February 18, 2026 • 29 mins
Do chihuahuas chuckle? Or jaguars joke? Jorge kids around with animal experts to find out if animals can be funny (on purpose).
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, please take a second and leave us a review
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast.
Thanks a lot. Hey, welcome to Science Stuff, good production,
enuff iHeartRadio. I'm hor hit Cham and today we are
asking whether animals are funny. Well, we know they can
be funny to us, but are they in on the joke?
(00:22):
Do animals have a sense of humor? We're going to
be talking to animal experts, including a scientist involved in
the largest study ever done on whether animals joke around
with each other. So to the laughter and come find
the punchline with us as we answer the question to
(00:42):
animals have a sense of humor? Enjoy. Hey everyone, We're
gonna set up today's episode with a conversation with doctor
Mark Beckoff about the argument that animals understand humor. As
you'll hear, there hasn't been a lot of science looking
(01:03):
into this question, but from what we know of animals,
at least most mammals, doctor Beckhoff thinks animals should be
able to get jokes or at least find some things funny.
Here's my conversation with doctor Mark Beckoff. Well, thank you
doctor Beckoff for joining us. My pleasure can you please
te us your and what do you do?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, my name is Mark Beckoff. I'm a professor of
ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado and Boulder,
and I'm interested in the general field of cognitive ethology,
which is a study of animal minds, their thoughts, their feelings.
You know, what's in them? How do they work? What
do they know? What do they feel?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Now, as I mentioned, there hasn't been a lot of
science looking at humor in animals, but doctor Beckoff's fifty
plus years studying animals tells them they surely must. Well,
today we're interested in one particular coudient ability, which is
humor and understanding humor and having a sense of humor.
So we'll just open with a straight question, which is
(02:07):
do you think animals have a sense of humor?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
You know, I think about it a lot. I think
they do. In fact, I feel sure they have their
own sort of species typical sense of humor, But like
anything else, it's hard to know. I would say I'm
sure they do, but we haven't quite done the studies
that would show that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
According to doctor Beckoff, a lot of people who own
pets or spend a lot of time observing animals would
say animals have a sense of humor, but so far
this is mostly anecdotal. For instance, here are some examples
of when doctor Becoff's dogs act that kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
My dog Jethrow, I have some examples from him and
other dogs with whom I lived. So one example was
he used to run around when there were people there
and maybe he wasn't getting the attention that he wanted.
Oh you're not paying attention to me, run around shaking
his rope or a towel or something in this and
then stop and look to see if people were saying, Oh,
(03:08):
isn't he cute or isn't that me?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You know, it's a.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Tension getting that way, I see, playing keep away. I mean,
my dogs would do this all the time, run up
with an object, sometimes a rope, you know, play tug
a war, and the minute I would reach for the rope,
they would run away and turn around to make sure
that I'm looking at them.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I see.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So another example when I had two dogs defeating next
to one another, and the dog who ate faster would
have an empty bowlt and he would run to the
front door bark, and then when the other dog came
to see who was at the front door, and there
wasn't anyone there. The first dog would go back and
steal his food.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
You know, it's like there's some evidence there that the
animal is aware that you have expectations about what's going
to happen, and then the dog does something to subvert
those expectations or kind of play with your expectations about
what should happen.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Absolutely, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So this is the first clue that maybe animals do
have a sense of humor. Psychologists think that humor, at
least in humans, is based on the idea of having
expectations about a situation and then having something break those expectations.
It also has to do with having theory of mind,
meaning having a sense of what other individuals are thinking
(04:28):
and what they expect to happen. We know animals have
both of those things. We made a whole episode about
whether animals have consciousness a few months ago, so check
that out if you want to learn more. But the
problem in this case is that humor is particularly hard
to verify. Why is it hard to prove that animals
(04:48):
have a sense of humor?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, I mean, in one sense, just because you can't
validate it. I can't say, well, you're trying to humor
me or my friends.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I see.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
So you're saying it's hard to validate because you can't
ask the ad animal, did you do that because you
think it was funny?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah. In other words, part of having a sense of
humor is being funny on purpose. For example, you might
say or do something that other people find funny, but
that doesn't mean necessarily that you have a sense of humor.
You might be doing it by accident, and it's kind
of hard to ask animals about their intentions. Now, you
might be thinking, what if we see an animal laughing
(05:25):
at something, wouldn't that mean they have a sense of humor?
Is there any evidence that animals laugh?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, there's been a lot of research on rodents rats
who produce a vocalization that when you use a sonogram
to look at sort of the components of the vocalization,
it looks like human laughter. And there's some evidence that
some great apes might laugh. Oh really, there's laughing hyaenas.
You know, people have talked about laughing hyaenas.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So there's vocalization, but is there evidence that it's a
response to a subversion of expectation or is it just
a vocalization that could mean something else.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I don't think anybody's looked at that. That would be
a really interesting study.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I guess such a study as no laughing matter. Okay,
joking aside. This did make me wonder if it would
be possible to design an experiment that should you whether
animals have a sense of humor or not. What would
it take to do such an experiment, Like if you
had to try to figure out if dogs have a
(06:33):
sense of humor, what would that experiment look like? And
I gave you ten million.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Dollars, I would take the money and run.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Now that's funny, doctor Beckoff, I know that would be
my sense of humor.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I mean, you really have to look at animals, but
set it up to see whether, say, do they do
things out of context that could be surprising with the
intention of attracting other animals because they think what you're
doing is interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
For example, like if you see a dog severting the
expectation of another dog for their pleasure for play, right.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Or making the other individual inquisitive, you know, having them
really go God, you know what's going on here?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
As it turns out, We're going to talk to another
scientist in the next segment that was involved in a
study that did just this experiment, So stick around for that.
