The meaning of the joke about the hat is just that. "Impaired sense of humor in schizophrenia and affective disorders

Story eleven

One student studied at our institute. His name was Vanya. Actually, he was actually Andrei, but for some reason everyone addressed him as Vanya. And he got so used to it that he himself forgot what his real name was, and introduced himself to everyone by his new name, and did not mention the old one at all.
So, Vanya really loved jokes. He had one, a favorite one, which he told everyone at every opportunity. It sounded like this:
- A man bought a hat, and it was just right for him.
Those who listened to the joke and thus received their due dose of humor invariably shrugged their shoulders and asked:
- Well?
Vanya explained condescendingly:
- What do you wear a hat on?
- On the head.
-Well? - Vanya looked at his interlocutor with a victorious look.
- What? - he didn’t understand.
- Got it?
- No.
Vanya again impatiently repeated the joke:
- Well, the man bought a hat.
- Well? - his interlocutor encouraged him. - Further!
- And she’s just right for him. Just right, you know? Just the right one for him!
- So what?
- Well, what do you put a hat on?
- On the head.
- Well?
- What?
Seeing that the conversation was turning to the 2nd circle, Vanya hopelessly waved his hand and walked away, leaving the interlocutor in some bewilderment as to what, after all, he meant.
One day Vanya himself was lucky enough to become the hero of his favorite story.
In his younger years, he was no stranger to some francy and tried, whenever possible, to dress stylishly. One day he dressed himself in a long cloak and a wide-brimmed elegant hat green color in retro style, its style personifies the fashion of the 30s.
Where, in what depths of his grandmother’s wardrobe, he found this rarity, Vanya did not tell us. He rightly believed that his hat was, in its own way, unique, that such a style could not be seen anywhere on the street, which means that he was dressed in a completely original way, and... he miscalculated.
At one of the metro stations, a poorly dressed, ancient old man entered the train in which we were traveling. His outfit copied Vanya’s wardrobe exactly (including Vanya’s pride - his stylish hat), with the only difference being that both the cloak and the once fashionable headdress, 50 years ago, were incredibly torn and dirty.
Apparently, the old man, due to poverty, simply did not have any other clothes, and he continued to wear them without taking them off from the moment he bought them. The contrast, despite the complete similarity of style, was nevertheless striking. Vanya looked at the old man’s outfit with dignity, incl. and his hat with the brim frayed.
“Here’s a scarecrow,” he muttered through his teeth.
We burst out laughing.
We no longer saw Vanya in his raincoat or his wonderful hat - he began to dress, like most of us, in a jacket and jeans. Subsequently, he completely lost interest in clothes, leaving it to following fashion young girls, as, indeed, their mothers, because everyone knows that ladies’ passion for outfits has no age.
***
Only, many years later, Vanya’s mysterious anecdote about the hat made sense in my mouth. youngest son Steppes (Through the mouth of a baby...?). He accidentally heard this joke and said:
- I thought this story was about Boyarsky.
- Why about Boyarsky? - we were surprised.
- Well, of course: Boyarsky bought a hat, and it was just right for him!

Trelawney to Hermione:
“You have nothing that is necessary for the noble art of divination!”
- Wonderful! My patience has run out. I'm leaving.
Trelawney motions to Lavender, who removes the ladder from the hatch behind Hermione's back. Trelawney:
- I have never had students who saw the future so poorly...
Hermione tries to climb out through the hatch, does not notice that there is no ladder, and falls with a squeal.
Trelawney:
- And the present.
Hermione can be heard screaming from below: “Damn!!! What was that?!”
Trelawney:
- And the past.

Hagrid lived near Hogwarts in a house with the inscription "To Outsiders X..."

A ministerial commission is awaiting at Hogwarts. Dumbledore gives instructions to everyone:
-And the most important thing is that no matter what happens, pretend that this is how it should be.
And then the commission arrives. The professors and Umbridge are walking along the corridor, suddenly a basilisk crawls out of the toilet, and Voldemort is on it. Voldemort waves his wand and Avado kills Harry Potter. Minerva looks at her watch:
- Exactly noon. Everything is exactly according to your plan, Headmaster Dumbledore.

