210. What Makes a Good Sense of Humor?

What’s the difference between dispositional optimism and agentic hope? Are there benefits to taking a long shot, even if it turns out to be an air ball? And how is Angela like an N.F.L. quarterback? This episode originally aired on February 13th, 2022. Hosted by Simplecast, an Ad ...  Show more

Can you quantify emotional intelligence? Who should you hire — someone smart, or someone good with people? And how did Angie do on an online emotional intelligence test? This episode originally aired on February 6th, 2022. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz ...  Show more

Dave and Tamler break the cardinal rule of comedy by trying to analyze it. What are the origins and functions of humor? Can a theory explain what makes us laugh? Is humor entirely subjective? Why would anyone find Mr. Bean funny? Plus, we lose some geek cred by confessing some ...

From the brain’s point of view, what is humor? When something is funny, why do we breathe in and out rapidly? Do other animals laugh? Why do most jokes come in threes? What do mystery novelists, magicians, and comedians have in common? Could AI be truly funny? Join Eagleman this ...  Show more

Why do we laugh, and what makes something funny? A psychologist, a neuroscientist and satirist Mark Humphries weigh in on humour and the brain. 

Laugh and the world laughs with you, or so you might think. But watch any good comedian on TV by yourself and chances are you’ll laugh a lot less than if you were sat in a lively comedy crowd watching the same comedian in the flesh.

But why is that? Do people from diffe ...