But first I wanted to ask doctor Beckoff, why would
it make sense for animals to develop a sense of
humor at all? What's the point of being funny? Why
(07:37):
do you think humor has evolved in us and potentially
going further back in other animals.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, I think it's enjoyable. It could be very positive,
and it's fun to laugh. Laughing is good, smiling's good.
It could be to alleviate a situation that could get nasty,
to wait a pass time. So I may have seen
this with wild wolves and dogs or free ranging dogs
and coyotes and foxes who used to live in my
neighborhood when I lived in the mountains. They just sometimes
(08:07):
do something that it doesn't make any sense. The only
tenable explanation is they're trying to humor another animal. They're
trying to lighten up the load, let's go play. And
there's been people who argue that having a sense of
humor is common among social species because of this social
effect it could have for increasing group cohesion. So I
(08:30):
like that argument as an evolutionary biologist, because it would
be surprising to think in gregarious social living non humans
that those emotions, those capacities haven't evolved.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I see it.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Because they're really important for forming and maintaining groups.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
We know it has a social use. Humor has a
social use in groups. So it would be our expectation
that animals probably have a sense of humor. Yeah, which
means it would be funny. If they didn't, would be funny,
it would be odd. Okay, we're now going to get
to the first ever scientific result that shows that non
human animals can have a sense of humor. When we
(09:11):
come back, we're going to talk to one of the
scientists involved in this study, which looked at a form
of humor scientists call playful teasing. Do chimpanzees and a
ragged tans joke around with each other? I kid you not.
We'll get to that answer, so stay with us. We'll
be right back. Okay, welcome back. We're talking about whether
(09:41):
animals have a sense of humor, and so far we've
talked about the argument for the idea that animals, at
least social animals have evolved to be funny as a
way to bond with each other. I mean, remember the
last time someone told you a joke and you laughed
a lot, you probably liked that person a little more
or felt a little cl to them. But as we
(10:01):
also talked about, there hasn't been a lot of science
done to see if this argument is actually true until recently.
In twenty twenty four, scientists from the Universities of California,
Los Angeles, and San Diego published the result of one
of the largest studies ever done that shows that non
human animals do joke around. To tell us about this,
(10:24):
I reached out to the lead author of the study,
doctor Isabelle Lamer. Well, thank you, doctor Lahmer for joining
us here.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Welcome.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Can you please tellus who you are and what do
you do.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Yeah, So, I'm a cognitive biologist and I'm currently working
at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. So I'm
basically studying intelligence and emotions in animals, specifically great apes.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Doctor Lahmer and her colleagues doctor Sasha Winkler, Philrico Rossano,
and Erica Cartmeil looked at the behavior of four different
great aid species to see if they showed signs they
had a sense of humor. Now, as we talked about before,
it's kind of hard to ask an animal to tell
you something funny, or to tell them a joke and
(11:10):
see if they laugh. So doctor Lahmer and her colleagues
looked at a behavior related to humor called playful teasing.
What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Playful teasing so, for example, often and withdrawal in children.
So basically, when a child actually offers you an object
and the mother, for example, is reaching for it, but
in the second as the mother actually reaches for it,
this child draws the object back and laughs and looks
at the mother. Yeah, and this can happened repeatedly, right, So,
(11:43):
playful teasing is basically when you tease someone for fun.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
You might poke at them playfully or offer them something
they want and then yank it away at the last second.
It's playful behavior, but it shows a certain sense of humor.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So playful teasing requires similar cognitive processes.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
What did you mean by that? What cognitive abilities.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
That you anticipate others responses, like as I mentioned with
the offer and withdrawal. Actually, there is quite a lot
of things going on in the brain during that because
in the moment that the child actually presents the object,
it knows that the mother will reach for it, so
it will kind of foresee the action right that the
mother will reach for it. And it knows also in
this moment that when I draw it back, I will
(12:29):
create a moment of surprise in the mother. I see,
so this is actually what makes it funny, right, while
the child then also laughs, I'm kind of surprising you
with my action. I'm pretending to give it to you,
but actually I'm drawing it back to see you surprise.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So playful teasing is a form of humor because it
requires you to know that the other individual is expecting something,
and it also requires you to know what it's expected.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Also understanding social norms, so I need to know what
is allowed what is not allowed. I mean children, for example,
tis a lot by actually doing things that are not.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Allowed, right, and they find that funny.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yes, children usually.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Laugh by doing things that are not allowed, like, for example,
reaching towards a hot stove even though they know that
it's not allowed, but just reaching into that direction, checking
the mother's face, and then quickly drawing the hand back,
you know, and doing that repeatedly kind of in a
provocatis way.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I have to sort of think about what's going to
happen in the future, and I also have to put
myself in the mindset of the other person or the
other individual.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, so this is called gury of mind.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And you said, we see this in pre verbal infants,
meaning like really really young kids.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yes, it starts at the age of eight months already.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Oh, I see, at eight months, you're already a pain
in the bud.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah. And to some extent, yes, at.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Eight months you're already spressing out your mother on purpose.
