Peter McGraw works to get a laugh right away - either through his words or his sweater vest.
McGraw, a marketing and psychology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, opened his talk yesterday with a gesture to his outfit. As part of the Authors@Wharton program, he and Esquire editor at large A.J. Jacobs collaborated to explain the science of humor in Huntsman Hall. McGraw researches humor, or what constitutes a funny joke, while Jacobs writes with an aim to entertain.
McGraw runs the Humor Research Lab and recently developed the benign violation theory, which explains that humor often comes from the combination of safety and a sense of wrongfulness.
“If on your way home tonight, a creepy guy in a trench coat tried to tickle you - that’s purely violation,” McGraw said. However, the same situation would be funny with the security of a close friend or relative, he added.
Jacobs, on the other hand, practices the art of humor. He has written four books based on his life’s adventures, which have included reading a full encyclopedia, living strictly according to the Bible and trying to become the healthiest man on Earth using a treadmill desk and extreme diets. His latest work, “My Life as an Experiment,” was distributed to the event’s attendees.
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Jacobs' interests recently expanded to include genealogy. His next book will detail his quest to create the largest family tree ever, culminating in a world record-breaking family reunion on June 6, 2015. Using the internet, Jacobs discovered he is distantly related to people from Gwyneth Paltrow to Albert Einstein.
He invited everyone listening to come to the reunion.
“I’m serious - I want you there,” he said to a room of nervous chuckling. “You can come even if we’re not related.”
Near the end of the event, McGraw asked Jacobs how many cousins he had - apparently, 75 million.
“That really cuts back on the dating pool,” McGraw said.
“Not at all,” Jacobs said. “I married my cousin.”
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Jacobs embarked on the genealogy project because he found that people tend to treat their families better than they do strangers. He added that he believes humans would be kinder to each another if they realize how interconnected they are.
McGraw will explain his benign violation research in his upcoming book, “The Humor Code,” which he co-authored with Joel Warner. It will fittingly come out on April 1.
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