Snape from the Lord's headquarters sends an owl to Dumbledore at Hogwarts:
"Voldemort is moving his attack on Hogwarts forward by a month. I'm glad everyone at school will finally get a break."
Dumbledore sends Snape a reply:
"Severus, please clarify: which syllable do you put emphasis on in the last word?"

Bill says to Madam Pomfrey:
- I was bitten by a werewolf!
Pomfrey, excited:
- You need to give an injection in the stomach!
Bill:
- With a syringe?
Standing nearby Snape, melancholy:
- With a silver stake...

The first chapter of "Deathly Hallows". Malfoy Manor, Voldemort kills Charity Burbage.
Narcissa quietly nudges Lucius in the side:
- Look at our son. Do you see what his face is like?
- Yes.
- I want a dress of the same green color.

"Dear Madam Malkin,
Due to the fact that I have been appointed Minister of Magic, I ask you to send me a robe strict style.
Yours sincerely: Rufus Scrimgeour."
"Dear Sir,
I congratulate you on your appointment and send you the most formal robes available. She is really very strict and for the slightest stain she slaps her in the face with her sleeve.
Sincerely: Madame Malkin."

Snape is brewing some kind of potion. Harry stands nearby, having come for detention.
Snape (sternly):
- Try one of these two potions!
Harry scratches his head and drinks the first drink he gets.
- I tried it.
-You don’t feel anything?
- Nothing.
- At all?
- At all.
- Hmm... Then stick the inscription “Poison” on the second flask.

Cuckoo cuckoo, how long do I have to live?
- Ku-ku! Cuckoo! Ku... FLAMMEL, YOU BAFTARE, YOU AGAIN?!!!

Snape to Harry Potter, during the next healing:
- Drink some poison, creature! Ugh! I wanted to say: "Drink the herbal tea."

Voldemort to Tom Riddle Sr.:
- Please, make your chin higher! Head a little to the right! Unfold your shoulders! Let's look here. Like this. Great! Avada Kedavra!

News in the Prophet, August 1, 1997:
"Yesterday, during Operation Seven Potters, Alastor Moody, nicknamed Mad-Eye, one of the members of the Order of the Phoenix and right hand Albus Dumbledore. This is the third right hand of Albus Dumbledore lost during the Second War with the Dark Lord."

Axiom from Alastor Moody: - If something looks like a duck, swims like a duck, flies like a duck, quacks like a duck, tastes like a duck, then it... is still an Eater!

Conversation between two UPSs:
- Is the Chief already alive?
- Not yet.

Hermione is having a nightmare. It’s as if Voldemort stands up at a council meeting and says:
“And now Hermione, my faithful right hand, will give a report on new ways to destroy Muggles, and then talk about the modifications of Cruciatus and Avada that she has improved!”
And she's not ready...

Do you know that…
To preserve the giant squid, drinking beer is prohibited at Hogwarts.

Dumbledore shares with Farge.
- You know, complete unanimity has finally been achieved at the School. Even between Gryffindor and Slytherin!
- How is that?
- Yes, Snape assigned an essay here at DADA: To the vultures: “How would I catch Lucius Malfoy”, to the Slytherins - “How would I help Lucius Malfoy.” And for everyone it ended with the same phrase!
- Which one?
- “And damn if they proved it!”

“And I’m increasingly noticing that it’s as if someone has replaced me...”
©Mad-Eye Moody

Voldemort (thoughtfully):
-I found Elder Wand. I took it from the owner's grave against his will. I killed her last owner, Severus Snape. Why doesn't it work?
Harry (sneering):
-Why-why. Because you didn't take the safety off.

