60秒科学:轻微的道德越界会使我们轻松一笑（在线收听）

如果你听到一个涉及轻微道德越界的故事，而且这个故事跟你没有什么关系的话，你会不会当做笑话，一笑而过呢？

Everyone from Freud to Tina Fey has tried to understand why some things are funny. Now, new research concludes that one key to comedy is for a situation to violate a moral standard, but in a gentle way.

Researchers presented volunteers with a number of different scenarios. For example, the Jimmy Dean sausage company needs a spokesman for its new line of pork products, so they hire Rabbi Shlomo Rosenfield. Or, so they hire a farmer. Participants were more likely to find the rabbi scenario wrong, but they were also more likely to think it was funny.

The researchers found that participants would laugh at situations with moral violations if, for example, they felt that situation was hypothetical, harmless or involved people unconnected to the listener. The study appears in the journal Psychological Science.

The finding deviates from previously published psychology studies which equate moral violation solely with disgust. It also proves that Mel Brooks was onto something when he said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open sewer and die.”