Can We Truly Know Someone’s Intelligence by What They Laugh at?

Laughing at dark humor doesn’t necessarily mean being a genius.

“Duh, be mindful of what cracks you up.”

I heard this phrase said by my friend when I was laughing for legit 30 seconds at some “stupid silly jokes” — that’s what she said — I found on Instagram. I think it’s hilarious. But she doesn’t find it funny.

My friend has a dark sense of humor. Feed her jokes about death, disease, deformity, or warfare — you might win her heart for making her laugh.

I used to think she’s a genius. Well, maybe she is. But after knowing her for about three years, little did I know that her dark sense of humor is down to trauma rather than intelligence.

The Sad Clown Paradox

I know that people who laugh at dark humor might show higher levels of intelligence — according to a study. And yes, that’s true as humor defines the extent to how one can stretch the tickle of the brain.

However, correlation doesn’t always imply causation — we cannot legitimately conclude a causal relationship between two things based solely on the correlation between them.

Anything that involves the brain — such as intelligence and humor — is complicated.

In the past, the use of humor was one of the coping strategies used by civilians who were subjected to bombings and airstrikes. Then, a series of psychological experiments in 1981 resulted in a theory called “The Sad Clown Paradox.”

Ever heard the phrase, “smile on the outside, frown on the inside,” or “the person who looks the happiest is the saddest?” That’s basically what it’s about.

The Sad Clown Paradox explains the contradictory association between comedy and mental disorders — such as depression and anxiety — due to the feelings of deprivation and isolation in early life.

According to research, someone’s sense of humor develops from a young age fostered by parental behavior.

Emotionally immature parents can put a strain on their children and create self-esteem problems and the need for acceptance. Therefore, laughter can act as a medium for self-defense to hide the children’s true feelings.

My friend’s childhood life wasn’t beautiful.

As an only child, she was a victim of her abusive father at a very young age. Her parents divorced when she was eight. She has lived with only her mother ever since, and luckily, her mother loves her with all her heart.

But I know my friend has been through a lot of pain and has worked so hard to rebuild her life — physically and emotionally — without a father figure.

And now, as an adult, she has found dark comedy thrive as a release for her tension — removing feelings of suppressed physical rage through a verbal outlet.

Is it a good thing that she can use humor as her self-deprivation in the form of laughter?

On the outside, maybe.

But on the inside? No one knows if she’s laughing or bleeding — as she also takes flight on the emotional pain that fuels within.

“The saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy, because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel that.” — Robin Williams

Humor as a Character Strength

Enough with the darkness. Let’s talk about something positive.

Over the past decade, positive psychology — a new form of psychology that emphasizes the positive influences in a person’s life — had measured the development of character strengths.

Research shows that the most commonly endorsed character strengths are love, humor, kindness, social intelligence, and open-mindedness.

Let’s look at the definition of character strengths:

Character strengths are positive, trait-like capacities for thinking, feeling, and behaving in ways that “benefit oneself and others”.

As a character strength, humor can benefit us and others in the form of laughter. But unless you have Pseudobulbar affect — a condition that’s characterized by episodes of sudden uncontrollable and inappropriate laughing — we only laugh at things we find funny.

This brought me to the next question:

When does a joke become funny?

The study about how humor correlated with intelligence says people who can comprehend and enjoy dark jokes show higher IQs and have less aggressive tendencies.

And yes, I think it’s pretty clear that processing dark humor jokes take a bit more mental gymnastics than, say, a “knock-knock joke”.

But look at the two keywords above; “comprehend” and “enjoy” — we need both of these to qualify a joke as “funny”. Some jokes indeed require intelligence to comprehend, but it doesn’t always mean we enjoy it, in other words:

Getting a joke isn’t always the same as finding it funny.

Ask yourself, when you find a joke funny, what part of it do you laugh the most at? Is it, a) the substance, b) the communication style, or c) the situational factor?

Ideally, all those three things would come together. But there must be one aspect of the other that has more impact on a joke in a given situation.

In most circumstances, I will laugh at the substance of the joke — at what’s being said. However, sometimes it’s also because of how the person tells the joke (the communication style) or the concrete situation in which the joke takes place (the situational factor).

In other words, my sense of humor isn’t fixed. If I appreciate a joke and find it funny, I’ll laugh, no matter the circumstances.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine wouldn’t appreciate a dark joke delivered in a lowbrow humor style — such as slapstick or farce — so even if the substance of the joke was the same, it was not funny to her because of the “low” communication style, hence, she won’t laugh.

So it’s possible if two people laugh at the same joke, they do it for different reasons.

You may ROFL at a dark humor joke even though you don’t freaking understand the substance.

You might find it funny because of the facial expressions of the person telling the joke, or because you come to a comedy show where you are expected to laugh — not to get all butthurt because everyone laughs at the joke yet you wonder in silence what the heck was the funny part.

And speaking from experience, you better laugh along.

Final Insights

Can we truly know someone’s intelligence by what they laugh at? Yes, to some extent, we can. A dark sense of humor may reveal a sign of someone’s intelligence, but the truth is not as simple as the surface.

If you really want to know someone’s intelligence by what they laugh at, rather than merely looking at “the substance” of the joke (you know, looks can be deceiving), you’d better pay attention to the more subtle things. Notice how their sense of humor differs from other people — the people around them and in the wider society they live in.

It isn’t a guarantee, but if someone laughs at things other people find rather less funny, it could be a sign that they appreciate things other people haven’t noticed — and, even more importantly, a sign that they are independently minded.

Yes, there’s a chance they are just crazy folks, but who knows? Maybe they are the real geniuses. As Carl Sagan once said:

“Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage.” — Carl Sagan