Humor
- A situation is a violation
- the situation is benign
- Both perceptions occur simultaneously
A violation refers to anything that threatens one’s beliefs about how the world should be
- Alternative norms (e.g., one meaning of a phrase in a pun doesn’t make sense, but the other meaning does)
- commitment to a violated norm (e.g., men find sexist jokes funnier than women do)
- psychological distance (e.g., “comedy is tragedy plus time”)