I think that almost everyone has beliefs that are essentially unchangeable. These don’t feel to us like beliefs but like incontrovertible truths. Counter-evidence can’t touch them. They are beliefs we can’t change our mind about. I call these “Anchor Beliefs.”

When Anchor Beliefs are false, we distort reality to fit them. So, what distortions do some reasonably common Anchor Beliefs cause?

Anchor Belief 1: “I’m entirely good” or “I don’t do unethical things”

What happens when someone with these Anchor Beliefs acts highly unethically? Well, since the Anchor Belief can’t change, that means the action must have been ethically okay to do, or else it was someone else’s fault or impossible to avoid. Victim blaming, denial, or shirking of responsibility ensues.

“My whole foundation, life, what I believed in, devotion to the company, was based on believing [Ramesh Balwani] was this person…He told me he didn’t know what I was doing in business, that my convictions were wrong…There was no way I could save our company if he was there…We were trying to do the right thing. We were trying to report results that we believed in and not report results if we thought there was any issue” -Elizabeth Holmes, who was found guilty on four counts of defrauding the investors in her company, Theranos

“All I ever wanted was to love women and, in turn, to be loved by them back. Their behavior towards me has only earned my hatred, and rightfully so! I am the true victim in all of this. I am the good guy.” -Elliot Rodger, in his manifesto about why he planned to commit murder before murdering six people.

Anchor Belief 2: “I’m not good enough”

What happens when someone with this anchor belief gets a great job, performs really well, or achieves success? Well, it must have been a fluke or mistake; eventually, others will figure it out. Imposter syndrome ensues.

“No matter what we’ve done, there comes a point where you think, ‘How did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything away from me?” – Tom Hanks, winner of two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor

“I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.” – Maya Angelou, legendary poet and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Anchor Belief 3: “This thing I’ve devoted a great deal of time/energy/identity into works and is good” [that doesn’t work or is harmful]

What happens when it’s criticized? The criticism must be bad faith. Any imperfection in counter-evidence fully invalidates that evidence. Confirmation bias, cherry-picking, and motivated reasoning ensues.

“Those who have attacked my work on Vitamin C are scoundrels.” – Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel prize winner, defending his theory that vitamin C cures cancer and heart disease.

“We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts…Politician A stands up on his hind legs in a Parliament and brays for a condemnation of Scientology. When we look him over we find crimes – embezzled funds, moral lapses, a thirst for young boys – sordid stuff. Wife B howls at her husband for attending a Scientology group. We look her up and find she had a baby he didn’t know about.” – L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology

Anchor Belief 4: “My group is good.”

What happens when their group does something really bad? The victims must be lying or have deserved it. Or acting badly must be justified in this case because it’s done for some more important greater good. Denial of and justification of immoral actions ensues.

“When we show a statement by Donald Trump that’s not truthful, Republicans will say it’s okay if it’s not true because it sends the right message, whereas Democrats will say that a statement needs to be factual…With a statement from Joe Biden, Democrats will say it’s okay if it’s not based on evidence, that it supports a generally true message, while Republicans will then have a higher bar and say every statement needs to be based on facts.” – Ethan Poskanzer, based on his studies on moral flexibility

So, what are the takeaways here? I think that the following three things are important and true:

(1) Almost everyone has at least one Anchor Belief – a belief that is so sticky that it’s nearly impossible for it to change in the face of even extremely strong counter-evidence. Some people have more of these, and perhaps a small number of people have none, but I think Anchor beliefs are a near-universal among us humans.

(2) When our Anchor Beliefs are false (or partially false), because the beliefs won’t change, we distort reality when we get evidence against them in order to keep them intact while also somehow “making sense” of that counter-evidence.

(3) By looking at fairly common Anchor Beliefs people have, we can start to understand some recurring distortions in people’s thinking. Since people’s Anchor Beliefs are fixed but reality sometimes provides strong counter-evidence against these beliefs, that leads to predictable patterns of distortions that people’s minds deploy to keep the beliefs intact around those Anchor Beliefs.

In particular, I think that we find:

• Anchor Beliefs related to being good may lead to victim blaming and denial of responsibility.

• Anchor Beliefs about not being good enough may lead to imposter syndrome.

