Gelotophobia?

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on July 17th, 2009

It’s a new ailment and it refers to people who have problems interpreting humor correctly. Susan Gaidos, writing in Science News, describes it:

By most accounts, laughter is good medicine, the best even. But for some… a good-natured chuckle isn’t funny at all. Morbidly averse to being the butt of a joke, these folks will go out of their way to avoid certain people or situations for fear of being ridiculed. For them, merely being around others who are talking and laughing can cause tension and apprehension.

Until recently, such people might have been written off as spoilsports. But in the mid-1990s, an astute German psychologist recognized the problem for what it is: a debilitating fear of being laughed at. Over the past decade, psychologists, sociologists, linguists and humor experts have examined this trait, technically known as gelotophobia. Though it sounds like an ailment involving Italian ice cream, scientists worldwide now recognize it as a distinct social phobia. Studies of causes and consequences of gelotophobia were among the topics presented in June in Long Beach, Calif., at a meeting of the International Society for Humor Studies.

Further, the gelotophobes “do not understand the positive side of humor, and cannot experience it in a warm way but rather as a means to put others down.” Hmmm… sounds like a good number of folks in the MSM!

Or the reviewer who watches a Larry The Cable Guy special and hisses through clenched teeth about the audience filled with “racist frat boys.”

(The University of Zurich researcher Willibald) Ruch says that recognizing that humor is not necessarily contagious is especially important for teachers and others who work with groups of people. “We need to know why is it that something so human, which brings enjoyment to most everyone, is actually experienced so negatively by a few.”

Indeed, we do!

Tip of the hat to BrotherJuddBlog!

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