Do animals have a sense of humor?

Laughing is a vital action for health. It is by laughing that people can release tension, reduce our discomfort and get rid of day-to-day stress. In other words, humor is a protective factor against psychopathology.

It has been seen that humans are not the only ones who laugh. Animals such as dogs, foxes, chimpanzees, gorillas, rats and many others also laugh, which has aroused the interest of many sciences to find an explanation.

Knowing that these and other species laugh, a question arises: Do animals have a sense of humor? Next we will see what science has discovered and how the current state of this question is.

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Do animals have a sense of humor?

Laughing is an extremely healthy activity. Through laughter we can free ourselves from all kinds of negative feelings that can end up transforming into psychopathology. It is for this reason that, in the context of therapy, the sense of humor becomes a highly valued aspect in the patient, since it acts as a protection factor and can also be used to give rise to treatments such as laughter therapy.

But laughing is not only human. In other species, behaviors that closely resemble what we understand as laughter have been found, especially in animals that are very phylogenetically related to ours, such as higher primates (bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans ...), as well as dogs, foxes and rats.

On many occasions, humans laugh when we hear a joke, see a funny situation such as when someone slips on a banana skin or find ourselves in a curious situation. That is, we laugh because we have a sense of humor and, since in other species it has also been seen that it occurs laughter, it is inevitable to wonder whether dogs, higher primates, and rats possess this sense of humor.

There are many investigations that have tried to answer this question, focusing, logically, on primates. However, it must be said that approaching this question scientifically is something quite complicated because... What is the sense of humor? Each person has a different sense of humor, easily demonstrable considering that there are those who laugh at nothing and those who laugh at nothing. How can we see in other animals what we don't even know what it is in ourselves?

Starting from different definitions and evaluating it in different ways, Everything seems to indicate that, indeed, animals, although not all, can have a sense of humor. Various investigations have been carried out with the intention of delving further into this aspect, based on various theories from psychology and philosophy.

Theory of incongruity

Among the theories about humor, the best known is the "incongruity theory of humor." This theory indicates that humor occurs when an inconsistency arises between what one expects to happen and what actually happens.

Our brain tries to do predictions of how a situation will unfold or how a conversation will end. It is for this reason that when we see something funny and unexpected or when they tell us a joke we laugh, since we did not see it coming.

From the theory of incongruity, the possibility that animals have a sense of humor is not ruled out, but it does It is rejected that those animals that do not have a brain that can minimally house the ability of language can have it. Most animals lack cognitive mechanisms and neurological networks to identify inconsistencies, thus, assuming that humor is an incongruity, they cannot have it. The only animals that could have it are primates.

• Maybe you are interested "Primatology: what it is, what it studies, and how it is investigated"

Benign rape theory

In addition to the theory of incongruity of humor, the theory of benign rape has been proposed to explain this phenomenon. Truly controversial in name, this theory holds that humor arises in situations in which the well-being, identity or normative belief system of the person is threatened, but at the same time it seems to be fine and is in agreement with it.

The theory of benign rape arises as an alternative to that of incongruity of humor, since this second does not allow to explain why in situations in which there is no incongruity, such as listening to a joke with predictable phrases, are fun while there are also incongruous situations that are not fun at all world.

The benign rape theory it would allow a deeper understanding of tickling. These appear when someone benignly infringes on our physical space, touching various parts of our body. We did not expect this touch, which surprises us and we start laughing.

If we try to tickle ourselves this will not work because there will be no surprise and if we tickle someone we do not know on the street, far from laughing, he will get angry, since he will not see this as a benign act but rather as an attack or, at the very least, some kind of abuse.

Research

Next we will take a more in-depth look at research that has evaluated whether animals can have a sense of humor.

1. Koko the gorilla

Koko the gorilla (1971-2018) was a very famous primate known for being able to make and understand more than 1,000 signs in American Sign Language, in addition to understanding more than 2,000 words in spoken English. This gorilla was the subject of numerous studies, since as a subject it was really a jewel in the rough: it allowed to study very humans into animals that, until relatively recently, the only thing that seemed to share with our species was their form anthropomorphic.

It is known that Koko used language very intelligently, demonstrating it to her trainer, Dr. Francine Patterson. In addition to communicating, this gorilla signaled with humorous intent, playing with different meanings of the same word and understanding the antics that her caretakers did.

An anecdote about this gorilla, told by the researchers who cared for her, is that once Koko signed the word "chase" after tying the laces of her trainers, laughing out loud.

The exact reason for this is unknown, but it is assumed that she or she suggested that she chased after her and that, having the laces poorly tied, her coaches would stumble and she would laugh or just play by changing the words, knowing that it was not that word that he should use to refer to "tying the shoelaces."

The latter can be related to how five-year-olds behave, who are increasingly aware of language and its use for humorous purposes. There are not a few children at these ages who, despite not having intellectual development problems or pronunciation problems, use other words to refer to things (symbolic play) or directly make them up, sometimes with the intention of confusing naive adults.

2. The dogs of Spokane

While it was a surprise to find a sense of humor in primates, it was even more surprising to find it in man's best friend: the dog. A study conducted by members of the Spokane County, Washington, USA Regional Animal Protection Service. he studied the growls of the dogs in the shelter when they were playing. Caregivers thought they were hearing sounds akin to laughter, with which they began to study them more thoroughly by recording them.

Considering that dogs made these growls when they were having a good time, the Researchers wanted to know to what extent they could be considered as an indication of the sense of humor. It is for this reason that they wanted to find out how the dogs would react if they heard them without playing, so they decided to broadcast them through the shelter's loudspeakers. To their surprise, they saw that the dogs calmed down, wagged their tails, showed a certain playful air and It seemed that instead of being confined to a kennel, they were having a good time in a comedy club.

3. Washoe, the chimp who played pranks

It has been found that animals raised in captivity, especially primates, can behave in a provocative way to have fun. An example of this is the case of another famous primate, the chimpanzee Washoe (1965-2007).

As with Koko the gorilla, Washoe learned American Sign Language, being one of the first primates to show advanced language skills. It is thanks to him knowing how to speak that his caregiver, Roger Fouts, can tell us a curious anecdote about the chimpanzee.

Fouts was with Washoe one day, holding her on her shoulders when suddenly he began to feel the warm flow of simian urine. Indeed, Washoe had just pissed on him, something that no researcher, no matter how fond of monkeys he may be, likes.

Roger looked up angrily to reply to Washoe that she had peed on him when, to his surprise, he saw the chimp trying to tell him something. At that moment he signed the word "fun" to him: Washoe had pissed on her own, Fouts being the victim of a joke.

This somewhat eschatological anecdote is considered proof that chimpanzees can have a sense of humor. Washoe behaved like this to annoy her caretaker, clearly intending to amuse herself at the expense of Roger Fouts' hygiene. It is not that the chimpanzee could not be controlled or was not trained to urinate in a specific place, but that she decided to urinate on top of her caregiver with the intention of having fun. Of course, primates have a sense of humor that humans do not share.

Bibliographic references:

• McGhee, P. (2018). Chimpanzee and gorilla humor: progressive emergence from origins in the wild to captivity to sign language learning, HUMOR, 31 (2), 405-449. doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2018-0017
• Weems, S. (2014). Ha!: The Science of When We Laugh and Why. USA. Basic Books.