In other words, you can think of playful teasing as
joking around. I see it's a Q and I engaged
in an interaction and we both find it funny, or
only one of us find it funny.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
I mean, it can go both ways, right.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
It can be teazing that is more on the provocative side,
which just one party finds funny and interesting while the
other party is really annoyed. But oftentimes this also can
lead to mutual enjoyment as well.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Uh huh, And doctor Lahmer argues this joking around has
a purpose.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, this also brings you actually to the function of teasing,
which is actually that there's mutual enjoyment and the social
bonds are strengthened, so teazing is a form to basic
Kelly strengthen their relationship.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And so doctor Lahmer and her colleagues try to see
if you could find playful teasing in a four species
of great apes, warnables, rangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
So we basicallyly set out to find instances of teasing
in videos. Actually, so we were basically looking through a
bunch of videos to find events that were basically neither
aggression nor play, but something in between.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
According to doctor Lammer, scientists had studied teasing before, where
one animal pokes at another animal as a form of
aggression or bullying, and they had also studied playfulness before,
which is when two animals played together, But playful teasing
is something different.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
So researchers, for example, they were studying agonistic forms of
cheesing like harassment or bullying, but never.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
The playful side of teasing.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
The playful side was kind of usually studied to as play,
but playful teas is not play.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
It's a different behavior.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
So it's kind of in the gray zone between play
and aggression. That's why we really put a lot of
effort in developing a coding scheme that would actually show
exactly what playful teasing is. And we developed certain criterias
to define playful teasing.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
What the third lumber is saying is that to study
the videos of the four species of apes, she and
her colleagues came up with a checklist or a list
of criteria of what counts as playful teasing or joking around.
So then you made a definition of playful teasing. What
was in that definition, like, what was the criteria?
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So the criteria of playful teasing is that the teasing
is actually one sided, so as a metrical so from
one individual towards the other. That it has playful elements
but also provocative in elements. One important aspect is also
that after the teasing action is basically performed, that the
(17:03):
actor is actually usually looking towards the target, so they
are interested in the reaction of the other, really interested
in the reaction of the other. And another criteria is
that the behavior is repetitive usually and also especially when
the target is not reacting.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
They also do elaboration of behavior.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
That means that they show different forms of behavior, so
the behavior is also very flexible.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I see, like if the other individual doesn't react, they'll
try it again in a different way.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yes, exactly so.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
And oftentimes there's even they might start with a poke,
then it might become a hit. If that doesn't lead
to anything, they might even then jump.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
On the individual.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
So sometimes we could also observe instances like.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
This, I see, I feel like you're almost asking, can
animals be annoying on purpose?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
I mean there is definitely an annoying component to it.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yes, being funny can be annoying sometimes if you're interested
in seeing what this humorous, playful teasing behavior actually looks like.
Doctor Lahmer has posted clips of these videos on her
YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash doctor Isabel Lammer.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Of course, we don't know about the internal world right,
about the emotions that they feel while they do that,
But this is all stuff for future work to look
into that. But for that you would also meet other methods.
So this was just the initial study to really show
that our closest relatives also do show forms of humor,
(18:37):
because before no one was actually speaking about humor in animals,
at least not from a science perspective, right, So.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Doctor Lamber and her colleagues did this study, and now
the question is what did they find do apes display
a sense of humor or playful teasing? When we come back,
I'll ask doctor Lammer what they found and what does
all means about whether animals have a sense of humor?
In other words, what's the puchline? So to stay with us,
we'll be right back. Hey, welcome back. We're talking about
(19:19):
whether animals have a sense of humor or whether it's
only people that are intentionally funny. To answer this question,
doctor Isabelle Lahmer and her colleagues did one of the
first and largest studies of playful teasing in great apes,
looking at the behavior of bonaboes, orangutans, chimpanzees, and gorillas.
(19:40):
As we talked about, playful teasing is a very specific
behavior that the researchers argue requires you to have a
sense of humor, or at least it uses the same
cognitive abilities as having a sense of humor. It's basically
joking around. Now, the question is what did they find
in this study? So what did you find in this
(20:02):
study that you did with your colleagues. What were the results?
Speaker 4 (20:05):
We found that all four species of great apes playfully teased,
So in the bonobos, in the chimpanzees and the gorillas
and the orangutans, they all showed similar forms of teasing.
So we found eighteen different teasing behaviors, and all of
those behaviors were provocative. They were intentional, involved, often playful.
