes more when they
target a group that people do not identify with. Such “identification classes”
do not have to correspond to one’s own background, and especially low sta-
tus groups may prefer jokes targeting their own group. For instance, some
studies have reported that women prefer jokes targeting women to jokes tar-
geting men, or that ethnic minorities tend to prefer jokes targeting their own
group to jokes targeting the dominant ethnic group (LaFave, Haddad and
Marshall 1974; Nevo 1985). In a related line of research, Zillman (1983; Zill-
man and Stocking 1976) explored “disparagement humor”, concluding that
people generally most enjoy humor that disparages groups they dislike or do
not identify with. However, the conclusion that people like jokes more in the
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context of conflict or hostility does not mean that humor is conflict or hostil-
ity. After all, the same studies also show that people can very well like jokes
that target groups they like and identify with (just maybe not as much).
The conflict approach is by far the most contested approach in sociologic-
al humor studies. It is used mainly to explain and analyze potentially offen-
sive forms of humor, and thus is directly connected with societal controver-
sies about ethnic, sexist, or political humor (Lockyer and Pickering 2005b).
Moreover, debates about the relations between humor and conflict, both in
Academia and the real world, address the very nature of humor: its non-seri-
ousness, which makes every humorous utterance fundamentally ambiguous.
The central criticism leveled at the conflict approach is that it takes humor too
literally, ignoring humor’s basic ambiguity, which means that a joke can be
enjoyed for many different reasons. Also, conflict theories generally cannot
explain why and when people in situations of conflict decide to use humor
rather than more serious expressions of antagonism. Since the matter of jokes
at the expense of others is such a central issue in humor studies (and real life),
the various perspectives on this matter will be addressed further below. The
question why and when people use unserious modes of communication rather
than straightforward serious talk has been taken up by the next two theoret-
ical traditions: symbolic interactionism and phenomenology.
2.4. Symbolic interactionist approach
The symbolic interactionist approach to humor focuses on the role of humor

in the construction of meanings and social relations in social interaction.4
Symbolic interactionist studies generally are detailed studies of specific so-
cial interactions, using ethnographic data or detailed transcripts of conversa-
tions. In this approach, social relations and meanings, and more generally
“social reality” are not seen as fixed and given, but as constructed and negoti-
ated in the course of social interaction. Humor, while not very central to big
social structures and processes, plays an important role in everyday interac-
tion, and its ambiguity makes it well-suited to negotiations and manipulations
of selves and relationships. Within humor studies, the micro-interactionist
approach gave a strong impetus to small-scale ethnographic studies of humor,
as an alternative to the analysis of standardized forms of humor, joke ratings
from questionnaires.
In this approach, whether something is defined as humorous or serious
is not a given, but something constructed in the course of interactions. The
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shift from serious to joking conversation becomes an act of conversational