• Anchor Beliefs about something we’ve invested a lot of time/energy/identity into working on and being good may lead to confirmation bias, cherry-picking, and motivated reasoning.

• Anchor Beliefs about our group being good may lead us to deny or justify immoral actions by our group.

There are no strong studies that I’m aware of that identify or map out anchor beliefs and their frequency in the population – I believe the points above are true based on my experiences and observations.

This piece was first written on August 13, 2024, and first appeared on my website on September 2, 2024.

1. The Wise Critic
Honesty + Courage = telling difficult truths that it’s important for others to hear.

Honesty without courage is still good and valuable, but you’re limited to telling easy truths.

2. The Protector
Compassion + Courage = protecting other people even when it is dangerous and difficult, such as when saving someone from a bully means risking being bullied yourself.

Compassion without courage is great, but it’s limited to certain kinds of help.

3. The True Friend
Loyalty + Courage = being on the side of your loved ones and those you are grateful to, even when it comes at significant personal risk.

Loyalty without courage is still really nice to have, but it limits the extent of that loyalty.

4. The World Changer
Justice + Courage = fighting against the status quo to make the world better and fairer.

Justice without courage is great at small scales, but courage is often needed to create widespread change.

5. The Investigator
Truth-seeking + Courage = uncovering what is true regardless of what you wish were true or what you get rewarded or punished for finding.

Truth-seeking without courage leads to truer beliefs, but only in domains where truth isn’t too inconvenient.

6. The Hero
Goodness + Courage = standing up against immoral behavior, even when that behavior is socially condoned or carried out by the powerful.

Goodness without courage is a wonderful quality, but it doesn’t effectively combat evil.

Courage can make good behavior better and bad behavior worse.
That’s why it’s not a virtue by itself. But a lack of courage limits one’s ability to do good. Don’t seek courage for its own sake. Cultivate it because it enhances your other virtues.

Many people do bad things not because they are bad people but because they lack the courage NOT to. Seek courage because it allows you to do the right thing in difficult situations.

Here is how others have put related ideas about courage:
“…courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions.”

-C.S. Lewis

“Courage is the most important of the virtues because, without it, no other virtue can be practiced consistently.”

-Maya Angelou

“Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.”

-Samuel Johnson

“Who but a man of infinite courage could have dared to think those thoughts? That is the characteristic of great scientists; they have courage. They will go forward under incredible circumstances; they think and continue to think.”

-Richard Hamming

(Hat tip to @CallHimMoorlock and @alexisgallagher on Twitter for pointing me to some of these quotes.)

On a personal note, I’ve become more courageous over the years. I still have plenty of room for improvement, though, and it’s something I’d like to continue to work on.

If you read this line, please do us a favor and click here to answer one quick question.

This piece was first written on February 13, 2022, and first appeared on this site on February 3, 2023.

1. Ideators: generate novel ideas

Ex: Einstein

Strengths: creativity, insight

2: Investigators: vigorously investigate a topic in order to understand it

Ex: Curie

Strengths: truth-seeking, curiosity, systematicness, persistence

3. Provers: demonstrate that the ideas of others are sound, explore their limits, strengthen or work out the implications of existing theories

Ex: Singer

Strengths: consistency, logic, rigor, bullet-biting

4. Appliers: explore new, useful applications for existing ideas, or combine ideas to make something valuable

Ex: Ford

Strengths: pragmatism, knowledge, goal orientation

5. Doers: do things in the world, reflect on what worked and what didn’t, draw insights from and generalize this experience so others can learn from it

Ex: Graham

Strengths: experience, reflection, generalization, synthesizing

6. Critics: dissect ideas to find the flaws in them

Ex: Wollstonecraft

Strengths: questioning, challenging, dissection, disagreeing

7. Enhancers: refine, hone or clarify existing ideas to make them better

Ex: Bostrom

Strengths: clarifying, honing, making rigorous

8. Popularizers: figure out how to explain important, complex ideas in simple ways; spread them to the public

Ex: Sagan

Strengths: simplification, explanation, inspiration, metaphor

9. Activators: use ideas to change norms or improve society

Ex: King

Strengths: inspiration, eloquence, courage, altruism

10. Storytellers: tell compelling stories to convey information and ideas and to capture the narrative behind ideas

Ex: Gladwell

Strengths: narrative, journalism

11. Cataloguers: collect, categorize and organize information

Ex: Dewey

Strengths: comprehensiveness, organization, categorization

This piece was first written on August 23, 2020, and first appeared on this site on July 8, 2022.

