TY - JOUR AU - Polimeni, Joseph PY - 2021/04/28 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Jokes optimise social norms, laughter synchronises social attitudes: an evolutionary hypothesis on the origins of humour JF - The European Journal of Humour Research JA - EJHR VL - 4 IS - 2 SE - Articles DO - 10.7592/EJHR2016.4.2.polimeni UR - https://ww.europeanjournalofhumour.org/ejhr/article/view/83 SP - 70-81 AB - <p>A prominent humour theory suggests that most jokes will violate a subjective moral principle. This paper explores the ramifications of Thomas Veatch’s social violations theory of humour, and hypothesizes that jokes tend to produce four distinct humour emotions, in a sequential manner. The final emotional response to a humorous stimulus involves an aesthetic judgement about the inference of the joke. Humour could therefore be a cognitive-emotional mechanism used to appraise social norms while laughter serves to signal appreciation for the social inferences associated with the joke. It is further proposed that the cognitive-emotional structure of humour implies an evolutionarily adaptive function<em>.</em></p> ER -