In Ancient Times the Greek philosopher Plato was the first one to give an answer to the question why do people laugh. He stated that you are laughing because you are feeling better the person in front of you. According to Plato laughing equals laughing someone out.

After Plato many other people have been thinking about laughter and humour.

You laugh because you want to create a bond with the other person, to let the other person know how great you like him or her. If a friend tells you a good joke, you probably will laugh very loudly. But will you also laugh when the joke is being told by your not so friendly neighbor ?

The Conclusion

All these theories talk about 3 different things:

1. They talk about the form of the humour,
2. They talk about the message that is in the humour and
3. The talk about the effect that the humour has.

The form: it’s usually the contrast or difference between two aspects that on first sight can’t interact with each other but both aspects are real.
The message: it always is about people even when the message is about weird things or objects. The difference can be in many ways: what people think they are, what people think is real, what people think is (their) reality, what is the moral and the ideoliest reality, what kind of aspect one doesn’t see or the real reality.
The effect: recovery of one owns balance by accepting the unaccepted.