On Making Light of the Situation
Does Making Light of a Situation Help Us Get Through Tough Circumstances?
With all the media coverage of the Coronavirus, it’s no surprise that many people are feeling fearful and anxious.
*Side note: even though the Coronavirus is scary, it still pales in comparison to the death toll from the flu. Our disproportionate fear is due to the availability heuristic. Check out my past article on the subject here.
In response to the increased dialogue about the Coronavirus, people have been ‘handling’ the fear in various different ways.
A very brilliant and thoughtful colleague posed me the following question: “I’m eavesdropping on a conversation beside me and they’re cracking jokes about the coronavirus – is it a healthy coping mechanism? Why do some people get offended by this approach? Why is it the default setting for others to make light of something?”
Why do we use humour to make light of dark situations? And how can something bad (like the Coronavirus) end up being something good (like humour)?
Not helpful.
Humour as an Essential Human Behaviour, Or Why We Make Light Of Hard Things
Humour is a very human thing; it is observed across all cultures and ages. More recently, Psychology has found a correlation between humour and character strengths like the ability to cope with stress, in addition to wisdom, and the love of learning. Making light has even been said to be useful in managing conflict. Looking back into the literature, some brilliant academic named Norman F. Dixon (1980) suggested that humour may have evolved in the human species as a way of coping with all sorts of stresses - both social and cognitive. Uncle Norman* argues that the benefits of humour primarily come from the ‘cognitive shifts’ (read: a changes in perspective) that result from comedy.
*Please note that this researcher is not actually my uncle. But he seems pretty smart. Citation for his work is at the bottom of the article.
Research has found that to make light of something is a more effective coping strategy than stoicism in the face of stressful situations. And, to be more specific, positive, optimistic, “good-natured” humour outperforms cynical (“mean spirited”) comedy in increasing positive emotions and decreasing negative ones. The research team attributes the impact of making light on positivity as a tool that forces a change of perspective; creating a new mental picture to create an effective coping strategy. This ‘reappraisal’ of stressful situations suggests a better ability to cope and a healthy adjustment of expectations.
*facepalm*
Why is Making Light of the Situation Effective?
Perspectives in the field of Psychology explain that making light of serious situations can be an effective coping mechanism for two reasons:
People with a sense of humour might be more likely to see their environment as less threatening, leading to experiencing less stress in their lives;
For situations that are stressful, those who respond with humour tend to cope better with the stress, reappraising the stressful things as not as severe.
The result is that people who are responding by making light of a bad situation experience less stress and have better emotional and physical health.
Indeed, it turns out there are medical(ish) benefits from laughter. According to the Mayo Clinic, the short-term benefits of laughter include increased intake of oxygen-rich air (which stimulates your heart, lungs, and muscles), increases in the endorphins that are released by your brain, decreases in stress response, heart rate and blood pressure. Long-term, laughter can boost your immune system, relieve pain, to help connect with other people, improve mood and overall life satisfaction. Okay just reading this list has convinced me I need to laugh more. Reddit, here I come! (Just kidding).
Want to make your day? Watch one of my all time favourite Ted Talks on laughter here.
How Does Making Light of the Situation Work?
Okay, if being funny is such a good thing, why does it work to make light of a something SO BAD, like the Coronavirus?
Peter McGraw, a behavioural scientist from the University of Colorado, has proposed that this paradox can be explained by the “benign-violation theory”. He and his team propose that humans are amused by moral violations (i.e. something that challenges their typical worldviews or moral beliefs), but only so long as these violations are “harmless”.
There is an extremely low likelihood I will go skydiving.
In the case of Coronavirus - it’s a truly terrible thing. People are dying. Our moral code (and most moral codes) tell us to respect mortality. So joking about people dying is probably frowned upon.
There are a couple of elements that make the humour that violates a norm more benign:
Time (if it happened a long time ago)
Spatial (if it happened far away)
Likelihood (the less likely it is to happen)
How tightly connected someone is to the social norm (i.e., a non-religious person will likely find a joke about a church funnier than a church-going Christian)
This distance lets people experience more amusement than the uncomfortable feelings of moral violations.
Very punny.
Basically, Making Light Of A Situation Only Works If It’s In Good Taste
‘Why do some people get offended by this approach?’
Amazingly, the fates have conspired to produce a PERFECT EXAMPLE of these ideas in the real world.
The tagline from a BBC News article reads: “A Danish newspaper has rejected China's demand for an apology after it published a satirical cartoon of a Chinese flag with the five gold stars replaced by the deadly coronavirus.”
The cartoon was published in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in January. Why is this image funny to some about the Coronavirus and offensive to others?
Why is this offensive to some and not to others?
Social Norms are at Odds
According to a statement by the Chinese embassy in Denmark, “Without any sympathy and empathy, [the cartoon] has crossed the bottom line of civilized society and the ethical boundary of free speech and offends human conscience… We express our strong indignation and demand that Jyllands-Posten and [cartoonist] Niels Bo Bojesen reproach themselves for their mistake and publicly apologize to the Chinese people."
Meanwhile, the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen responded with, “I have nothing more to say but that we have a very, very strong tradition in Denmark not only for freedom of expression, but also for satire drawings, and we will have that in the future as well."
There you go - embarrassment versus freedom of speech.
Proximity
Not only are cultural norms miles apart, but these two countries are literally across the world from each other:
China and Denmark are rly far apart
Likelihood
Coronavirus was already taking lives when this cartoon was published, whereas it had not yet arrived in Europe. Likelihood of it becoming a pandemic in China = oh yah, definitely. Likelihood of it being a problem in Denmark = a lot less.
So, funny for the Danes (and others!), not so funny for China.
Let’s Keep it Classy, People!
Now that we know about the beneficial impact of making light on stressful situations, how do you engage it as a tool without causing people to hate you?
It can’t be mean-spirited. Seriously. That won’t even help you deal with stress!
It’s usually inappropriate if it's making light of a situation that you can’t really appreciate. Like most Canadians tend to get offended by jokes about residential schools.
It doesn’t always work if it’s an inside joke. Humour is a great tool for connecting people. But inside jokes often push essentially everyone else away. You risk looking like a jerk.
Generally, as a rule, if it makes people uncomfortable then it’s not connecting you, but pushing you apart. Read the room, people!
Making fun at yourself in a nasty way usually signals an insecurity. Don’t be that person!
If you offend someone and you want to repair the relationship, there is a very effective tactic you can use called apologizing. Try it sometime!
Love from the absolutely-not-funny-at-all,
Dr. D
Sources
Dixon, N. F. (1980, January). Humor-cognitive alternative to stress. In Bulletin of The British Psychological Society (Vol. 33, No. JAN, pp. 18-18). ST ANDREWS HOUSE, 48 PRINCESS RD EAST, LEICESTER, LEICS, ENGLAND LE1 7DR: BRITISH PSYCHOLOGICAL SOC.
