Begging for laughs

Eduardo Jáuregui
Psychologist and Humour Consultant

CHARITIES ARE PERPETUALLY IN NEED of two things. One of them is the contents of our piggy banks. The other is a faculty theoretically owned by everyone but which has gone AWOL in the charity world: a sense of humour.

Charity websites, magazines and pamphlets do not make fun reading - and perhaps understandably so. They deal with issues that are no laughing matter, designed to attract our empathy.

“Positive emotions can be very good at making us more generous”

But the typically grim treatment given to these issues creates a picture of humanity and the world that is often as unrealistic as it is depressing. We respond with negative emotions like fear, grief, anger and guilt – which force us into giving and often leave us with the feeling of having been manipulated.

Perhaps worst of all, the solemn texts about germ-ridden water, downtrodden workers or care of the elderly are as likely to drive us to distraction than make us generous.

Charities are missing a trick. Positive emotions can be very good at making us more generous. Psychologists have found that people who are in a good mood tend to be more altruistic – ready to give to others of their own volition. And one of the easiest ways of creating a good mood (indeed the one favoured by psychologists due to its low cost and effectiveness) is humour.

“Charlie Chaplin became comedy’s number one icon in the role of a homeless tramp”

Can we be funny without being insensitive – ie, without resorting to jokes about starving Ethiopians? Of course we can. Several charitable organizations occasionally pull it off; Comic Relief and its Red Nose Day are shining examples.

It is worth recalling that Charlie Chaplin became comedy’s number one icon in the role of a homeless tramp, and treated a number of “serious” topics, from blindness to xenophobia to war, with both humour and an exquisite sensitivity towards the victims involved.

Chaplin, once said that “Life is a tragedy in close-up, but a comedy in the long-shot”, and he demonstrated that if you treat social issues from that comic long-shot, people will not only listen to you but even give you the contents of their piggy banks. Funny isn’t it?