(20:28):
Elements were asymmetric, and when they did a teasing action
that they actually also checked, you know, how the target
was reacting.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yes, the researchers found that apes do joke around, and
they saw one of the total signs that they are
joking around, which is that when one animal would tease another,
they would look back and check to see how the
other animal reacted, as if they were saying, huh, huh,
what do you think is that funny? The researchers also
(20:59):
found that this behave we're usually happened during particular moments
in the apes' lives.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
What we also found is that playful teasing, similar to
teasing and infants, also occurs during relaxed contexts.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
What does that mean that they usually.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Do it when they are, for example, resting or sleeping
and the group is basically quite calm nice?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Then is actually the time usually when you can observe behaviors.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Like this interesting? Does that tell you that they do
it out of boredom maybe, or some form of boredom.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah. I mean even Shane Goodle already described in one
of her books when she studied the Gombat chimpanzees that
adult chimpanzees were basically resting and juveniles were then playfully
jumping on them while the others were resting, you know,
and from behind. So I mean this is apparently a
thing eventually.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, And that's definitely a thing in my house when
my kids were younger, it was hard to get some rest, yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Yeah, in general, yeah, yeah, And it often also happens
then for example, two individuals are engaged in a certain behavior.
For example, two apes are booming each other and the
teaser is actually then disturbing. This is also similar to
teasing and infants, right, because the mother might read a book, right,
and in a moment, the child, for example, puts the hand.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
In the book. Yeah, and does that repeatedly, you know,
to tindle.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I mean that's part of the fun, yeah, yeah, to
interrupt somebody while they're doing something. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
And apes also had stealing, for example, of objects, and
this was not just like I steal something and then
use it myself, but this was actually for example, one
ape was using a tool for expecting food for example,
and the other, for example, was then actually taking.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
The tool away, like stealing the tool.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
But then immediately let go of it and looking at
the target basically a guy. So it's basically stealing without
needing the object itself and without using it afterwards by myself,
but just for it to see the reaction.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, amazing. Doctor Lamber and her colleagues observe eighteen different
kinds of playful teasing in apes, and to be honest,
some of these do sound hilarious.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
I mean the top five were poking of course, hitting
a hindering movement when they would actually for.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Example, one ape was going by and the other would
quickly catch the foot and pull on it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Yeah, so we had quite a lot of instances like that.
Also often a surprise. Many of the teasing events included
an element of surprise.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
I mean that's also part of the fun. Okay, so
great apes do engage in playful teasing behavior, but does
that mean they understand humor?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
There are some anecdote observations of joke like behaviors in
great apes. Maybe you know the gorilla named Coco that
already died, and Penny Patterson. She basically taught Coco how
to do the sign language and to communicate in sign language,
and it apparently happened a couple of times that Coco
(24:24):
was answering to Penny wrongly even though she knew the
correct answer. For example, Penny was asking, Hey, what did
do you put on your toothbrush? And then Coco was
actually signing not toothpaste, but she would sign, for example,
foot and.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Laugh at Coco last. Yes.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yes, But also, I mean, we need to be a
little bit careful also because the training history is not
fully known, like behaviors like that were rewarded in the past.
So that's why we need to be a little bit cautious.
But I personally believe that probably she found it funny,
but I mean we don't.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Know for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I mean, it sounds funny. Brushing your teeth with foot
is yeah, yeah, classic humor in my household. Now I
know what you're thinking. You're probably thinking, I see my
chihuahua chuckle, my cockitoo cackle. Cond Doctor Lamer and her
colleagues figure out if other animals have a sense of humor.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
So the first thing I.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Would do is would look more closely at other primates
other than great apes, and then also at animals that
also live in very complex social groups and that are
also very smart, like for example, prots and kobe. I
mean they are even though they have very small brain.
Research found they have the same neural number as primates
(25:49):
as well, like also dolphins for example. Yeah, I would
first look at these animals. And of course I also
was a cat owner and also a dog owner, and yeah,
again this needs to be really studied, and.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
You need to start looking up cat jokes.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
I think if the people that listen actually have instances
above teasing observed.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
In their animals.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
So Erica Cardinal that I was working on the teasing
study in grade eight, so she actually has a homepage
where she is collecting examples of teasing. So if you,
as a listener, have an animal at home that is
actually repeatedly provocatively teasing you, this would be a good
(26:36):
time to actually record yourself and the animal and send
it to Erica's website.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Oh incredible, We're recruiting test subjects right now.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
If people are interested.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, will I get my name in the paper. I'm
just teasing you. I'm just teasing. Okay, the last question
I had for doctor Lamer was, what is the fact
that animals might have a sense of humor? See about us?
What does that mean for us as humans? Does that
(27:09):
mean that a lot of our behaviors have been there
for a really long time? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:14):
I mean, since we found playful teasing in all four
great ape species, so that means likely that our last
common ancestor, which lived thirteen million years ago, also showed
similar forms of playful teasing.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
So it actually says it shows something about our evolutionary
past sentence. I feel like that humans think, oh, yeah,
they're so special, but actually, when you look more closely
into cognition in great apes, there are many similarities. So
we are more similar than we are different.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
All right, So to recap, there's an argument to be
made that animals and social groups should have a sense humor,
and at least in great aids, we can see that
they do get around with each other. All of this
means I think that the idea that humans are the
only ones that find things funny, i'd just be a
(28:13):
bad joke. I mean, talk about a punchline. Thanks for
joining us, See you next time you've been listening to
Science Stuff. The production of iHeartRadio written and produced by
me Or hitch Ham, credited by Rose Seguda, executive producer
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(28:36):
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Thanks a lot. Hey, welcome to Science Stuff, good production,
enuff iHeartRadio. I'm hor hit Cham and today we are
asking whether animals are funny. Well, we know they can
be funny to us, but are they in on the joke?
