Dec. 21, 2007
Courtesy British Medical Journal and World Science staff
Humor seems to develop from aggression caused by male hormones, according to a study published in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal.
A dermatologist-researcher investigated how people reacted to him as he rode a unicycle—the comical, one-wheeled bicycle variant long favored by clowns and other whimsical personalities.
For the doctor, Sam Shuster of Newcastle University, U.K., unicycling began as a hobby. But it became a study of human nature as he wheeled about local streets and noticed the multitudes of jokes he sparked—often lame and predictable, he said, and usually from men. Guessing this might reflect a biological phenomenon, he proceeded in a year-long investigation to document over 400 people's reactions to his one-wheeled jaunts.
Over 90 percent responded physically, he found, such as with exaggerated stares or waves. Almost half responded verbally—more men than women. Here, said Shuster, sex differences emerged in force: 95 percent of adult women praised, encouraged or showed concern, while men instead unleashed often-snide jokes 75 percent of the time. Equally striking, he said, was the jokes' repetitiveness. Two thirds referred to the number of wheels, such as "lost your wheel?"
One of the most conspicuous findings, to Shuster, was the way the male response changed with age.
It started with curiosity in childhood, years 5 through 12—the same reaction as young girls. But around the ages of 11 to 13, boys' responses degenerated into physical and verbal aggression, Shuster found; these scamps in fact often tried to get him to fall. Responses became more verbal during the later teens, turning into mocking jests or songs, Shuster reported. This later evolved into adult male humor, characterized by put-downs that Shuster ascribed to latent aggression. Particularly pugnacious remarks, he said, came from young male motorists at the ages of peak virility.
But the combativeness waned as life wore on, Shuster found: older men gave more neutral or friendly remarks.
Female reactions, by contrast, were subdued during puberty and late teens—normally evincing indifference or minimal approval, he said. The responses then evolved into the laudatory or concerned adult female responses.
Unicycling may be intrinsically funny, but that doesn't explain the findings, said Shuster—particularly the repetitiveness and differences by sex and age. The waxing and waning male response in particular, he argued, points to an explanation in male virility hormones such as testosterone, known collectively as androgens. The findings may also shed light on the evolution of humor, Shuster proposed: some aggression might have been channeled into verbal responses that transformed it into comedy, which eventually became a separate phenomenon with a life of its own.
