'That´s not funny!' Do you know that situation? While the person next to you dies laughing, you just don´t get it. 

I am asking myself: how come that people have different senses of humor? Is our sense of humor actually in our genes? 

What is a humor / 'good sense of humor'? 

Humor is the talent to face daily challenges with a certain easiness and humorous serenity. 'Humorous people' are the ones who possess a contagious happiness and are able to make others laugh. 

It´s quite hard to understand why some people find Monty Python absolutely hilarious, while others actually don’t see the humor in these British guys making weird comments to each other. 

A sense of humor is highly individualized. The purpose of humor, for instance, can be biological, being a way of finding compatible mates. It can also be an indicator of emotional intelligence, as well as a mirror of the environment and personal experiences specific to an individual. 

The joke tellers 

Everybody knows somebody who has an outstanding talent for remembering and telling jokes. These people are real fun to be around, they make others laugh, but honestly little of the humor they produce usually is their own creation (unless they are comedians). Supposedly most people would view joke tellers as having a good sense of humor. 

I have also been told that I am a funny person, but I have absolutely no talent to remember any joke. What I share with others occurs to me more in a spontaneous way, and is usually unplanned - the famous comedy of the situation.

The verbal players (it´s ironic, man!) 

The so called 'figurative forms of humor' - like sarcasm and irony - where people aren’t saying exactly what they literally mean, are often seen as 'dark humor'. Amoung scientists there is a belief that these types of humor are strongly conditioned by family interactions. The more a family tends to use these verbal plays, the more its members are likely having that sense of 'dark humor'. 

It seems that all types of 'sense of humor' come from different sources and also life experiences. 

Where humor is born (it´s not in our genes!) 

According to several scientifical studies, the human sense of humor is not genetical. 

The St. Thomas´ Hospital in London, for instance, did a study with 127 pairs of twins who were all grown up together. The pairs had to evaluate comics of Gary Larson in two seperated rooms. According to the results, twins usually agreed on which comics were funnier than others. Amoung the similar (monovular) twins, who have exactly the same genes, there was no higher consensus than amoung the binovular twins. The researchers concluded that the shared enviroment and similar education had much more influence on then sense of humor than equal genes. 

Humor depends on culture (I am German, so I have none...:-D)

Researchers agree on the fact that the way in which humor is expressed highly depends on cultural influences. 

It seems that there are things people generally laugh about: these little and also big daily border crossings. Everything unusual can be funny. The individual environment defines these borders - what is usual and what is not? Where do people usually talk about and what is 'taboo'? Where are our embarrassment limits and how far can we go? 

Humorous people do on purpose what in the comedy of situation happens spontaneously: they cross a (cognitive) border.

Humor connects - the magic power of inside jokes 

Everybody knows that awesome moment when you and your friend have so many inside jokes that nobody around is able to understand you. 

It seems that humor is a very individual characteristic, not depending on our genes but highly influenced by our personal life experiences, culture and environment. Having said that, humor is not set in stone, thus develops along our road. I myself am able to laugh about almost everything, especially comedy of the situation. That sometimes leads to silly laughing attacks which are difficult to stop - and catching. 

What is your 'sense of humor'? 

Cheers,
Marly -