What is the Humor Effect?
The humor effect is a cognitive bias when something intended as funny, humorous or entertaining (humor) can make an idea seem more clever and well-thought out than it actually is.
Why this bias is dangerous?
There’s a lot of things in the real world that we don’t want to be funny. For example: jokes about rape, jokes about pedophilia, racist jokes, etc. If someone tells you these kinds of things in a humorous way, by telling them « funny » they’re encouraging you to find it amusing rather than offensive without even realizing it. In other words, the person using this cognitive bias may not even realize they are using it to get their message across to the audience.
Why do people use this bias?
People tend to trust others more if they’re funny and entertaining, so it may be possible that someone uses humor as a technique to gain trust from their audience. It’s also possible that some orators feel comfortable making risqué or taboo statements during jokes because they know many of their listeners will not be offended by them.
How do people use this bias?
We’ve all heard Dave Chapelle saying something like: « I’m gonna tell you like this, cause I’m black » . Well there are things in everyday life where you might say something similar but without the intention of being funny for example when you are explaining to someone how much money your company is losing each month then you might say something like: « You see we’re fucked » or « It’s not looking good ».
How can we create this bias?
Through the use of humor and entertaining anecdotes about unrelated topics. For example: A chapter could start with a joke about purple unicorns, and then segue into statistics about income inequality (this actually happened in the book Freakonomics). Or another could begin with a story about how someone hates their job but it turns out to be an anecdote on why people don’t like unions.
How to avoid this bias?
Whenever you’re presented with information and it seems too funny and well-thought out to possibly be real (or for that matter offensive), apply critical reasoning to that statement. It’s possible that someone may try to use humor to deceive you. In other words, just because something seems funny doesn’t mean it is actually true or well-thought out.
Which profession uses the Humor Effect?
Many professions that use rhetoric in one way or another may also be likely to have a bias for this effect: salespeople, politicians, comedians and even journalists can all benefit from using this cognitive bias to make people believe what they’re saying is more truthful than it actually is.
Humor Effect Conclusion.
The « humor effect » is a cognitive bias when something intended as funny makes an idea seem more clever and well thought out than it actually is. This type of information presentation has been used by rhetors toguide the audience into believing things that are not necessarily true.
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