Part of what makes comedy so hard to describe is that it has such variety. While the boundaries between different types of humor are fuzzy, I think you can roughly divide them into six categories:

(I) CRITICAL, (II) INTELLIGENT, (III) UNEXPECTED, (IV) UNSEEMLY, (V) PHYSICAL, and (VI) CHILDLIKE

These can further be divided into subcategories, which I’ll call: (1) Self-deprecation, (2) Satire, (3) Group, (4) Sarcasm, (5) Repartee, (6) Nerd, (7) Wordplay, (8) Surreal, (9) Surprise, (10) Taboo, (11) Gross-out, (12) Humiliation, (13) Dark, (14) Revenge, (15) Slapstick, (16) Pun, and (17) Cute.

Below I’ve listed a bunch of example jokes from each of these 17 subcategories.

While no current theory of humor seems to be complete, and I certainly don’t have a unified theory to contribute, here’s a list I put together of basic principles that I think characterize many of the important aspects of humor:

(A) Communication: It’s an evolved form of social communication that exists in humans, as well as a few other primates (like chimps and bonobos), and possibly in some other animals too (though it’s harder to tell)

(B) Taboos: It can make it easier to talk about sensitive, forbidden, gross, and taboo subjects, and is often used specifically for that purpose

(C) Criticism: It often involves being critical of some person, group, or thing, and is also often used as a way to criticize powerful, threatening, or protected groups

(D) Protection: It socially safeguards us to a significant degree when we’re making criticisms, and so those making humorous critiques often can get away with saying more extreme criticism (and causing much less offense) than those making similar critiques non-humorously (hence why “I was only joking” is often used as a defense)

(E) Tension: It is sometimes used to reduce nervous tension between people when there is awkwardness (e.g., by making a joke about what an awkward situation it is, or by laughing in a friendly way when someone says something weird, as though you think they were making a joke, such as with nervous laughter)

(F) Status: It is often used as a means to raise or lower social status (e.g., to come across as likable, to signal intelligence/verbal ability/cleverness, to poke fun at or lower the status of specific people or groups)

(G) Play: It is often used to signal “play,” that is, what could be perceived as aggressiveness or danger is not actually a threat (e.g., a parent and child both laughing as the parent pretends to be a “monster” and chases their child around)

(H) Pleasure: It’s enjoyable for almost everyone, though people strongly disagree about which types of humor are pleasurable (e.g., some people love bathroom humor, some loathe it, some like edgy humor, some prefer it to be tame)

(I) Surprise: It usually involves something unexpected or unpredictable, and if a joke is too predictable, we may not find it funny at all

(J) Incongruity: It often involves contrasting two incongruous things with each other (e.g., two distinct meanings, or a contrast between tame and taboo or good and bad), and laughter is often the result of suddenly noticing the incongruity and resolving it towards the less immediately obvious or edgier meaning

(K) Sex: It is often used during flirtation, and many people find it sexually attractive when someone is funny, plus sex is often the subject of humor

(L) Problem: It often is about some kind of problem, danger, or bad thing

(M) Challenge: It is often a form of challenge or threat, but it’s a benign threat that the audience is supposed to know is not intended to be taken as actually threatening

(N) Subtlety: how funny something is depends on precise timing, wording, and tone of voice, as well as the setting and mood of the audience

(O) Exaggeration: It often involves exaggerating something real

With all these in mind, my best attempt to describe humor is to say that it’s:

“A pleasurable form of evolutionarily evolved social communication indicative of play (often affecting or relating to the social status and desirability of individuals and groups), that involves either surprise or the creation and then resolution of incongruity, and that is typically threatening, critical, danger related, challenging, subversive, disgusting, or taboo, but expressed in a manner that is intended to feel safe to both the originator and listener.”