cooperation, which can succeed, be withheld, or fail, and this shift creates op-
portunities for specific types of communication. For instance, people who say
something in jest usually have more freedom to transgress norms and bring
up taboo topics (something also noted in functionalist analyses of humor).
Emerson (1969) analyzed how this shift to joking and the consequent free-
dom to transgress norms is accepted, or challenged. She described this pro-
cess as “negotiating the serious import of humor.”
Goffman (1974) used the notion of “framing” to describe this process of
shifting from one type of interactional logic to another. Humor is one of the
most common forms of framing used in everyday conversation. A humorous
“frame” redefines everything someone says: it is not supposed to be taken
“seriously” anymore. As many conversation analysts have shown, this shift
to serious conversation if often marked by laughter, which often occurs at the
beginning of a humorous utterance. Similarly, listeners may laugh as a sign
of acceptance of this shift of frames (Jefferson 1979; Sachs 1974). This per-
spective has made laughter a central theme in sociological humor studies, not
only as an automatic response to a humorous stimulus, but as a form of com-
munication on its own. Recently, Hay (2001), a sociolinguist, has given a so-
phisticated account of this process, describing it as the garnering of “humor
support” in the course of social interaction.
Symbolic interactionist studies have not only looked at the negotiating,
but also at the conversational effects and uses of this ambiguity or “non-seri-
ousness” of humor. Humor and joking are important in negotiations over the
meaning of things: the construction of norms, the debate about what is “going
on” in a particular situation (Robinson and Smith-Lovin 2001). As Emerson
noted, humor is used to bring up themes and topics that are taboo; or to “feel
out” other persons (Mulkay 1988). Both Sachs (1974) and Fine (1983; 1984)
noted how among teenagers humor is employed to bring up sexual topics, and
can get to function as some sort of test of sexual knowledge. Among adults,
too, sexual humor is very common in flirtation, which also is a form of “test-
ing” (Fine 1983; Walle 1976). Humor always provides a way out: both the
joker and the audience can ignore any potential serious import of the joke.
Similarly, humor can also be used to bring up and negotiate the meaning of
a wide variety of other possibly sensitive topics, such as political opinions,
money matters, or complaints about bosses or colleagues (Paton and Filby
1988).
Moreover, conversational joking plays a role in the construction of social
relationships. Fine (1983) described how humor can be used to create and
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define a “group culture” – not only by providing social solidarity in the func-
tionalist sense, but by the use of ingroup humor, repeat jokes, and specific
humorous styles and tastes that literally get to define a group, and be used to
demarcate its identity. However, this creation of a group culture also provides
a strong outside boundary: humor includes and excludes at the same time.
Many micro-interactionist studies have highlighted the ambiguous role of
humor in social relationships (Holmes 2000; Kothoff 2000; 2006; Mulkay
1988; Robinson and Smith-Lovin 2001). On the one hand, joking creates
closeness and solidarity and is important marker of “being on the same wave-
length”. On the other hand, humor has a strong power dimension, resulting in
a relation between social status and humor initiation, as well an oft-reported
tendency for people to joke “down” rather than “up”. Norrick (1993) has
pointed out some of the mechanisms at work in the relationship between con-
versational humor and power. He calls humor a form of “conversational ag-
gression”, because it disrupts the regular turn-taking pattern of conversation,
and because the shift from serious to joking conversation means a drastic shift
in the mode of conversation. Thus, any attempt at a joke implies a conversa-
tional “coup” on the part of the joker, who both breaks the serious frame and
the turn-taking pattern.
The relation between humor and gender has emerged as a central theme
in micro-interactionist studies of humor: how are masculinity and feminin-
ity formed and performed in the course of interaction? Until recently, most
studies found that men joked more and initiated more humor, which con-
firms older findings, such as Coser’s, that those in high status tend to joke
more. More generally, initiating humor seemed to be associated with mas-
culinity, whereas women were expected to laugh at men’s jokes (Crawford
1995; 2003; Hay 2000; Holmes 2006; Kothoff 2006; Kuipers 2006a). Many
studies in the symbolic interactionist tradition have analyzed the way people
“perform gender”, thereby creating and reinforcing gender roles as well as
power divisions. These studies on gender and conversational joking also il-
lustrate the larger implication of small-scale interactions: showing how social
differences on a macro-level are created and perpetuated in interaction. Also,
changes in society at large manifest themselves in small-scale interactions: as
Kothoff (2006: 13) observes, recent studies increasingly show women initiat-
ing jokes, which “marks historical changes in the cultural role of humor in
communication” (cf. Holmes 2006).
In the small-scale studies of symbolic interactionists, humor, joking, and
laughter are no longer marginal and frivolous. Rather, they are at the heart
of social analysis, crucial to the shaping of meanings, situations, selves, and
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relationships. Critics of this approach have pointed out that symbolic interac-
tionist studies tend to be overly descriptive and particular, and hence hard to
generalize. In sociology, symbolic interactionism appears to have gone out
of fashion after the 1980s. Since then, this line of humor research has been
very successfully explored by sociolinguists (many of whom are cited here).
Within sociology, symbolic interactionist understandings of humor have
been incorporated in phenomenological studies of humor, described below,
and in the sociology of emotions, which will be discussed in the section on
laughter.
2.5. Phenomenological approach
The phenomenological approach to humor conceptualizes humor as a specif-

ic “outlook” or “worldview” or “mode” of perceiving and constructing the
social world. This humorous outlook is generally considered to be one option
among several in the “social construction of reality”. This approach to humor
emerged after the 1970s, and is eclectic in terms of methodology, combin-
ing textual analysis, historical data, and micro-interactionist studies to show
how humor constructs and at the same time entails a particular worldview.
The phenomenological approach to humor builds on a much older philosoph-
ical tradition about humor and laughter, which never made it into the canon
of “three classical theories”. However, the notion of a humorous outlook
on the world, or “laughing at the world”, dates back to irreverent ancient
philosophers like Diogenes, and can also be discerned in the philosophical
writings of Friedrich Nietzsche or in the postmodern embrace of irony and
ambiguity.
The sociologist Zijderveld (1982; 1983) defined humor as “playing with
meanings” in various domains of social life. To Zijderveld, such playing
with meanings is not trivial, but essential to the construction of meaning
and everyday life, because it enables social experimentation and negotiation.
Moreover, it allows people to become aware of the constructedness of social
life itself: humor is a “looking glass” allowing us to look at the world and our-
selves in a slightly distorted, and hence revealing, way. He likens humor to
sociology: both “debunk” and denaturalize the world, showing us the relativ-
ity and sometimes even the ridiculousness of what we do. Davis (1993), tak-
ing this argumentation a step further, sees in this capacity of humor to expose
the underlying structure of reality a strong subversive potential, concluding
that humor can be “an assault” on reality.
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In his 1982 book Reality in a Looking Glass Zijderveld applies his per-
spective to a particular form of humor: the traditional folly of carnivals and
court jesters. According to Zijderveld, this folly was not just a humorous style
or institution, but a full-fledged worldview, seen in many cultures around the
world, based on turning upside down the rules and conventions of life. In the
early modern era, it functioned as a counterpoint to the process of rationaliza-
tion, but eventually, traditional folly was fully eclipsed by this process.
Bakhtin (1984, but writing in 1930s Communist Russia) also looked at the
thriving humorous traditions of the early modern period to understand humor
as an alternative conception of the world that exists alongside everyday modes
of interpretation (and behavior). Taking as his point of departure the raucous
humor of early modern France, exemplified in the work of Francois Rabelais
(c. 14901553), Bakhtin analyzed “the carnivalesque” as a space of freedom,
community, and equality, denoted by laughter, humor, and more generally
by corporeality, physicality, and the “grotesque”. In Bakthin’s view, carnival
can function as an alternative sphere of freedom and resistance. Theorist of
the public sphere Habermas (1992) acknowledged Bakhtin’s carnavalesque
as possible alternative to the bourgeois public sphere, allowing for a different
mode of “popular” civic participation. Phenomenological approaches diverge
from functionalist and conflict theories: because they see humor as a separate
sphere or perspective, they see more potential for humor as an agent of social
resistance and change (see also Goldstein 2003).
The most complete and sophisticated exposition of the social functions
and consequences of the humorous worldview is Mulkay’s On Humour
(1988). In what he calls the humorous mode “the rules of logic, the expect-
ations of common sense, the laws of science and the demands of propriety
are all potentially in abeyance. Consequently, when recipients are faced with
a joke, they do not apply the information-processing procedures appropriate
to serious discourse” (Mulkay 1988: 37) According to Mulkay, this enables
people to communicate about the many incongruous experiences that make
up (social) life, and to convey meanings and messages that are as ambiguous
as most of everyday life. As a result, humor can be used to expose and ex-
press the contradictory aspects of life, and to communicate and share this ex-
perience with others. However, in contrast with Bakhtin and Davis, Mulkay
concludes that in the end, humor mostly serves to maintain social equilibrium
and consolidate the social order. For instance, in an extended discussion of
sexual joking (drawing on Spradley and Mann 1976), Mulkay relates sexual
humor to the contradictory expectations and norms governing gender and
sexual relations. In his view, the content and the strongly gendered usage
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patterns of sexual humor reconcile and neutralize these contradictory expect-

