Humour is an act of aggression / Health

If you thought laughter brings people closer, or a good joke can thaw a relationship - here’s some new research that’s quite in the contrary. A German academic, who sees humour as an act of aggression, believes that humor only reinforces social inequalities. And those people who make others laugh think they are higher up the social ladder than their audiences.

The research, which was published in the Journal of Pragmatics, suggest that the role of humour is not to make other people laugh as much as it is to make others know who is in charge.

The theory explains why until recently it has been extremely rare for women to tell jokes in front of men, according to Helga Kotthoff of the Frieburg University of Education. The ability to make others laugh confers a degree of control which dominant people exploit to show they are in charge, claims Helga.

Продолжение читайте в журнале English4U №6 (июнь 2010) на который можно подписаться или купить.