—

Here’s my typology of types of humor with examples of each type:

— — (I) CRITICAL HUMOR — —

(1) Self-deprecation – critiquing oneself

“They all laughed when I said I’d become a comedian. Well, they’re not laughing now.” -Bob Monkhouse.

“My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.” -Jimmy Carter.

What’s worse than someone who isn’t funny telling you a bad joke?

Someone who isn’t funny is telling you a bad joke in a 2000-word Facebook post about being funny.

—

(2) Satire – critiquing society, institutions, trends

“Twenty years ago, we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope, and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Cash, no Hope, and no Jobs. Please don’t let Kevin Bacon die.” – Bill Murray.

Instagram: My life is a party
Snapchat: My life is a quirky TV show
Facebook: My life turned out great!
Twitter: We’re all going to die.
-Mikel Jollett

“Horror movies with jump scares are like if a comedian went into the audience and tickled everyone. ‘Technically, you laughed! I’m funny!” -Jeremy Kaplowitz.

“How to be a grown-up at work: replace ‘f*ck you’ with ‘ok, great’”

What do you call chimpanzees when they are capable of destroying the world? Humans.

—

(3) Group – nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, identity, etc.

“What is the scariest thing about a white person in prison? You know he did it.”

“According to hetero dating law, the girl shouldn’t pay for her meal, which, logically, means that if two girls go on a date together, nobody pays, and they get everything for free, but the catch is that they have to stand the whole time because no one can pull out a chair” -Leofitzisms.

“What do a clitoris, an anniversary, and a toilet have in common? Men usually miss them.”

How many times cooler are programmers than mathematicians? Trick question, you can’t divide by zero.

—

(4) Sarcasm – deadpan, contemptuous, mocking, ironic, faux serious

“My wife just stopped and said to me, ‘You weren’t even listening, were you?’ I thought, ‘That’s a pretty weird way to start a conversation.’”

“Apparently, I snore so loudly that it scares everyone in the car I’m driving.”

Teacher: “Can anyone tell me what ended in 1896?” Student: “1895.’”

When I tell a joke, I want people to take it seriously. That’s why I make sure nobody laughs.

— — (II) INTELLIGENT HUMOR — —

(5) Repartee – intellectual one-upmanship, comebacks

Nancy: “Winston, if you were my husband, I’d put poison in your coffee.” Churchill: “Nancy, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

An unknown singer: “You know, my dear, I insured my voice for fifty thousand dollars.” Hopkins: “That’s wonderful. And what did you do with the money?”

Oscar Wilde: “I wish I’d said that.” Whistler: “You will, Oscar, you will.”

—

(6) Nerd – knowledge, intelligence signaling, inside joke

“There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don’t.”

“A cop pulls Heisenberg over and asks him, ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’ Heisenberg replies, ‘No, but I know where I am.’”

Who has sex infinitely many times in an hour? Two young fractals in love.

—

(7) Wordplay – clever double meanings, cleverness, quick thinking,

“Why is it a penny for your thoughts, but you have to put your two cents in? Somebody’s making a penny.” -Steven Wright.

“So two snare drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff… Ba Dum Tssss!”

“The King: tell a joke about me, Fool. The Fool: I’m sorry, sire, but the King is not a subject.”

“I bought some shoes from a drug dealer. I don’t know what he laced them with, but I can’t stop tripping.”

“I think it’s wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly.” – Steven Wright.

‘They’ say birds of a feather flock together, yet opposites attract. ‘They’ say absence makes the heart grow fonder, yet out of sight, out of mind. Have you ever considered whether…maybe…just maybe… ’they’ are morons?

It seems like a mighty strange coincidence that God created the first dog. Makes you wonder if Mom created herself.

— — (III) UNEXPECTED HUMOR — —

(8) Surreal – absurd, ridiculous, nonsensical, strange, wacky

“I called the wrong number today. I said ‘Hello, is Joey there?’ A woman answered, and she said, ‘Yes, he is.’ And I said, ‘Can I speak to him, please?’ She said, ‘No, he can’t talk right now, he’s only two months old.’ I said ‘Alright, I’ll wait.” -Steven Wright.

“How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? A fish.”

“Anna: I wanna be a reverse tooth fairy where I rob people and then scatter human teeth on their bed.” “Bob: You mean a dentist?” “Carly: I don’t know what your dentist is doing to you, but I think you need to go to the police.”