ations and norms.
The phenomenological approach generally contrasts the humorous world-
view with the “serious” worldview. Berger (1997) set out to compare humor
with another competing perspective on life, the religious. He starts out with
an understanding of the comic very much resembling that of Zijderveld and
Mulkay: “the comic conjures up a separate world, different from the world of
ordinary reality, operating by different rules.” (Berger 1997: x; Italics in ori-
ginal) But in Berger’s view, there is a transcendental element to this separate
world: “The experience of the comic is, finally, a promise of redemption.
Religious faith is the intuition . . . that the promise will be kept.” (ibid.: x)
Berger’s humor theory, while starting out from a constructivist premise simi-
lar to Zijderveld’s and Mulkay’s, ends up resembling something more like the
psychological relief theory of humor, with a theological twist. While Berger’s
perspective on humor resonates with fashionable views on “healing humor”
(Lewis 2006), its reliance on the liberating, redeeming aspects of humor and
laughter makes for a rather one-sided theory of humor.
Critics have pointed out that phenomenological approaches to humor
(much like conflict theory, but on a more positive note) tend to essentialize
humor: by focusing on humor as “worldview”, they neglect other meanings
of humor, including negative or dysfunctional effects, and overstate the im-
portance of humor. Also, phenomenological sociology is said to be hard to
operationalize: it provides inspiring insights it is not clear how its notions and
concepts are to be used in actual empirical research. However, unlike many
other studies, phenomenological sociology takes into account the peculiari-
ties of humor: its ambiguity and non-seriousness are central to the theories
described above. The accounts of Zijderveld, Davis and Mulkay are quite suc-
cessful in tying together various functions and characteristics of humor. For
instance, they explain the relation with laughter, manage to combine micro-
and macroperspectives of humor, and offer reasons why people would use
humor rather than more straightforward communication.
2.6. Historical-comparative approach
The historical-comparative approach attempts to understand the social role of

humor through comparisons in time and place. Comparative-historical stud-
ies of humor are conducted in various scholarly fields, and draw on different
theoretical traditions: there is no central theory or school of thought in com-
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parative-historical humor studies. Still, most sociological work on humor

