Rapid Anxiety Reduction (RAR): A unified theory of humor

Here I propose a novel theory in which humor is the feeling of Rapid Anxiety Reduction (RAR). According to RAR, humor can be expressed in a simple formula: -d(A)/dt. RAR has strong correspondences with False Alarm Theory, Benign Violation Theory, and Cognitive Debugging Theory, all of which represent either special cases or partial descriptions at alternative levels of analysis. Some evidence for RAR includes physiological similarities between hyperventilation and laughter and the fact that smiles often indicate negative affect in non-human primates (e.g. fear grimaces where teeth are exposed as a kind of inhibited threat display). In accordance with Benign Violation Theory, if humor reliably indicates both a) anxiety induction, b) anxiety reduction, and c) the time-course over which anxiety is reduced, then the intersection of these conditions productively constrains inference spaces over latent mental states with respect to the values and capacities of the persons experiencing humor. In this way, humor is a powerful cypher for understanding persons in both individual and social contexts, with far-reaching implications. Finally, if humor can be expressed in such a simple formula with clear ties to phenomenology, and yet this discovery regarding such an essential part of the human experience has remained undiscovered for this long, then this is an extremely surprising state of affairs worthy of further investigation. Towards this end, I propose an analogy can be found with consciousness studies, where in addition to the "Hard problem" of trying to explain humor, we would do well to consider a "Meta-Problem" of why humor seems so difficult to explain, and why relatively simple explanations may have eluded us for this long. (Please note: RAR was conceived in 2008, and last majorly updated in 2012.)