How to treat humor

Mr. Lu Xun once said: "Humor is not made in China, and China people are not good at humor." This conclusion has been controversial in later generations, and many people try to illustrate the humor of China people with examples. What position does humor occupy in the minds of China people? Have modern China people learned humor? In a series of research on innovation, Dr. Yue Xiaodong inadvertently discovered the pain point of China's "humor". ......

What is the "humor pain" of China people?

First, China people don't attach importance to humor.

"Humor plays the least important role in China people's ideal personality, and there is no shadow of humor in China people's cognition of creativity!" This is the conclusion reached by Dr. Yue Xiaodong after a recent survey of 45 1 college students in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hongkong and Taipei. The survey shows that China people's understanding of innovation features includes originality, originality, willingness to try, imagination, curiosity and personality. As for the cognition of ideal personality, it mainly includes core characteristics such as responsibility, self-control, social recognition, social obedience, modesty and prudence, and humor is indispensable!

In contrast, in recent years, a large number of European and American scholars have studied creativity and personality, which shows that westerners' understanding of both contains humor. So, why do westerners take humor so seriously? This is mainly because westerners, especially Americans, have always regarded humor as the core part of innovation ability and national quality, but for us in China, humor seems to be just synonymous with "funny", "fun" and "lip service", and in the final analysis, it just makes people laugh! In this way, it is difficult to become an elegant palace of creativity and ideal personality. And my own research has repeatedly proved this point.

Second, there is a lot of knowledge in humor.

Humor was originally a medical concept, referring to the lubricating fluid in animals and plants, which was gradually introduced into the field of literature and art. As a foreign word, humor was first translated from English into Chinese by Mr. Lin Yutang. In fact, there are similar words in Chinese, such as "humor", "funny" and "funny", but they are essentially different from humor. First of all, humorous words in Chinese will only make people laugh and lack profound connotation. For example, in many film and television works in Hong Kong, there are many funny scenes, but most of them are very artificial, often just for fun, laugh it off, and lack profound inspiration from the depths of the soul. "Dr Yue explained.

But "Westerners' understanding of humor is very different from ours. First of all, they try to pursue harmony in the disharmony of life. The disharmony in harmony makes people see things that others can't see. Therefore, humor is the direct expression of creativity and the development of individual innovation ability. " Secondly, humor can improve people's ability to relieve stress, which is a research hotspot in contemporary psychology. A large number of studies show that people with a sense of humor will have a higher subjective well-being and optimistic personality, so westerners advocate humor in order to make themselves live more chic and happier. Thirdly, humor can help people improve their interpersonal skills and achieve more interpersonal harmony. In western society, humor is often the key to interpersonal communication. "

Modern western scholars have long been concerned about the promotion of humor to health. For example, as early as 100 years ago, Freud proposed that "jokes bring us pleasure by transforming an energetic and tense conscious process into a relaxed unconscious process." Therefore, Freud especially regarded humor as one of the mature defense mechanisms and emphasized its comic potential. "In the West, there are different classifications of humor, and each type of humor will have a unique effect. First of all, social humor can promote social integration and create a good interpersonal atmosphere. In this regard, many western political leaders have performed well. For example, former US President Ronald Reagan was assassinated and injured on 1980, and he needed surgery. The situation was extremely urgent. But before entering the operating room, Reagan easily said to the doctors and nurses, "Please tell me that you are all Republicans. In response, the doctors smiled and replied, "Mr. President, we swear to you that we are all Republicans today." "As a result, the tension was swept away.

The second is self-motivated humor. This kind of humor often adopts the way of self-mockery, turning passivity into initiative and resolving embarrassing situations. For example, American President Lincoln, who is ugly, often adds personal charm by laughing at himself. For example, when he took part in an election, he calmly replied: "Mr. Wang just said that I have two faces." If I really have two faces, can I bring this ugly face to everyone? Suddenly, the awkward atmosphere dissolved.

The third kind is hostile humor. This kind of humor usually makes a fuss about a certain defect of that person, which can achieve the humorous effect immediately, but it has a negative impact on the mood of the people present, and it is a self-defeating humor. For example, in a national election in Canada, an opponent made a fuss about the crooked mouth of the then prime minister, mocking him as crooked. Although this sentence produced a humorous effect, it also cost the speaker the election. Because as a politician, he shouldn't say so ugly!

The last one is tough humor, which is a kind of ridicule with strong wisdom, trying to attack other people's shields with other people's spears. For example, famous writers Mark and Twain accused some American congressmen of being too hypocritical and "sons of bitches" at a banquet. As a result, some members of Congress were very angry and demanded an apology. Mark and Twain did apologize in the newspaper two days later, saying, "I said at the reception the day before yesterday that' some congressmen in the United States are sons of bitches', which is wrong. I apologize for this and solemnly declare that' some US congressmen are not sons of bitches' ". This implied humor makes the opponent more bitter and speechless.

Dr. Yue emphasized that although the above classification can't sum up all types of humor, it also reminds us that whether humor is wise and tolerant of others is the key issue of humor. The above humorous examples all show great creativity, but the world pursues a positive attitude, not malicious harm. Therefore, cultivating a sense of humor can not only improve your innovation ability, but also improve your personality.

Fourth, taking humor as a joke is the pain of our humor.

As a special psychological activity, humor has always been the focus of scholars' attention. For example, Britain, the United States, France and other countries have specialized associations and magazines to study humor, and many universities have master students and doctoral students studying humor in psychology departments, art departments, literature departments and medical schools to explore the relationship between humor and physical and mental health, artistic expression, innovation ability development and even immunity improvement. However, in our country, although we have appreciated humor since ancient times, we have never studied it as a special subject, but mostly regard humor as a matter of laughing. This is actually a pity, because in modern society, humor is playing an increasingly important role in improving human health and national quality. We need to catch up!

Chaplin, the master of comedy, once said: "The more developed the intelligence, the more successful the comedy will be. Uncivilized people seldom have a sense of humor. As we step into a well-off society, we need more humor to decorate our lives and lubricate our pressure. Finally, Dr. Yue emphasized: "I have always wanted to advocate a humorous national movement, hoping that all people in China will become humorous. "