done since the 1990s is probably best captured by this rather vague umbrella
term.
Comparisons across time and space generally show great variations as
well as some universalities. Constants in humor across cultures are primarily
the preferred topics for joking: sexuality, gender relations, bodily functions,
stupidity, and strangers (Apte 1985). In other words: people joke about taboo
topics and deviance. This underlines the relationship between humor and the
drawing of boundaries between “the normal” and “the abnormal” (Powell
1988). Other constants are the existence of specific delineated humorous
roles and domains; humorous forms and techniques such as reversal, imita-
tion, slapstick, wordplay; and the existence of rituals and ritual performances
associated with humor – which suggests a more or less universal separation
of “serious” and “non-serious” domains, although the nature of this boundary
may differ.
But even within these constants, there are great variations: in humorous
forms, genres and techniques as well as in humorous content. Each culture,
nation, community and era is supposed to have specific humorous styles and
forms. This “local” sense of humor is widely believed to a sort of index for
the deepest nature of a group, place, or age. Sociology has generally relegated
studies of the humorous Zeitgeist of a place or age to folklore, history, or
the humanities; when sociologists have made qualifications about a culture’s
sense of humor, this is usually in the context of a wider theory of societal
dynamics. The book on folly by Zijderveld (1982), discussed above, is an
example of this approach: he connected the rise and demise of a particular
humorous style with the much wider development of rationalization and “dis-
enchantment of the world”. Similarly, in the edited volume by Paton, Powell
and Wagg (1996) many articles bring up the theme of “postmodern” humor:
reflexive and intertextual styles of humor that mirror a wider societal turn to-
wards to reflexive or post-modernity (cf. Gray 2006). In such studies, humor
is not the index of an essential group culture, but a particular manifestation
of a wider social phenomenon. Implicit in this approach is a comparison: be-
tween humor and other phenomena manifesting the same trend.
The most explicit comparative research program in humor studies is the
work of Davies on jokes (1990; 1998a; 1998b; 2003). In his 1990 book, Dav-
ies compared patterns of ethnic joking around the world. Although ethnic
humor is probably universal, who is targeted, and how, varies significantly,
as Davies shows by looking both at the groups who are targeted, and the hu-
morous “scripts” about these groups. Davies convincingly establishes that
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the same jokes are told in many parts of the world. The most common hu-
morous script worldwide is stupidity, but there are also transnational corpora
of jokes about such themes as dirtiness, stinginess, cowardliness, or eating
habits. Davies’ comparative approach makes visible a cross-cultural pattern:
stupidity jokes are generally told about slightly “backward” versions of one’s
own group, such as recent migrant groups (the Poles and the Irish in the US)
or peripheral, often rural, communities in or close to one’s own country (the
Belgians for the French and the Dutch, Ostfriesen in Germany). Jokes about
canny and stingy groups, on the other hand, are told about groups that are
successful, notably in trade or the money business, and that have more cen-
tral and dominant position: the Scots, the Jews, the Genovese in Italy, and the
Dutch in Belgium.
Davies points out that these jokes not only reflect ethnic relationships, but
also central moral categories, such as rationality, courage, or cleanliness. The
stupid-canny dichotomy not only mirrors status relations, but also of the im-
portance of rationality in the modern era: the “stupid” people exhibit a lack of
rationality, whereas the canny are overly rationalized. Thus, Davies summar-
izes the globally popular genres of the stupidity and canniness jokes as “jokes
from the iron cage” (1998a: 63), referring to Max Weber’s classical descrip-
tion of modern rationality as an “iron cage”. This analysis of ethnic humor
has been extended to jokes about other categories, such as blonde jokes or
political jokes (Davies 1998a; 2003), always showing how transnational joke
genres, with mostly transnational moral themes, get applied to local condi-
tions. Central to this comparative analysis is the question which genres and
scripts do not diffuse or have a more limited regional spread (such as dirti-
ness jokes, which are popular in North-West Europe but not in Anglo-Saxon
countries), since such divergent patterns enable the isolation of variables de-
termining the viability of a joke genre or script in a specific country (Davies
1998b).
As Davies’ work illustrates, a cross-comparison of humor often ends up
telling us as much, or maybe more, about the groups being compared as it
tells us about humor. Whom people joke about tells us something about the
relationship between the jokers and their butt – although comparative so-
ciologists usually tend to interpret these relations more broadly than con-
flict scholars, and often in terms of status or inequality rather than conflict
or hostility (Kuipers 2000; Oring 1992; 2003). And what people joke about
reflects what they find important and what is a source of concern to them.
Sometimes these concerns are similar across cultures: Davies’ global com-
parisons uncover worldwide preoccupations with modernization and ration-
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ality. In their analysis of the blonde joke, another transnational genre, both
Davies (1998) and Oring (2003) have argued that the rise of these jokes in
many Western countries are related to changing gender relations. Some local
color is often added to such global jokes: in the UK, blonde jokes are told
about Essex girls, adding a working-class connotation these jokes don’t have
elsewhere.
The preoccupations reflected in humor may be more specific, and some-
times quite local. For instance, lawyer jokes are a typical American phenom-
enon, which is an index of the strong position of lawyers and the centrality
of the legal system to American politics and society (Galanter 2004). Folk-
lorist Oring (2003: 97115) argues there is a particular brand of humor spe-
cific to frontier societies: Australian, American and Israeli humor all show
a fondness of tall tales and practical joking, and mock sophistication. Ac-
cording to Oring, such “colonizing humor” expresses the frontier experience
of starting anew, away from civilization, and helps to forge a new identity
based in this experience. A more detailed case study of this type of humor
by Shiffman and Katz (2005) analyzed the Israeli jokes told in the 1930s by
Eastern European old-timers at the expense of the formality, rigidity, and
general maladaptedness of well-bred German Jews (“Yekkes”), arguing that
these jokes reflect a very particular episode in Jewish migration history: the
ethnic superiority in these jokes turns the tables on earlier migration epi-
sodes in Germany and the US, in which Jewish immigrants from Eastern
Europe were denigrated by German Jewish immigrants.
Not only who, and what people joke about; but also how they joke about
this differs between cultures, as Kuipers (2006a) has demonstrated in her
study of humor styles in the Netherlands and the US. Starting out from the
appreciation of one particular humorous genre, the joke, she showed how
humor styles in both countries demarcate salient social boundaries. In the
Netherlands, joke telling is most popular among working or lower middle
class men, corresponding to a humor style that favors sociability, exuber-
ance, and performance skills. The college-educated upper middle classes
generally dislike jokes, since for this group, a good sense of humor shows
intellectual originality, deadpan restraint, and sharpness – qualities they do
not see in joke-telling. In the United States, humor styles are not as strongly
connected to class background, but gender differences tend to be stronger,
and Americans evaluate humor less in terms of intellect or sociability, more
in moral terms. This study shows that different social groups have different
criteria for good and bad humor, which means that they joke not only about
different subjects, but also in different ways. These standards are related
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more to style than to content, and they are linked with broader communica-
tion styles, taste cultures, and notions of personhood.
A final comparative question, brought up by historians such as Dekker
(2001) and Wickberg (1998) deals with the social standing and meaning of
humor in different societies. Dekker intriguigingly suggests there are “con-
junctural” fluctuations in humor, with some eras and cultures being more
friendly to humor than others. He described the Dutch Golden Age, in the
seventeenth century, as a very humor-friendly period, and the eighteenth and
nineteenth century as more hostile to humor, noting the rise of Calvinism,
a religious affiliation notoriously suspicious of non-seriousness and play, as
one of the factors in his shift. As Wickberg (1998) shows in his book The
Senses of Humor, having a sense of humor became increasingly central to
the American understanding of the self in the course of the twentieth century.
The high social standing of humor has caused a veritable industry of humor
promotion and development, especially in the US, discussed critically and
hilariously by Lewis (2006). Billig (2005) has written a scathing criticism of
the positive view of humor in current society as well as humor studies. These
recent studies, while not explicitly comparative in their approach, give rise to
intriguing comparative questions about social and cultural conditions condu-
cive or prohibitive to humor.
3. Issues
In the next section, I will discuss some issues which have recently been the
topic of special interest in humor sociology: the interpretation of humor at the
expense of others and more generally the “dark side of humor”; the relation
between humor and laughter; and the study of humorous forms and genres,
including mediatized forms of humor.
3.1. The “dark side” of humor: Humor, aggression, and transgression
After many centuries in which humor and laughter had a bad reputation,
modern humor studies have tended to stress the beneficial character of humor,
both for society and for the psyche. However, within humor studies there has
been a consistent concern with the transgressive, aggressive, and conflictive
functions humor can have. This matter ties in to the more general question of
the “dark side” of humor.
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Much humor is based on the transgression of societal boundaries, and