(00:22):
Do animals have a sense of humor? We're going to
be talking to animal experts, including a scientist involved in
the largest study ever done on whether animals joke around
with each other. So to the laughter and come find
the punchline with us as we answer the question to
(00:42):
animals have a sense of humor? Enjoy. Hey everyone, We're
gonna set up today's episode with a conversation with doctor
Mark Beckoff about the argument that animals understand humor. As
you'll hear, there hasn't been a lot of science looking
(01:03):
into this question, but from what we know of animals,
at least most mammals, doctor Beckhoff thinks animals should be
able to get jokes or at least find some things funny.
Here's my conversation with doctor Mark Beckoff. Well, thank you
doctor Beckoff for joining us. My pleasure can you please
te us your and what do you do?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, my name is Mark Beckoff. I'm a professor of
ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado and Boulder,
and I'm interested in the general field of cognitive ethology,
which is a study of animal minds, their thoughts, their feelings.
You know, what's in them? How do they work? What
do they know? What do they feel?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Now, as I mentioned, there hasn't been a lot of
science looking at humor in animals, but doctor Beckoff's fifty
plus years studying animals tells them they surely must. Well,
today we're interested in one particular coudient ability, which is
humor and understanding humor and having a sense of humor.
So we'll just open with a straight question, which is
(02:07):
do you think animals have a sense of humor?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
You know, I think about it a lot. I think
they do. In fact, I feel sure they have their
own sort of species typical sense of humor, But like
anything else, it's hard to know. I would say I'm
sure they do, but we haven't quite done the studies
that would show that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
According to doctor Beckoff, a lot of people who own
pets or spend a lot of time observing animals would
say animals have a sense of humor, but so far
this is mostly anecdotal. For instance, here are some examples
of when doctor Becoff's dogs act that kind of funny.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
My dog Jethrow, I have some examples from him and
other dogs with whom I lived. So one example was
he used to run around when there were people there
and maybe he wasn't getting the attention that he wanted.
Oh you're not paying attention to me, run around shaking
his rope or a towel or something in this and
then stop and look to see if people were saying, Oh,
(03:08):
isn't he cute or isn't that me?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You know, it's a.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Tension getting that way, I see, playing keep away. I mean,
my dogs would do this all the time, run up
with an object, sometimes a rope, you know, play tug
a war, and the minute I would reach for the rope,
they would run away and turn around to make sure
that I'm looking at them.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I see.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So another example when I had two dogs defeating next
to one another, and the dog who ate faster would
have an empty bowlt and he would run to the
front door bark, and then when the other dog came
to see who was at the front door, and there
wasn't anyone there. The first dog would go back and
steal his food.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
You know, it's like there's some evidence there that the
animal is aware that you have expectations about what's going
to happen, and then the dog does something to subvert
those expectations or kind of play with your expectations about
what should happen.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Absolutely, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So this is the first clue that maybe animals do
have a sense of humor. Psychologists think that humor, at
least in humans, is based on the idea of having
expectations about a situation and then having something break those expectations.
It also has to do with having theory of mind,
meaning having a sense of what other individuals are thinking
(04:28):
and what they expect to happen. We know animals have
both of those things. We made a whole episode about
whether animals have consciousness a few months ago, so check
that out if you want to learn more. But the
problem in this case is that humor is particularly hard
to verify. Why is it hard to prove that animals
(04:48):
have a sense of humor?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, I mean, in one sense, just because you can't
validate it. I can't say, well, you're trying to humor
me or my friends.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I see.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
So you're saying it's hard to validate because you can't
ask the ad animal, did you do that because you
think it was funny?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah. In other words, part of having a sense of
humor is being funny on purpose. For example, you might
say or do something that other people find funny, but
that doesn't mean necessarily that you have a sense of humor.
You might be doing it by accident, and it's kind
of hard to ask animals about their intentions. Now, you
might be thinking, what if we see an animal laughing
(05:25):
at something, wouldn't that mean they have a sense of humor?
Is there any evidence that animals laugh?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, there's been a lot of research on rodents rats
who produce a vocalization that when you use a sonogram
to look at sort of the components of the vocalization,
it looks like human laughter. And there's some evidence that
some great apes might laugh. Oh really, there's laughing hyaenas.
You know, people have talked about laughing hyaenas.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So there's vocalization, but is there evidence that it's a
response to a subversion of expectation or is it just
a vocalization that could mean something else.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I don't think anybody's looked at that. That would be
a really interesting study.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I guess such a study as no laughing matter. Okay,
joking aside. This did make me wonder if it would
be possible to design an experiment that should you whether
animals have a sense of humor or not. What would
it take to do such an experiment, Like if you
had to try to figure out if dogs have a
(06:33):
sense of humor, what would that experiment look like? And
I gave you ten million.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Dollars, I would take the money and run.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Now that's funny, doctor Beckoff, I know that would be
my sense of humor.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I mean, you really have to look at animals, but
set it up to see whether, say, do they do
things out of context that could be surprising with the
intention of attracting other animals because they think what you're
doing is interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
For example, like if you see a dog severting the
expectation of another dog for their pleasure for play, right.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Or making the other individual inquisitive, you know, having them
really go God, you know what's going on here?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
As it turns out, We're going to talk to another
scientist in the next segment that was involved in a
study that did just this experiment, So stick around for that.
