HISTORY OF HUNGARY IN THE
20TH CENTURY IN THE MIRROR
OF POLITICAL JOKES
JUDIT UJLAKY
Erasmus Intensive Programme, Budapest,
8-19 March, 2010
The psychology of humour



Definitional problems (action, writing or speech –
amusement, joy – production and appreciation)
Historical changes
Psychological components:
–
–
–
–

Cognitive: humour comprehension
Emotional: positive emotions
Behavioural: laughter
(pseudo-) Social: togetherness
Psychological functions:
–
–
–
Positive feelings (creativity, flexibility)
Communication and manipulation (implicit message,
face-saving)
Tension reduction and coping (reframing, agression)
Forms of humour



Jokes (setup - expectations, punchline –
alternation of the meaning), independent of
the context, 10%
Spontaneaous conversational humour: nonverbal signs, context-dependent, biggest
category
Unintentional humour: phisical and linguistic
forms (logical fallacies, freudian slips)
The social psychology of humour





Inconsistencies and absurdities of life can only be dealt
with a humourous approach
Jokes define norms, controll behaviour
Status- and hierarchy maintainance
Group-identity and cohesion
Social representations: concepts and explanations about
the everyday life anchored in the communication
–
–
Objectification: jokes as figurative cores: abstract into concrete
phenomena
Anchoring: new/theatening ideas converted into known
categories (stages: data generation, psychological anchoring,
sociological anchoring, psychosocial anchoring)
Identity and social representations



SR define those dimensions alongside which
we can make distinctions between groups
Commonly shared SRs: sense of
toghetherness
Constantly re-organised, re-structured group
history: (sense of continuity, sense of
competence, need for distinctiveness –
positive social identity)
HUMOUR AS COPING
MECHANISM



Definitional problems: as one of the coping
mechanisms or personality trait (mature, healthy
person)
Humour as the healthiest, most mature coping
mechanism (other means of effective coping are
accessible)
Sense of humour + use of humour in threatening
situations: healhty, mature person (even the
statistical data are ambiguous)
DIFFERENT CONCEPTS ON HUMOUR AS
COPING STRATEGY


Cognitive re-srtucturalisation of the situation
(transformation of threat into challenge,
competitive inhibition of negative thoughts)
effect of laughter on the bodily state (cardiovascular improvement, fostering the
production of endorphin)
Humour within groups





Conversational humour research
What about bigger, more abstract groups?
Identity construction (basis and tool)
Joke teller’s status within the group: popularity,
but in some cases also he has to be certain that
he is in safety
Two-fold nature: jokes about a broader, more
abstract group, the actual joke-telling is in a
small, virtual group with well-known members
Humour and emotions



Research: seriousness and number of negative life
events - but the broader context is never considered
(i.e. historical-political atmosphere of a country):
research deals with them as they were different
things (as social and personal identity served for
characterising two totally different psychological
phenomena)
not even the threatening situation is unidimensional
Political jokes


Democratic societies: harmless, they circulate
within official channels, citizens’ freedom to tell
them – told by politicians!!!!
Real political jokes in dictatorships (except
military-no spiritual violation and outrage):
reactions, responses to acute tension and
inhibition, unique point of view into the problems
of everyday living, expressions of real, nonofficial opinions
Private or public?



public faces vs. private feelings (Benton): a gap
between the self and the society
not a discrepancy between personal and social
identity just between real, self-made identities
and arbitrary forced and changed identities
not in every society the jokes act as the one and
only way of coping (psychological needs meet
radical changes)
Of which countries PJs should we
analyse?



SU: serious economic problems vs. military
and scientific force
smaller socialist countries: less resourceful,
less possibility to act against the system (or
reprisals)
Identity needs are more important than a
political system (not all dictatorships are
psychologically the same)
Summary



Although the situation seems homogenuous (i.e.
dictatorship), because of other psychological features
(above all identity needs) joking and coping with
humour have different meanings in different societies
within groups, coping mechanisms make different
forms from individual ones
the role of the jokes is rather sociological than
psychological; laugther is important, but in this case,
group membership is much more important
JOKES 1.
- Why is Hungary so small?
- It’s a computer file named Gavrilo Prin.zip
Future Hungarian border guards are learning chemistry
at their academy and they are asked by the lecturer
who is testing their intelligence:"Tell me a
transparent metal!"
Quickly, one of them jumps up and says:"Barbed wire
fence!"
Jokes 2.
Children in communist Hungary are learning about
tragic events...
Teacher:"Kids, what is tragedy?"
Kid 1:"If my doggie died, that were a big tragedy!"
Teacher:"Nope, László,that's not right! If your doggie
dies, that's a problem, but not a tragedy!"
Then she explains...
Teacher:"If our great president, comrade Kádár died,
that were a tragedy!"
Then she asks if they got it right...
Kid 2:"Yes! I understand! So, if comrade Kádár died,
that were a tragedy, but certainly wouldn't be a
problem!"
Jokes 3.
There is a lesson taken from the 20th century of
Hungarian history: radicals emmigrated,
conservatives remained in the country and then were
hanged. Revolutionaires went both ways.
A man enters a restaurant to drink tea in April in 1969.
The waiter asks:
- What kind of tea would you like? Russian or Chinese?
- You know what? Give me a coffee, instead.