such transgression can cause offense as well as amusement. And while not
all humor has a butt, many jokes have some sort of target: groups, persons,
objects, ideas, or the world at large. The various theoretical traditions have
suggested different interpretations of transgressive or deprecating humor:
conflict theories stress its relation with conflict and hostility; functionalist
analyses interpret it as safety valve or social corrective; phenomenological
and symbolic interactionist stress its ambiguous and manifold meanings, and
its role in negotiating meanings and worldviews; and comparative-historical
studies tend to stress its connection with larger social and cultural concerns.
The present-day descendents of superiority theory take the dark side of
humor most seriously. Gruner (1978) and more recently Billig (2005) have
taken the position that humor and laughter are correlates of social superior-
ity: every joke is basically a putdown or an act of social exclusion. Gruner
has expounded the view that humor is a game with “winners” and “losers”,
and Billig (2005) argues, in his “social critique of humor” that humor and
laughter are social control mechanisms, based in ridicule and embarrassment.
Other authors have argued that humor, while not intrinsically connected with
hostility, aggression, or transgression, often overlaps with negative emotions:
people often joke about what they dislike or feel superior to, and dislike or
superiority adds to the liking of humor (see above). Oring (2003: 4157) and
Billig (2001a) have shown that groups that are openly racist tend to underline
and express this both with serious and joking expression of ethnic hostility
and stereotyping. Ford and Ferguson (2004) showed that humor, because of
its non-seriousness and playfulness, can diminish barriers to the expression
of negative emotions, and thus facilitate hostility. Recently, Lewis (2006),
looking at American humor from talk radio to horror movie jokes, has argued
convincingly that humor (while not necessarily a force of darkness) reflects
the darker tendencies in American society: it highlights social rifts, exposes
shared cultural fears, and is an outlet for hostility, for instance in the rather
vicious humor of some “talk radio” hosts.
The meaning of transgressive humor is not only debated in Academia, but
a source of concern in everyday life as well. Transgressive humor is gener-
ally controlled by the “unwritten rules” of informal regimes (Kuipers 2006b;
Palmer 2005), and also – less frequently – by formal censorship (Davies
1988). Both in Academia and in society at large, the most heated debates have
been around ethnic and sexist humor, the most contested forms of humor in
modern Western societies. This issue has been the subject of various debates
in the HUMOR journal (Davies 1991; Lewis 1997; 2008; Oring 1991) and of
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a 2005 book by Lockyer and Pickering (2005a), all revolving around the same
question: When, why, and under what conditions is humor targeting persons
or groups “just a joke”, and when does it have a more serious meaning or con-
sequences? With the exception of some die-hard superiority theorists, humor
scholars generally concede they cannot solve the issue of ethnic and sexist
humor by simply pinning down the one true meaning of jokes. Rather, they
stress how the meaning of a joke is created within a specific context: whether
it is a private conversation or a public situation; what the position and back-
ground of the joke-teller is; what the relationship is between the joker and
his audience (and the butt); whether it is mediated or conversational humor
(Lewis 1997; Lockyer and Pickering 2005a; Palmer 1994).
Theorists of ethnic humor Davies (1990; 1991) and Oring (2003) have
stressed the inherent ambiguity of humor. Davies, especially, tends to down-
play the seriousness of humor, stating that humor is merely “playing with
aggression”, although he notes that in some cases ethnic joke scripts overlap
with actual ethnic hostility, which considerably changes these jokes’ serious
implications. Oring (2003: 65) argued: “Joke cycles are not really about par-
ticular groups who are ostenstibly their targets. These groups serve merely as
signifiers that hold together a discourse on certain ideas and values that are of
current concern. Polish jokes, Italian jokes, and JAP jokes are less comments
about real Poles, Italians, or Jewish women than they are about a particular
set of values attributed to these groups. These attributions, while not entirely
arbitrary, are, for the most part not seriously entertained.”
The contributors in Lockyer and Pickering’s volume take a more critical
view. Howitt and Owusu-Bempa (2005: 62), in the most explicitly critical
contribution, conclude that “no only [do] racist jokes provide ready oppor-
tunities to give expression to ideas of ‘racial’ superiority. . . they continually
reinforce the use of race categories”, leading them to denounce even jokes
mocking racism on the grounds that they reinforce racial thinking. However,
most other contributions attempt to carefully balance what the editors call
“the self-defeating, regulatory, left-wing arguments associated with political
correctness, and the opportunistic, unreflexive, right-wing denunciations of
its practice” (Lockyer and Pickering 2005b: 24).
In the insightful introduction to their book, Lockyer and Pickering, dis-
cussing what they call the “ethics” of humor, portray joking as a process
of “negotiation” about the line between funny and offensive. Billig (2005)
coined the concept of “unlaughter” – the pointed non-acceptance of an at-
tempt at humor – to make a similar point about humor’s processual nature and
uncertain outcome. This perspective on humor as the negotiation of boundar-
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ies allows the authors to bring out the power dimension of humor. However, it
also illustrates how joking, when the negotiations are completed successfully,
is about the creation of community. As Lockyer and Pickering put it: joking
is about the construction of a “we”, which implies inclusion as well as exclu-
sion.
3.2. Humor and laughter
In humor studies, there has been a tendency to exclude laughter from the an-
alysis, because there is no necessary one-on-one relationship between humor
and laughter. There are other possible responses to successful attempts at
humor (smiling, another joke, a verbal acknowledgment, groaning in re-
sponse to a lame pun); and laughter can be related to several other moods
and emotions, ranging from friendliness and play to nervousness and ridicule
(Provine 2000; Ruch 1998).
As we saw earlier, symbolic interactionists and phenomenologists brought
laughter to the center of sociological humor studies, describing laughter as
a marker of the shift to the humorous mode and of the acceptance of a joke, an
important signal of social acceptance, the expression of a humorous world-
view (Bakhtin), and as “the language of humor” (Zijderveld 1983). Recent-
ly, several authors have argued for inclusion of laughter in the sociology of
humor. Billig (2005) made laughter central to his theory of humor and em-
barrassment, seeing laughter basically as derision. On a more positive note,
Kuipers (2006a: 7) defined humor as the “successful exchange of jokes and
laughter”, arguing that while laughter may not be a necessary corollary of
humor, it is the ideal and most sought-after response to any attempt at humor,
and hence essential to the understanding of the social meanings of humor.
Outside of humor studies, sociologists have increasingly been paying at-
tention to the role of emotions in social life. This has led several of them
to take up the theme of laughter, generally without much awareness of the
insights from humor scholarship; while on the other hand, insights from the
sociology of emotion have not yet has much impact in humor research. One
of the challenges for sociological humor scholarship is to integrate develop-
ments in the sociology of emotions into humor studies (and, reversely, to
“sell” humor studies to the sociology of emotions).
Scheff, in his sociological theory of emotions, sees shame and pride as the
basic emotions of social life. In his work on catharsis, he described laugh-
ter as form of relief from social pressure (Scheff 1980). In later work on the
11-kuipers.indd 389 18/06/2008 13:39:16