But first I wanted to ask doctor Beckoff, why would
it make sense for animals to develop a sense of
humor at all? What's the point of being funny? Why
(07:37):
do you think humor has evolved in us and potentially
going further back in other animals.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, I think it's enjoyable. It could be very positive,
and it's fun to laugh. Laughing is good, smiling's good.
It could be to alleviate a situation that could get nasty,
to wait a pass time. So I may have seen
this with wild wolves and dogs or free ranging dogs
and coyotes and foxes who used to live in my
neighborhood when I lived in the mountains. They just sometimes
(08:07):
do something that it doesn't make any sense. The only
tenable explanation is they're trying to humor another animal. They're
trying to lighten up the load, let's go play. And
there's been people who argue that having a sense of
humor is common among social species because of this social
effect it could have for increasing group cohesion. So I
(08:30):
like that argument as an evolutionary biologist, because it would
be surprising to think in gregarious social living non humans
that those emotions, those capacities haven't evolved.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I see it.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Because they're really important for forming and maintaining groups.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
We know it has a social use. Humor has a
social use in groups. So it would be our expectation
that animals probably have a sense of humor. Yeah, which
means it would be funny. If they didn't, would be funny,
it would be odd. Okay, we're now going to get
to the first ever scientific result that shows that non
human animals can have a sense of humor. When we
(09:11):
come back, we're going to talk to one of the
scientists involved in this study, which looked at a form
of humor scientists call playful teasing. Do chimpanzees and a
ragged tans joke around with each other? I kid you not.
We'll get to that answer, so stay with us. We'll
be right back. Okay, welcome back. We're talking about whether
(09:41):
animals have a sense of humor, and so far we've
talked about the argument for the idea that animals, at
least social animals have evolved to be funny as a
way to bond with each other. I mean, remember the
last time someone told you a joke and you laughed
a lot, you probably liked that person a little more
or felt a little cl to them. But as we
(10:01):
also talked about, there hasn't been a lot of science
done to see if this argument is actually true until recently.
In twenty twenty four, scientists from the Universities of California,
Los Angeles, and San Diego published the result of one
of the largest studies ever done that shows that non
human animals do joke around. To tell us about this,
(10:24):
I reached out to the lead author of the study,
doctor Isabelle Lamer. Well, thank you, doctor Lahmer for joining
us here.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Welcome.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Can you please tellus who you are and what do
you do.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Yeah, So, I'm a cognitive biologist and I'm currently working
at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. So I'm
basically studying intelligence and emotions in animals, specifically great apes.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Doctor Lahmer and her colleagues doctor Sasha Winkler, Philrico Rossano,
and Erica Cartmeil looked at the behavior of four different
great aid species to see if they showed signs they
had a sense of humor. Now, as we talked about before,
it's kind of hard to ask an animal to tell
you something funny, or to tell them a joke and
(11:10):
see if they laugh. So doctor Lahmer and her colleagues
looked at a behavior related to humor called playful teasing.
What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Playful teasing so, for example, often and withdrawal in children.
So basically, when a child actually offers you an object
and the mother, for example, is reaching for it, but
in the second as the mother actually reaches for it,
this child draws the object back and laughs and looks
at the mother. Yeah, and this can happened repeatedly, right, So,
(11:43):
playful teasing is basically when you tease someone for fun.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
You might poke at them playfully or offer them something
they want and then yank it away at the last second.
It's playful behavior, but it shows a certain sense of humor.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So playful teasing requires similar cognitive processes.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
What did you mean by that? What cognitive abilities.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
That you anticipate others responses, like as I mentioned with
the offer and withdrawal. Actually, there is quite a lot
of things going on in the brain during that because
in the moment that the child actually presents the object,
it knows that the mother will reach for it, so
it will kind of foresee the action right that the
mother will reach for it. And it knows also in
this moment that when I draw it back, I will
(12:29):
create a moment of surprise in the mother. I see,
so this is actually what makes it funny, right, while
the child then also laughs, I'm kind of surprising you
with my action. I'm pretending to give it to you,
but actually I'm drawing it back to see you surprise.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So playful teasing is a form of humor because it
requires you to know that the other individual is expecting something,
and it also requires you to know what it's expected.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Also understanding social norms, so I need to know what
is allowed what is not allowed. I mean children, for example,
tis a lot by actually doing things that are not.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Allowed, right, and they find that funny.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yes, children usually.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Laugh by doing things that are not allowed, like, for example,
reaching towards a hot stove even though they know that
it's not allowed, but just reaching into that direction, checking
the mother's face, and then quickly drawing the hand back,
you know, and doing that repeatedly kind of in a
provocatis way.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I have to sort of think about what's going to
happen in the future, and I also have to put
myself in the mindset of the other person or the
other individual.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, so this is called gury of mind.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And you said, we see this in pre verbal infants,
meaning like really really young kids.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yes, it starts at the age of eight months already.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Oh, I see, at eight months, you're already a pain
in the bud.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah. And to some extent, yes, at.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Eight months you're already spressing out your mother on purpose.
