According to Dr. Alex Borgella, who is an assistant professor of psychology at Fort Lewis College, it “suggests that we find fundamentally incompatible concepts or unexpected resolutions funny. Basically, we find humor in the incongruity between our expectations and reality.” The set-up is the first part of the joke and it creates the expectation while the punch (line) is the last part that violates that expectation. In the language of the incongruity theory, the joke’s ending is incongruous with the beginning. Indeed, many of the posts on ‘Comedy Heaven’ involve setups that lead to unexpected punchlines, such as a girl who drew a picture of her cat and thanked the vet for “carefully removing its testicles,” or a chat between two people discussing Roe vs. Wade, only for one to reply they don’t watch boxing. When we see something funny, he said, our laughter “always proceeds from a sentiment or emotion, excited in the mind, in consequence of certain objects or ideas being presented to it.” And the cause of humorous laughter is “two or more inconsistent, unsuitable, or incongruous parts or circumstances, considered as united in one complex object or assemblage, as acquiring a sort of mutual relation from the peculiar manner in which the mind takes notice of them,” Beattie thought. Follow Bored Panda on Google News! Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda! Please use high-res photos without watermarks Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
