SSS 2010-08-20

（单词翻译）

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Molly Webster. Got a minute?

Everyone from Freud to Tina Fey has tried to understand why some things are funny. Now, new research concludes that one key to comedy is for a situation to violate a moral standard, but in a gentle way.

Researchers presented volunteers with a number of different scenarios². For example, the Jimmy Dean sausage company needs a spokesman for its new line of pork products, so they hire Rabbi Shlomo Rosenfield. Or, so they hire a farmer. Participants were more likely to find the rabbi scenario¹ wrong, but they were also more likely to think it was funny.

The researchers found that participants would laugh at situations with moral violations⁴ if, for example, they felt that situation was hypothetical, harmless or involved people unconnected to the listener. The study appears in the journal Psychological Science.

The finding deviates⁵ from previously⁶ published psychology⁷ studies which equate⁸ moral violation³ solely⁹ with disgust. It also proves that Mel Brooks¹⁰ was onto something when he said, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open sewer¹¹ and die."

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Molly Webster.