In other words, you can think of playful teasing as
joking around. I see it's a Q and I engaged
in an interaction and we both find it funny, or
only one of us find it funny.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
I mean, it can go both ways, right.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
It can be teazing that is more on the provocative side,
which just one party finds funny and interesting while the
other party is really annoyed. But oftentimes this also can
lead to mutual enjoyment as well.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Uh huh, And doctor Lahmer argues this joking around has
a purpose.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, this also brings you actually to the function of teasing,
which is actually that there's mutual enjoyment and the social
bonds are strengthened, so teazing is a form to basic
Kelly strengthen their relationship.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And so doctor Lahmer and her colleagues try to see
if you could find playful teasing in a four species
of great apes, warnables, rangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
So we basicallyly set out to find instances of teasing
in videos. Actually, so we were basically looking through a
bunch of videos to find events that were basically neither
aggression nor play, but something in between.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
According to doctor Lammer, scientists had studied teasing before, where
one animal pokes at another animal as a form of
aggression or bullying, and they had also studied playfulness before,
which is when two animals played together, But playful teasing
is something different.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
So researchers, for example, they were studying agonistic forms of
cheesing like harassment or bullying, but never.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
The playful side of teasing.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
The playful side was kind of usually studied to as play,
but playful teas is not play.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
It's a different behavior.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
So it's kind of in the gray zone between play
and aggression. That's why we really put a lot of
effort in developing a coding scheme that would actually show
exactly what playful teasing is. And we developed certain criterias
to define playful teasing.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
What the third lumber is saying is that to study
the videos of the four species of apes, she and
her colleagues came up with a checklist or a list
of criteria of what counts as playful teasing or joking around.
So then you made a definition of playful teasing. What
was in that definition, like, what was the criteria?
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So the criteria of playful teasing is that the teasing
is actually one sided, so as a metrical so from
one individual towards the other. That it has playful elements
but also provocative in elements. One important aspect is also
that after the teasing action is basically performed, that the
(17:03):
actor is actually usually looking towards the target, so they
are interested in the reaction of the other, really interested
in the reaction of the other. And another criteria is
that the behavior is repetitive usually and also especially when
the target is not reacting.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
They also do elaboration of behavior.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
That means that they show different forms of behavior, so
the behavior is also very flexible.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I see, like if the other individual doesn't react, they'll
try it again in a different way.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yes, exactly so.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
And oftentimes there's even they might start with a poke,
then it might become a hit. If that doesn't lead
to anything, they might even then jump.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
On the individual.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
So sometimes we could also observe instances like.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
This, I see, I feel like you're almost asking, can
animals be annoying on purpose?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
I mean there is definitely an annoying component to it.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yes, being funny can be annoying sometimes if you're interested
in seeing what this humorous, playful teasing behavior actually looks like.
Doctor Lahmer has posted clips of these videos on her
YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash doctor Isabel Lammer.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Of course, we don't know about the internal world right,
about the emotions that they feel while they do that,
But this is all stuff for future work to look
into that. But for that you would also meet other methods.
So this was just the initial study to really show
that our closest relatives also do show forms of humor,
(18:37):
because before no one was actually speaking about humor in animals,
at least not from a science perspective, right, So.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Doctor Lamber and her colleagues did this study, and now
the question is what did they find do apes display
a sense of humor or playful teasing? When we come back,
I'll ask doctor Lammer what they found and what does
all means about whether animals have a sense of humor?
In other words, what's the puchline? So to stay with us,
we'll be right back. Hey, welcome back. We're talking about
(19:19):
whether animals have a sense of humor or whether it's
only people that are intentionally funny. To answer this question,
doctor Isabelle Lahmer and her colleagues did one of the
first and largest studies of playful teasing in great apes,
looking at the behavior of bonaboes, orangutans, chimpanzees, and gorillas.
(19:40):
As we talked about, playful teasing is a very specific
behavior that the researchers argue requires you to have a
sense of humor, or at least it uses the same
cognitive abilities as having a sense of humor. It's basically
joking around. Now, the question is what did they find
in this study? So what did you find in this
(20:02):
study that you did with your colleagues. What were the results?
Speaker 4 (20:05):
We found that all four species of great apes playfully teased,
So in the bonobos, in the chimpanzees and the gorillas
and the orangutans, they all showed similar forms of teasing.
So we found eighteen different teasing behaviors, and all of
those behaviors were provocative. They were intentional, involved, often playful.
(20:28):
Elements were asymmetric, and when they did a teasing action
that they actually also checked, you know, how the target
was reacting.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yes, the researchers found that apes do joke around, and
they saw one of the total signs that they are
joking around, which is that when one animal would tease another,
they would look back and check to see how the
other animal reacted, as if they were saying, huh, huh,
what do you think is that funny? The researchers also
(20:59):
found that this behave we're usually happened during particular moments
in the apes' lives.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
What we also found is that playful teasing, similar to
teasing and infants, also occurs during relaxed contexts.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
What does that mean that they usually.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Do it when they are, for example, resting or sleeping
and the group is basically quite calm nice?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Then is actually the time usually when you can observe behaviors.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Like this interesting? Does that tell you that they do
it out of boredom maybe, or some form of boredom.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah. I mean even Shane Goodle already described in one
of her books when she studied the Gombat chimpanzees that
adult chimpanzees were basically resting and juveniles were then playfully
jumping on them while the others were resting, you know,
and from behind. So I mean this is apparently a
thing eventually.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, And that's definitely a thing in my house when
my kids were younger, it was hard to get some rest, yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Yeah, in general, yeah, yeah, And it often also happens
then for example, two individuals are engaged in a certain behavior.