When people call you names, you don’t take it to spleen. So why, when they call you names, do you take it to heart?

—

(9) Surprise – unusual, twist, expectations violated

“There is nothing like the sound of a child’s laughter to remind you that your apartment is haunted.” -Howard Mittelmark.

“Air horn sound. Second air horn sound. Me: ‘This isn’t deodorant.” -Stephen Molloy.

“‘Hey nerd, who brings a friggin book to a bar?’ My eyes narrow as I close my worn copy of Advanced Techniques for Winning Barroom Brawls.” -Ygrene.

“If you’re being chased by a police dog, try not to go through a tunnel, and then over a little see-saw, then jump through a hoop of fire. They’re trained for that.” – Milton Jones.

Different religions don’t agree about much, but they do agree that you should “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

Isn’t it kind of weird that wise people want us to have so many body parts? They keep telling us that many hands make light work, two heads are better than one, and we should be all ears.

— — (IV) UNSEEMLY HUMOR — —

(10) Taboo – sexuality, sacrilege, anti-tradition, norm violation

“Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life” -Jimmy Carr.

“What is worse than ants in your pants? Uncles”

“How many Freudian psychiatrists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Two. One to screw in the lightbulb and one to hold the penis. Ladder! Hold the ladder.”

—

(11) Gross-out – bodily functions, disgusting, bathroom humor

“What’s the difference between a chickpea and a garbanzo bean? Nobody has ever paid to have a garbanzo bean on their face.”

“For Christmas last year, I got given Sudoku toilet paper. It’s useless. You can only fill it in with number ones and number twos.” -Bec Hill.

—

(12) Humiliation – status lowering, embarrassment

“At a state dinner, [George HW] Bush unexpectedly fainted, fell face-first into [Prime Minister] Miyazawa’s crotch, and then vommed all over the poor guy’s lap…Not only did Bush’s embarrassing attempt at bile-based diplomacy become comedic fodder in the US, but it also made headlines across Japan, too. For a while in the 1990s, young Japanese even had a whole new slang word for chundering: Bushusuru (ブッシュする), meaning ‘to do a bush’.”

—

(13) Dark – death, fear, nihilism, meaninglessness, futility, failure

“Give a man a match, and he’ll be warm for a few hours. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.” -Terry Pratchett.

“What’s Blonde and dead in a closet? The Hide and Seek Champion from 1995.”

“It’s sad that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs.” -Jack Handey.

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” -Woody Allen.

“What do you get when you cross the Atlantic with the Titanic? About halfway.”

Feeling bad about the precarious state of civilization today? Don’t worry, it will all be over soon.

—

(14) Revenge – payback, karma

“A truck driver stopped at a truck stop and ordered a cheeseburger. As he was ready to eat, a motorcycle gang pulled up. One of the gang members insulted him and ate his cheeseburger. The truck driver walked out of the truck stop.  A gang member said to the waitress, “He’s not much of a man, is he?” She said, “He’s not much of a driver either. He just backed his 18-wheeler over 6 motorcycles.”

“Billboard in a city:
Hi Steven, do I have your attention now?
I know all about her, you dirty, sneaky, immoral, unfaithful, poorly endowed slimeball.
Everything’s caught on tape.
Your (soon-to-be-ex) Wife, Emily
p.s. I paid for this billboard from OUR joint bank account.”

— — (V) PHYSICAL HUMOR — —

(15) Slapstick -clumsiness, injury, mime, clowning, failure, unexpected calamity, stunts, funny faces

“There was the time in Austria when [President Gerald] Ford stepped off Air Force One, slipped on the wet stairs, and went tumbling headlong into the assembled dignitaries below, presumably while the waiting band played comedy sound effects in the background.”

“The most famous scene from Duck Soup is the mirror gag between Harpo and Groucho, but the best bit of slapstick is the fight between Marco, Chico, and the lemonade vendor that sees an innocent man bullied within an inch of his life. Hats are swapped, lemonade is squirted, hats are swapped again, legs are kicked, and hats are set on fire. In other words, it’s not a good day to be either a hat or a lemonade vendor in this particular corner of Freedonia.”

