What is it about puns that tickles our funny bone? Or dad jokes? How about a person slipping on a banana peel? What could possibly tie all these very different things together under the heading “humor”? Just in time for April Fool’s Day, we explore that question with Peter McGraw, PhD, a marketing and psychology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and director of the Humor Research Lab, also known as HuRL. McGraw discusses his “benign violation” theory of humor, when it’s too soon to joke about tragedy, how and why humor varies by culture, and how we can apply lessons from comedy to become more innovative and creative thinkers in all areas of our life and work.
Links
Peter McGraw, PhD
Humor Research Lab
Benign Violation Theory
TEDxBoulder Video with Peter McGraw, PhD
Perfectionism: When good is never good enough, with Gordon Flett, PhD, and Bonnie Zucker, PsyD
Revealing the Hidden Brain, with Shankar Vedantam
Why can some people speak dozens of languages? with Ev Fedorenko, PhD
Abortion and mental health, with Antonia Biggs, PhD
How living with secrets can harm you, with Michael Slepian, PhD
Can an app improve your health? With Gary Bennett, PhD
Racism, racial discrimination and mental health, with Riana Elyse Anderson, PhD
What is dissociative identity disorder? With Bethany Brand, PhD
Are we in a ‘loneliness pandemic’? With Louise Hawkley, PhD
Is technology killing empathy? With Sherry Turkle, PhD
What psychology has to say about art, with Ellen Winner, PhD
How exercise benefits the brain, with Jenny Etnier, PhD
Surviving the trauma of war in Ukraine, with Laura Murray, PhD
How to keep stress from harming your health, with George Slavich, PhD
How grieving changes the brain, with Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD
How to Keep Anger from Getting the Best of You with Howard Kassinove, PhD, and Raymond “Chip” Tafrate, PhD
Why psychopathy is more common than you think, with Abigail Marsh, PhD
Ambiguous loss and the “myth of closure,” with Pauline Boss, PhD
How our siblings influence our lives, with Laurie Kramer, PhD, and Megan Gilligan, PhD
Poker, con artists and the psychology of risk and deception, with Maria Konnikova, PhD
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