If you can laugh at comics, jokes or memes about death, disaster and destruction, you might just have a dark sense of humor. Also known as Black Humor, Dictionary.com defines it as “a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic.”
The dictionary also notes that “Black humor is a kind of comedy that jokes about serious or depressing topics, such as hopelessness, suffering, or death. The ‘black’ in ‘black humor’ refers to the dark or depressing subject matter that is central to such comedy.”
A study published in the journal Cognitive Processing found that someone’s reaction to dark humor might very well indicate their level of intelligence. The Austrian researchers said dark humor purveyors may have higher IQs, show lower aggression and resist negative feelings better than those who don’t like twisted jokes.
156 people took part in the study. 76 females and 80 males, with different levels of education. Each person was shown 12 cartoons depicting various types of dark humor. The cartoons came from German artist Uli Stein’s "The Black Book". The participants were asked if they understood the jokes and whether they found them funny. They also did some IQ tests and had their mood and aggressive tendencies assessed.
At the end of the study, there were three groups of people. “The first group was of average intelligence, with ‘moderate’ levels of aggression. They reported a moderate appreciation of black humor. A second group with high levels of aggression were rated as average in terms of both intelligence and their ability to comprehend the black humor. However, this group appreciated such humor the least of the 3 groups,” reported Psychologist World.
“The final group reported the highest appreciation of black humor. This group was found to have higher verbal and nonverbal intelligence levels, but had the lowest levels of aggression amongst the 3 groups.”
Psychologists say humor can be an effective coping mechanism. Even in times of war. Researchers interviewed about 50 former Vietnam prisoners of war. Their study found that the POWs they were suffering from almost zero mental illnesses. And that they had their sense of humor to thank. "Through the creation of humor in a well-defined system of social support, these fiercely independent men learned to rely on their own power and to draw a sense of mastery from each other," noted the paper.
A separate, more recent study looked at how Israeli terror attack survivors benefited from humor. “Results suggested that benign styles of humor were associated with survivors’ lower levels of trauma-related symptoms and also had a buffering effect for the spouse,” said the researchers.
