Now, I don't really want to go opening this can of worms - I hate both cans and worms - but I just stumbled across this little 'study', the instigator of which believes that humour stems from aggression caused by testosterone. Ergo, he jumped on his unicycle (and no, I'm not speaking metaphorically) to prove his point.
Uh...I genuinely am curious to hear your thoughts on this. Couldn't his findings (that most women who saw him shouted words of encouragement while most guys shouted snide remarks or put-downs) just mean that women - and yes, I'm generalising, but that seems the gist of the study - have a kneejerk reaction to encourage, while men have a kneejerk reaction to mock?
And another question - even if you consider this mocking 'funny', does a quantity of reactions necessarily equate to a quality? I don't know about you, but I can think of quite a few people I've met in my life who may crack jokes all the time...without necessarily hitting the funny bone.
Thoughts?
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3 comments:
Is this guy for real?
Professor Shuster got on his unicycle to see how the genders reacted to his "amusing" hobby. Women tended to make encouraging, praising comments, while men jeered and tried to make jokes.
The most aggressive were young men, the professor told the British Medical Journal. Previous findings have suggested women and men differ in how they use and appreciate humour. Women tend to tell fewer jokes and male comedians outnumber female ones.
Research suggests men are more likely to use humour aggressively, by making others the butt of the joke. Professor Shuster believes humour develops from aggression caused by hormones such as testosterone. He documented the reaction of over 400 people to his unicycling antics.
Almost half responded verbally more being men, 75 per cent of whom attempted comedy, shouting something like: "Lost your wheel?" Very few women made comic or snide remarks.
"The idea that unicycling is intrinsically funny does not explain the findings," said Professor Shuster.
I mean, a bloody unicycle is hardly a precise scientific measuring instrument, is it? Could be that the insults the guys shouted out were veiled encouragements, or the encouragements the women gave him were sarcistic insults. And not much point in a study into humour if it's not going to recognise sarcasm, 'the lowest form of wit'.
For what it's worth, I reckon I got most (not all) of my sense of humour from my mum, and her liking for puns. (Got a fondness for slapstick and crasser American humour from Dad).
I remember another blogger I read, TigTog, posted a while back about a study published in the papers into the amount of words women spoke compared to the amount of words men spoke. It said that women spoke more words, but turned out that the study tended to rely upon an extremely small amount of people who either had verbal diarrhea or said next to nothing. The vast majority of men and women surveyed spoke roughly the same amount of words.
In the end, I reckon the papers like to use gender stereotypes like 'men are funnier than women' basically to stir a few feathers, and get some cranky letters in. I wouldn't trust stories like that an inch, though!
I'm so relieved to hear you, a Mister, say so. I was a little wary of coming out with 'this sounds like a complete load of bollocks' without sounding overly defensive or bitter on the whole 'men being funnier than women' thing.
"The idea that unicycling is intrinsically funny does not explain the findings," said Professor Shuster.
I've read that sentence about eight times and I still can't wrap my head around what it's actually meant to mean.
I guess I can consider my feathers ruffled. And confused.
Dawn French touched on some of this recently....
Go here to find links to all her interviews with funny women. I really enoyed them.
http://womenscomedy.wordpress.com/
2007/08/18/miriams-australian-tour
-of-dickens-women-2007/
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