“Modern Times portrays Chaplin in his Tramp persona as a factory worker employed on an assembly line. There, he is subjected to such indignities as being force-fed by a malfunctioning “feeding machine” and an accelerating assembly line where he screws nuts at an ever-increasing rate onto pieces of machinery. He finally suffers a nervous breakdown and runs amok, getting stuck within a machine and throwing the factory into chaos. He is sent to a hospital. Following his recovery, the now-unemployed factory worker is mistakenly arrested as an instigator in a Communist demonstration. In jail, he accidentally ingests smuggled cocaine, mistaking it for salt.”

— — (VI) CHILDLIKE HUMOR — —

(16) Pun – multiple words with one sound

“Were you there when the TV repairman got married? The reception was excellent.”

“What do you call a veterinarian with laryngitis? A hoarse doctor.”

“eBay is so useless. I tried to look up lighters, and all they had were 13,749 matches.” -therap321

—

(17) Cute – misunderstanding, silly, helpless, confused, adorable

“Q: Can a kangaroo jump higher than the Empire State Building? A: Of course. The Empire State Building can’t jump.”

“’Your waffle iron isn’t working, dear!’ ‘Please just stay away from my laptop, grandma!!!’”

“I love you from my head tomatoes”

“What did the grape say when it was crushed? Nothing. It just let out a little wine.”

— — — — — — — — — —

THEORIES OF HUMOR

There are many theories of humor. For instance:

(1) Relief Theory – humor is a release of “psychological tension” or “nervous energy” that has been “wrongly mobilized by incorrect or false expectations” as a way to “overcome sociocultural inhibitions and reveal suppressed desires.”

What I think it gets right:

-Humor can make it easier to talk about sensitive subjects and is often used for that purpose

-Humor can reduce nervous tension between people when there is awkwardness

(2) Social Status Theory – a social game to raise your own social status or the social status of your group, by signaling your own positive traits (e.g., intelligence or knowledge) or by lowering the status of other people or groups (e.g., by poking fun at them).

What I think it gets right:

-Humor is often used to put down other people or groups

-Humor is attractive socially and makes people seem likable and intelligent

(3) Play theory – a form of communication that we use to indicate or to acknowledge that “we’re just playing right now” in cases that otherwise might be interpreted as serious, aggressive, or dangerous. For instance, we can laugh when we act aggressively to show that it is just play aggression, and we can laugh when others act aggressively to show that we interpret their aggression as just play. Or if we trip and fall, we can laugh to show we are not actually hurt.

What I think it gets right:

-Humor is sometimes used to communicate that a potentially aggressive-seeming behavior is just play, and not intended aggressively, like someone laughing after they throw a snowball at a friend

-Humor is sometimes used to communicate that something has not been interpreted aggressively, for instance, when someone laughs good-naturedly after someone else says something that might be taken as an insult

-Humor is sometimes used to communicate that we don’t interpret something as a threat, for instance, if someone laughs at someone else who is attempting to punch them (indicating that the attack is feeble and not worth taking seriously)

(4) Superiority Theory – a joyful way to relish in our superiority over others as we point out their shortcomings.

What I think it gets right:

-People do find it enjoyable to make or hear humorous remarks about people and groups they dislike

-People do use humor as a way to critique others

(5) Incongruity-resolution Theory – what we experience when we find incongruity between a concept and the “real objects thought to be in some relation to the concept,” or “the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing.”

What I think it gets right:

-Humor often involves contrasting two incongruous things with each other

(6) Collision Theory – what results when a collision is engineered to occur between two different frames of reference

What I think it gets right:

-Humor often involves ways of looking at things that are different than the usual frame you’d apply by default

(7) Semantic Theory – a verbal or written joke is what occurs when there are two different opposing understandings of what was said that are bound together, and the audience then experiences a sudden realization, causing them to flip from one understanding to the other (e.g., via a punchline or by reinterpreting a word as a different one with a similar sound). The oppositional meanings could be normal vs. abnormal, good vs. bad, tame vs. obscene, etc.

What I think it gets right:

-Jokes often involve saying things with multiple (incongruous) interpretations, and people do often seem to laugh when the second meaning suddenly occurs to them

(8) Ontic-epistemic Theory – what happens when we’re forced to suddenly confront the fact that social reality (e.g., social identity or social standing), which we usually take to be as real as physical reality, does not actually match physical reality, or when different elements of social reality contradict each other.