emotional foundations of social life (1990) he described laughter more spe-

cifically as the absence of shame, or “anti-shame”. Billig (2001a; 2005), in
his work on ridicule and embarrassment, is influenced by Scheff’s work on
shame in social life. However, he sees laughter not as the freedom of embar-
assment in the self, but rather as causing embarrassment – and hence con-
formity to norms – in others.
Another sociologist of emotion, Katz (1996), did a highly innovative study
of laughter in a Parisian funhouse. He examines the “metamorphosis” from
a sober disposition to laughter, followed by a second transformation from
“doing laughter” to what Katz calls “being done by” – giving oneself over to
– laughter. This metamorphosis is brought about by the shared watching, gen-
erally with family members, of the incongruous images in the funny mirrors,
tying family groups together in a strongly embodied bond of laughter and
playfulness. Katz’ study pays great attention to the bodily aspect of laughter
and the way this contributes to the forging of social bonds, making his study
an interesting corrective to the rather instrumentalist and very verbal image of
social life emerging from conversational analysis, which locates the creation
of relationships primarily in talk. Also, Katz pays careful attention to the na-
ture of the humor provoking all this laughter: he analyzes in detail the way
the distorted (incongruous) image in the mirror is collectively constructed as
funny by the family group.
Finally, Collins’ theory on interaction ritual chains (2004), a widely
praised integration of Durkheimian theory and Goffmanian micro-sociology,
is probably the first sociological theory to give a central place to laughter.
According to Collins, social life is built on “emotional energy”, emerging
in small-scale interactions, but “congealing” in larger networks and cultural
symbols with a strong emotional content. Emotional energy emerges in inter-
action, through the physical co-presence with other people in so-called inter-
action rituals (to Collins, all interactions are rituals). All interactions, but es-
pecially successful, high-energy interactions, lead to the mostly unconscious
rhythmical coordination or actions, movements and speech that Collins calls
“attunement”. Laughter is a clear example of the rhythmically attunement of
a successful high-energy interaction, and hence, the generation of laughter,
typically through humor, becomes one of the central signs of closeness and
social understanding. However, while laughter is central to Collins’ theory, he
hardly addresses humor. Extrapolating his reasoning, we can assume that in
Collins’ view, humor is a culturally specific form of bringing about successful
high-energy interactions and attunement – and as such: a central dimension
of social life.
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3.3. The social shaping of humor: Genres and mediated forms of humor
Most sociological humor scholarship has been concerned with a limited

