Relief theory proposes that laughter is about relief - duh! It's most prominent theorists are Sigmund Freud and Herbert Spencer. There are two versions: a strong one and a weak one. The first holds that "all laughter results from a release of excessive energy." The second that much laughter "involves the release of tension or energy." There are problems with both of these men's theories.

Freud finds three different types of laughter: "joking, the comic, and humor."
With joking, the energy released is energy built up from repressing "sexual and hostile feelings." With the comic it is an intellectual energy from an intellectual challenge. With humorous, it is emotional energy.

One problem with this theory is that it implies all humor is "blowing off steam", but then the person with the stress, anger, other problem would be laughing a lot and that just doesn't happen.

I could go on with the criticisms, but instead I will tell you that relief theory proposes that laughter/humor provides us with relief from our tensions that arise from restraint in conforming to "social requirements." It allows us to hint at/laugh at things we would never say in polite conversation in the name of humor. In other words, it gives us an outlet or a feeling of relief as we briefly step out from under the restraint placed upon us by society or ourselves.

For Freud, the censor/ego needs to be tricked, "beguiled" or "disarmed" in some way, and humor fits the bill. For other theorists, such as Priest, while joking you must feel some tension, but if you are too close to the subject it is not funny. He sites the example of how the feminist movement caused the 'battle of the sexes' humor to become "aggressive and sexist."

So, in sum, laughter/humor/joking.... provide us with relief and release of tension, but we also have a need to have some "distance from a problem before" we "can find humor in it." Too true. Too true. So, I wonder if Freud would appreciate all the jokes about him?

Learn more about this author, Angela S. Young.
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