What I think it gets right:

-Humor often challenges assumptions made by social norms or rules, or challenges existing power dynamics and social status

(9) Sexual Selection Theory – a way for humans to signal other survival-related traits (e.g., intelligence or detection of reasoning mistakes), that originally was sexually desirable for its survival value, but which eventually ended up in a runaway sexual selection spiral (like the tail of the peacock), where it is evolutionarily desirable merely because others find it desirable

What I think it gets right:

-Some people do seem to find it sexually attractive when people are humorous or make them laugh

-People, I think, seem to find humorous people intelligent

(10) Benign Violation Theory – humor occurs when simultaneously (1) something threatens one’s sense of how things “ought to be,” (2) the threat seems benign, and (3) both interpretations are perceived simultaneously.

What I think it gets right:

-Humor often does involve a threat of some form, whether it’s a criticism, injury, or insult

-Humor is specifically supposed not to be “taken seriously,” and hence, in that sense, when it is a threat, it is a benign one

-Humor does often involve seeing multiple interpretations of something simultaneously that are incongruous

-It can help explain why we laugh when we’re tickled

(11) Tragedy Theory – comedy = tragedy + time

What I think it gets right:

-Tragedies and problems do seem to become more of a target of humor as more time passes

(12) Bergson’s theory – situations are comic because they “give the impression that life is subject to rigidity, automatism, and mechanism…somebody is laughable when he or she gives the impression of being a thing or a machine.”

What I think it gets right:

-People do sometimes find it funny when people act stupidly or unthinkingly

(13) Defense mechanism theory – a way to talk about and explore ideas that are too unpleasant, terrible, or socially unacceptable to normally discuss.

What I think it gets right:

-Humor often grapples with unpleasant or socially unacceptable topics

This piece was first written on July 6, 2019, and first appeared on my website on February 12, 2026.

Here are some rules of thumb. It’s generally a good idea to seek criticism from others when:

1. You care about having an accurate understanding of how others perceive you. It is easy to go for decades without realizing that your posture makes you seem like you lack confidence, or that people find the speed at which you talk hard to follow. Those that know you well and new acquaintances can provide different sorts of information in this area. Friends have a hard time remembering what it was like to see you for the first time (so can’t comment as usefully on surface level information), whereas acquaintances will be unaware of how you act when you’re not around new people.
2. You have an important weakness that it pains you to think about. When ideas are painful to consider, we often don’t think about them as deeply as we should. That means we can easily end up with only a shallow understanding of the weaknesses we most dislike about ourselves. Others who are affected by our weaknesses can help us understand them better if we ask. But when receiving this sort of criticism we run a serious risk of feeling angry and defensive at what we hear, so we have to be sure we are ready to receive this criticism before we ask for it.
3. When you are trying to enhance your relationship with a particular person. Even if someone likes you a great deal, there are probably at least a few things you do that he or she would rather you didn’t, or a few things you don’t do that he or she would rather you do. Asking for honest feedback on how you could be a better friend, or which behaviors the person would prefer you stop, and then making those adjustments can be a great way to make that person (even) happier with the relationship.
4. When you want to accurately understand the extent of your skill, and you’re talking to someone much more skilled than yourself. Sometimes, it’s valuable to know exactly where we stand in terms of skill. Seeking criticism from someone more expert than yourself can help settle questions such as whether you really have what it takes to play professional soccer, or whether a physics PhD is really for you. That’s not to say that you can’t occasionally exceed the expectations even of experts. But knowing where an expert thinks you stand can give you a more realistic sense of your capacity.

There are of course other situations besides those lists above when seeking criticism is valuable, but the above list highlights some times when it can be especially useful to do so. So seek criticism in order to better understand how others perceive you, to know your weaknesses, to enhance your relationships, and to assess your true level of skill.

In an environment with little criticism, it’s easy to forget about your flaws. But the more aware of them you are, the better position you will be in to correct them. So when you get really serious about self-improvement, being in a position to regularly receive criticism becomes a hugely valuable resource.