number of humorous forms: conversational humor, and most notably jokes,
the “fruit flies” of humor scholarship. The joke has been the favorite genre
of humor scholars because jokes are easily available, very clearly intended
to be humorous, and it is clear where the humor is located: in the punchline.
However, as Martin and Kuiper (1999) have shown, canned jokes make up
a very small percentage of the humor people enjoy on a day-to-day basis.
Moreover, genre is likely to affect the meaning and the appreciation of a hu-
morous utterance. Kuipers (2006a) has shown that the joke, as a genre,
does not have the same connotation to different social groups: it is consid-
ered a male genre (cf. Crawford 1995), and in the Netherlands (and prob-
ably other Western-European countries) it also class-coded. Also, as Davies
(2003) has illustrated, the joke is not a universal genre, and some cultures do
not have jokes.
The study of humorous forms and their consequences has been relatively
marginal in humor sociology – as usual, the folklorists are way ahead. But
sociologists are becoming increasingly aware of this, especially because of
the growing importance of the media in the creation and dissemination of
humor. People increasingly enjoy humor not in face-to-face interaction but
through a variety of media: print, television, the Internet. This “mediatiza-
tion” of humor has the potential to affect the interpretation of humor, and
has resulted in the emergence of new, mediated, humorous forms.
New media have always given birth to new humorous forms: Dekker
(2001) argues that the short humorous anecdote received an important boost
from the possibility of cheap printing. Wickberg (1998) argues that the joke
is an essentially a nineteenth century genre, reflecting processes of indus-
trialization and commodification during this period. Also, older genres can
incorporate elements from new genres: Oring (1987) suggested that disas-
ter jokes are a response to media discourse on disaster, noting that this oral
genre incorporated many references and fragments of media culture. More
recently, television created several new humorous genres (incorporating of
course fragments of older genres), most notably the sitcom. Mills (2005), in
his excellent recent study of this genre, has been the first to look specifically
at the humor of sitcom. The rare studies of the genre so far have investigated
the sitcom mainly in terms of its politics, and especially its politics of stere-
otyping and representation. Finally, in the past decade, the Internet has led
to the proliferation of a wide variety of humorous genres, many of which are
11-kuipers.indd 391 18/06/2008 13:39:17

derived from earlier folk genres and office lore with a strong do-it-yourself
flavor (Kuipers 2005; Shifman 2007).
The consequences of genre and form for the interpretation and apprecia-
tion of humor is another understudied field in humor scholarship. Reception
studies of mediated humor are few and far between. Despite the centrality of
humor to popular media, media and communication studies have paid little
attention to humorous forms such as comedy, cartoons or humorous adver-
tising. The scarce reception studies of comedy mainly focus on racial issues
(Coleman 2000); there are two full monographs dedicated to the reception
of 1980s hit The Cosby Show (Fuller 1992; Jhally and Lewis 1992). These
studies seem more concerned with issues of race and representation than with
the humorous aspect of comedy shows. In his recent book on The Simpsons,
Gray (2006) presents a small reception study as part of a longer and percep-
tive study of this highly intertextual and media-savvy cartoon/sitcom hybrid,
interpreting the humorous aspect of this show mostly as parody.
Finally, the increasing prominence of mediated humor also sheds new
light on old questions about the meaning of humor. Lockyer and Pickering
(2005a) note that mediated humor seriously complicates negotiations over
the meaning of a joke, because mediated humor is not firmly located in one
context anymore, making mediated jokes even more polysemic and ambigu-
ous. The 20052006 controversy surrounding the Muhammad cartoons, ori-
ginally published in a Danish newspaper but leading to worldwide protests,
is a dramatic illustration of how an attempt at humor can lead to different
responses in different contexts (Lewis 2008).
4. Conclusion
Sociology is a discipline with weak boundaries and a contested core: there

