Steven Pinker

Right.

For instance, when Stephen was talking about the lost couple and the woman was going to a bookstore and the man was going to a camera shop, the first thing that popped into my head was, well, listen, if you know what's good for you, you better go to that damn bookstore because every husband knows that if I don't show up at the bookstore, I'm in trouble.

Right.

And that's the first thing that popped into my head.

So this is an important point because what humor often does is it establishes common knowledge.

That is, if you get the joke, then what has just been made public is something that you privately knew along.

And so you get that feeling of,

solidarity with the other person, if you're laughing at the same thing, then what was unstated that makes the joke funny is something that you have in common.

That's why humor is such an important bonding agent for, in dating, one of the main criteria in accepting a mate is a sense of humor.

What it means is that you share a lot of common ground, common knowledge.

That is, you can't get the joke unless there is some hidden, unstated premise that makes it work.

And that can bond people.

It can also be a devastating put-down and an intolerable insult.

I give the famous example of the roast at the National Press Correspondents' Dinner during the Obama presidency, where Donald Trump was in the audience.

and Obama made a number of jokes at Trump's expense.

Ordinarily, people are expected to be a good sport and to accept the barbs, showing that they have commonality, common ground with everyone in the room.

But Trump took it personally.

He was visibly fuming and scowling at a joke like, well, it would be good if Donald Trump was president because he could accomplish things like closing Guantanamo because he has a history of running waterfront real estate into the ground.

That's a great joke.

Trump didn't think so.