Other people see things about us that we ourselves can’t see. In part, this is because they tend to be less biased, but also because they watch us act from a third party perspective, which leads to different observations than occur from inside our own minds. For instance, others are more likely to notice if we do inconsiderate things, or if we have a goofy looking smile, than we are ourselves.

When I started to actively seek criticism from those who knew me well, I made many discoveries. It was incredible to me that I’d been so oblivious for such a long time about some of my undesirable behaviors, and that no one had ever mentioned them before. It became clear that most people (even those who care a lot) wouldn’t risk upsetting you or annoying you, even to tell you something that you really should hear. Fortunately, in many cases, merely becoming aware of a flaw was enough to get me to correct it.

To get honest feedback you shouldn’t ask “How would you say I’m flawed?” That may just be perceived as fishing for complements. What worked for me is making it clear that I’d gotten serious about improving myself, but that I needed help discovering more ways that I could improve further. When people realized that I truly did want to know my flaws, and that I wouldn’t get angry or defensive at what they said, the process went smoothly. Of course, it helps a lot if you really aren’t going to get angry or defensive. If you’re not at that point, hearing criticism from a friend could damage your relationship. Also, you should choose your sources of criticism wisely. Pick someone who is likely to give thoughtful comments, rather than use the opportunity as an excuse to attack you.

When you learn about a flaw for the first time, you’re probably going to wince. It hurts when you realize you’ve been doing something wrong for so long, and that people may have been judging you for it. This is one of the big reasons that so few people actually seek criticism. But if you set the goal of being a great person rather than just thinking you are great person, then criticism is less difficult to hear. It may also help to think about what an advantage it is to be the sort of person who finds flaws and then demolishes them, rather than taking the standard course of pretending they aren’t there. Flaws become opportunities the moment you learn about them, and you can improve at almost anything once you’ve figured out your weak points.

When you do receive criticism, it takes some skill to get the most out of it without feeling too bad. It’s useful to learn to dissect it into its basic types. There are three types of criticism, which often come mixed together:

1. Accurate criticism. This is a criticism that is warranted, and relates to one or more of your flaws.
2. Ignorant criticism. This is criticism based on a confusion or misunderstanding, and it does not actually relate to your flaws.
3. Emotive criticism. This is criticism designed to express emotion or evoke emotion in the person hearing it.

To see how dissecting criticism works in practice, let’s consider a hypothetical example. Suppose that the last three times your friend called you forgot to call him back. You kept intending to do so, but then it would slip your mind. One day, you bumped into this friend on the street. He came up to you and said:

“I just have to tell you, you’ve been an asshole lately. You’re so busy with your new girlfriend that you don’t even call me back anymore. You’re going to lose friends if you keep treating people like this.”

Ouch! Let’s dissect this criticism:

‘You’ve been an asshole lately’ is an example of Emotive criticism. Your friend is simultaneously expressing his negative emotion, and trying to make you feel bad. Although this part of the criticism doesn’t actually tell you much of anything about your flaws, it shows how angry your friend is which is important to know.

The second part, “You’re so busy with your new girlfriend” is Ignorant criticism. In this case, it has nothing to do with what you’re being criticized for, and is merely your friends misperception of the situation, since your girlfriend had nothing to do with you not calling back. Though this doesn’t relate to your flaws, it presents an opportunity to correct your friend’s misunderstanding, and explain what really happened.

The last part, “You don’t even call me back anymore. You’re going to lose friends if you keep treating people like this.” is Accurate criticism. It represents a useful call to action. You need to figure out a system for reminding yourself when you need to return a call, or you might actually lose friends. It can be upsetting to think of yourself as having been flaky, but in this case it’s a fact that you have been. Now that you’re aware of it, you can do something about it.

Breaking criticism into these three parts (Accurate, Ignorant, Emotive) will streamline the process of extracting useful information.

Criticism is easier to hear when you have sought it out than when it is thrust on you. And most people won’t volunteer it, until they are quite annoyed. So don’t wait until criticism comes your way. Seek criticism from your friends, your boss, and your spouse. Even acquaintances can provide an interesting perspective. Break down this criticism into the Accurate, Ignorant, and Emotive components. Know your flaws so you can correct them. Become greater.