is no central framework, theoretical perspective, or methodological approach
that all sociologists adhere to. Many central ideas in sociology have been bor-
rowed from other disciplines, and many ideas from sociology have diffused to
other disciplines. This is especially visible in the small and interdisciplinary
field of humor studies: there has been much “boundary traffic” between so-
ciology and related disciplines. For this reason, this overview of sociological
humor studies has featured many anthropologists, folklorists, linguists, and
psychologists. To some, this may reek of sociological imperialism.
As I hope to have shown in this contribution, this openness often is the
strength of sociological contributions to humor research. If done well, sociol-
11-kuipers.indd 392 18/06/2008 13:39:17

ogy provides the tools to connect small-scale interactions with larger societal
developments; cultural conditions with individual amusement; and the social
functions of humor with its form and content. However, sociology’s weak
boundaries and its eclecticism also entail considerable risks: undertheorized
empiricism and overgeneralization from a single case or limited findings;
a proclivity to the “scavenging” of loose concepts, fragments of theories, and
isolated findings from ot/her disciplines; the tendency to reduce all humor to
a single function or meaning; or more generally lack of theoretical or meth-
odological rigor. However, in the past decades, sociological humor scholar-
ship appears to have matured. Recent studies are generally more sophisti-
cated and rigorous: when theoretical, their claims are notably less brash, and
when empirical, the findings have a clear connection with wider theories.
Having reviewed the various sociological approaches to humor, it is clear
there is no one sociological theory of humor. The scholars and theorists dis-
cussed have very different perspectives on humor, generally derived from
a more general social theory. Hence, despite its openness to other disciplines,
the development of humor sociology looks a lot like the development of so-
ciology as a whole; while insofar as it resembles the development of humor
studies, this is mainly in its increasing rigor and sophistication. The connec-
tion between humor sociology and general humor theories, such as the vari-
ous versions of incongruity theory, and (with notable exceptions) superiority
theory, is still quite weak. So far, sociologists have not joined in the attempts
by linguists and psychologists to integrate their findings into a general theory
of humor. In my views, this is not a bad thing. The best sociology of humor,
both theoretical and empirical, has been firmly rooted in sociological theory:
incorporating insights from humor scholarship at large, with a sensitivity to
the ambiguities and specificities of humor, but basing its interpretive frame-
work and methodological approach in the author’s social theory of choice.
Notes
1.. Oring (1994), in a highly original variation on psychoanalytic humor theory,

transferred Freudian theory to the present, suggesting that humor in modern day
America is used to vent and express sentiment, an emotion increasingly tabooed
and suppressed in modern Western societies.
2. Too late for extended discussion, but just in time for favourable mention in
a footnote, the International Review of Social History published a special issue
on humor and social protest (’t Hart and Bos 2007), containing many insightful
11-kuipers.indd 393 18/06/2008 13:39:17

contributions and interesting case studies that directly address the issues dis-
cussed in this section.
3. This conceptual unclarity is partly caused by the theoretical background of
many conflict scholars of humor. Sociologists using this approach often adhere
to Marxist or Marxist-inspired traditions where society is conceptualized as
a struggle, which means that all forms of inequality necessarily imply conflict
and superiority and conflict are very much the same thing. Moreover, in humor
studies there has been a strong Freudian influence, which also leads to interpret-
ations of “unconscious” drives and motives in humor. Both Marxist and Freud-
ian theories, while very insightful at times, tend to facilitate interpretations of
humor in terms of conflict or aggression even when the concerned parties do not
agree with this interpretation and even disagree vehemently (blaming it on “false
consciousness” or “denial”, respectively).
4. I am using “symbolic interactionism” as an umbrella term for a variety for some-
times antagonistic schools in social research focusing on the construction of
meaning in everyday interaction, from the work of Erving Goffman (who re-
fused to be called symbolic interactionist) and ethnomethodologists (who also
refused to be called symbolic interactionists) to more recent work in sociology
and sociolinguistics by scholars who are not as particular about these labels any-
more.
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The Sociology of Humor: Giselinde Kuipers

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The sociology of humor

Humor is a quintessentially social phenomenon. Jokes and other humorous

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In this chapter, I will give an overview of sociological thought about

2. Sociological perspectives on humor

2.1. Pre-disciplinary history

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enabling the expression (and enjoyment) of drives otherwise inhibited by

2.2. The functionalist approach

The functionalist approach interprets humor in terms of the social functions

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societies, as a way to manage the strain inherent in specific relationships.

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humor in task-oriented groups in slightly differing social constellations. They

2.3. Conflict approach

Conflict theories see humor as an expression of conflict, struggle, or antago-

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However, other authors have more faith in the subversive potential of

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2.4. Symbolic interactionist approach

The symbolic interactionist approach to humor focuses on the role of humor

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shift from serious to joking conversation becomes an act of conversational

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2.5. Phenomenological approach

The phenomenological approach to humor conceptualizes humor as a specif-

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patterns of sexual humor reconcile and neutralize these contradictory expect-

2.6. Historical-comparative approach

The historical-comparative approach attempts to understand the social role of

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parative-historical humor studies. Still, most sociological work on humor

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3.1. The “dark side” of humor: Humor, aggression, and transgression

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Much humor is based on the transgression of societal boundaries, and

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3.2. Humor and laughter

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emotional foundations of social life (1990) he described laughter more spe-

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Most sociological humor scholarship has been concerned with a limited

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Sociology is a discipline with weak boundaries and a contested core: there

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1.. Oring (1994), in a highly original variation on psychoanalytic humor theory,

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