How many times have you laughed at anything that has lasted for more than about 30 seconds? Not many. Today, funny instances occur in small amounts of time and seem to get less funny-killed jokes- the more they prolong. This blog describes the relationship between time and laughter in order to evaluate why we laugh at smaller increments of time and what this reveals about our psychological shifts.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Bad Timing
Time and laughter are easily relatable when looking at how long we laugh, however in times that we are not supposed to be laughing, time also plays a role. There are many instances in a person's life where they are caught laughing in an inappropriate situation. This situation presents itself in a way that entices us to continue to laugh, even if we are no longer laughing at what we initially found to be funny. Therefore, these times allow us to discover that we find ourselves more inclined to laugh in situations that do not necessarily permit it. It is the same as when someone tells you not to look in a certain direction; you are even more likely to want to look in that direction, knowing that you are not supposed to. The length of our laughter in inappropriate situations increases in relation to how inappropriate we are being while laughing. Referring back Morreal's psychological shifts, it is the conceptual shift in which this type of bad timing of laughter falls under. We have developed a sense of what is right and wrong or socially acceptable in society, forcing us to realize that our inappropriate laughter is not permitted at this time, resulting in our inability to cease.
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