For example, two apes are booming each other and the
teaser is actually then disturbing. This is also similar to
teasing and infants, right, because the mother might read a book, right,
and in a moment, the child, for example, puts the hand.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
In the book. Yeah, and does that repeatedly, you know,
to tindle.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I mean that's part of the fun, yeah, yeah, to
interrupt somebody while they're doing something. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
And apes also had stealing, for example, of objects, and
this was not just like I steal something and then
use it myself, but this was actually for example, one
ape was using a tool for expecting food for example,
and the other, for example, was then actually taking.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
The tool away, like stealing the tool.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
But then immediately let go of it and looking at
the target basically a guy. So it's basically stealing without
needing the object itself and without using it afterwards by myself,
but just for it to see the reaction.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, amazing. Doctor Lamber and her colleagues observe eighteen different
kinds of playful teasing in apes, and to be honest,
some of these do sound hilarious.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
I mean the top five were poking of course, hitting
a hindering movement when they would actually for.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Example, one ape was going by and the other would
quickly catch the foot and pull on it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Yeah, so we had quite a lot of instances like that.
Also often a surprise. Many of the teasing events included
an element of surprise.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
I mean that's also part of the fun. Okay, so
great apes do engage in playful teasing behavior, but does
that mean they understand humor?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
There are some anecdote observations of joke like behaviors in
great apes. Maybe you know the gorilla named Coco that
already died, and Penny Patterson. She basically taught Coco how
to do the sign language and to communicate in sign language,
and it apparently happened a couple of times that Coco
(24:24):
was answering to Penny wrongly even though she knew the
correct answer. For example, Penny was asking, Hey, what did
do you put on your toothbrush? And then Coco was
actually signing not toothpaste, but she would sign, for example,
foot and.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Laugh at Coco last. Yes.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yes, But also, I mean, we need to be a
little bit careful also because the training history is not
fully known, like behaviors like that were rewarded in the past.
So that's why we need to be a little bit cautious.
But I personally believe that probably she found it funny,
but I mean we don't.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Know for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I mean, it sounds funny. Brushing your teeth with foot
is yeah, yeah, classic humor in my household. Now I
know what you're thinking. You're probably thinking, I see my
chihuahua chuckle, my cockitoo cackle. Cond Doctor Lamer and her
colleagues figure out if other animals have a sense of humor.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
So the first thing I.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Would do is would look more closely at other primates
other than great apes, and then also at animals that
also live in very complex social groups and that are
also very smart, like for example, prots and kobe. I
mean they are even though they have very small brain.
Research found they have the same neural number as primates
(25:49):
as well, like also dolphins for example. Yeah, I would
first look at these animals. And of course I also
was a cat owner and also a dog owner, and yeah,
again this needs to be really studied, and.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
You need to start looking up cat jokes.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
I think if the people that listen actually have instances
above teasing observed.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
In their animals.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
So Erica Cardinal that I was working on the teasing
study in grade eight, so she actually has a homepage
where she is collecting examples of teasing. So if you,
as a listener, have an animal at home that is
actually repeatedly provocatively teasing you, this would be a good
(26:36):
time to actually record yourself and the animal and send
it to Erica's website.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Oh incredible, We're recruiting test subjects right now.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
If people are interested.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, will I get my name in the paper. I'm
just teasing you. I'm just teasing. Okay, the last question
I had for doctor Lamer was, what is the fact
that animals might have a sense of humor? See about us?
What does that mean for us as humans? Does that
(27:09):
mean that a lot of our behaviors have been there
for a really long time? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:14):
I mean, since we found playful teasing in all four
great ape species, so that means likely that our last
common ancestor, which lived thirteen million years ago, also showed
similar forms of playful teasing.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
So it actually says it shows something about our evolutionary
past sentence. I feel like that humans think, oh, yeah,
they're so special, but actually, when you look more closely
into cognition in great apes, there are many similarities. So
we are more similar than we are different.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
All right, So to recap, there's an argument to be
made that animals and social groups should have a sense humor,
and at least in great aids, we can see that
they do get around with each other. All of this
means I think that the idea that humans are the
only ones that find things funny, i'd just be a
(28:13):
bad joke. I mean, talk about a punchline. Thanks for
joining us, See you next time you've been listening to
Science Stuff. The production of iHeartRadio written and produced by
me Or hitch Ham, credited by Rose Seguda, executive producer
Jerry Rowland, and audio engineer and mixer Kasey Peckram. And
(28:36):
you can follow me on social media. Just search for
PhD Comics and the name of your favorite platform. Be
sure to subscribe to sign Stuff on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and please
tell your friends We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode.
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Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!