The Hogwarts Express is on its way. In the first compartment there are two Hogwarts students with IQ=200:
-And yesterday, for the sake of experiment, I added three ounces of crushed daisies, collected during the third phase of the moon, to the Cheerful Potion - can you imagine, some disappeared side effects like having to sing at the top of your voice!
In the second compartment there are two students with IQ=160:
-Do you remember the five exceptions to Gamba’s law on elementary transformations? It's such a shame that you can't transfigure food out of thin air...
In the third compartment there are two students with IQ=120:
-Do you remember yesterday's match with the Slytherins? How they cheated on Cedric, where only Madame Trick looked...
In the fourth compartment there are two students with IQ=80:
-Do you remember what those cakes were that made us want to eat so much? So, listen, it dawned on me: it was the Mudblood Granger who slipped them in!
There are two more students in the fifth compartment:
-So you really hyped up your aunt? Cool!!

“I’m a small person!” - Professor Flitwick said and hit below the belt.

Madame Pince bursts into Dumbledore's room:
-Director, we have Voldemort in the reading room!
Dumbledore (with interest):
-And what is he reading?

Sirius Black falls from one of the Hogwarts towers:
- Hold m-e-e-e-en, I’m going to die!!!

Narcissa Malfoy sits with a sour expression on her face. Lucius approaches her:
-Darling, what’s wrong with you?
-I'm ashamed, Lucius, oh, so ashamed...
-And what happened?
-Blaise Zabini's mother has already invited me to my husband's funeral 7 times... and I have never invited her...

Tom Riddle and the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. Basilisk:
-Master, am I poisonous?
Riddle:
-Yes.
-Very?
-Very!
- Well, that's it, p@*%ets, I bit my tongue!

Professor Severus Snape loved potions, logic and holidays. Therefore, waking up after a stormy party with a buzzing head, red eyes and shaking hands, Harry Potter knew for sure that seventeen absolutely identical containers and yellowed parchment were waiting for him on the nightstand near the bed and yellowed parchment on which it was written: “The brine is not in the left end of the flask and not in middle. Sulfuric acid is not on the right. Aqua regia is not near hydrocyanic acid. Two of these statements are false. C Good morning, Mister Potter!"

From the diary of a Pottermaniac:
July, 12. I read fanfic about Ron and Hermione. I cried for three hours.
July 13. I read a fanfic about Malfoy. I cried for half a day.
the 14 th of July. I read fan fiction about Voldemort's childhood. I cried all day.
July 15. I read fanfiction about Snape. I cried all day and all night. I almost died from tears.
July 16. I bought the sixth book. I'm reading...
July 17th. It would be better if I died on Friday!

Pansy Parkinson's birthday.
Goyle: "Well, I'm getting flowers!"
Crabbe: "Then I'm for firewhiskey!"
Zabini: "Well, I'll get the cake!"
Malfoy: “And I won’t be left alone with her either!”

Snape was completely exhausted: he needed to please the Lord, and Dumbledore, and torment one of the Gryffindors at school... And one morning he wrote himself a plan of action for the day (he decided that it would be easier):
1. Complete a minor assignment from Voldemort.
2. Convince Dumbledore that everything is going according to plan and good will win.
3. Remove points from Gryffindor.
Evening. Tired Snape writes a note to the Lord:
“My Lord, I assure you, good will win at all costs! I’m sending Dumbledore’s glasses, I just took them off!”

Snape wrote a fic. There are a lot of heroes, the rating is exorbitant, the genre is PWP, the pairing is everything with everyone, there are both het and slash, plus to everything - BDSM, bestiality, necrophilia and all possible and impossible perversions...
Last line of the fic:
“And Professor Snape, beautiful and crystal clear in soul and body, proudly looked at the madness going on and rejoiced that he was above all this.”

Professor Snape, I congratulate you on your birthday and wish you all the best!
- Thank you, Mister Potter! And no one congratulated me, not a single bastard, except you!

Once upon a time he meets Harry Remus Lupin, drunk to death.
- Remus? Is that you?
Lupin, proudly:
- Howl, howl and howl!

Gilderoy Lockhart is Lucius Malfoy on antidepressants.

Mundungus comes to join the Order of the Phoenix. They tell him:
- We just don’t accept it! Here are some leaflets for you, if you distribute them, we will accept them.
He's gone for a day, two, three... Finally he comes.
- Why so long?
Mundungus, taking a wad of money from his pocket:
- Well, what a product you gave me!

Voldemort: I don't fully understand how it happened. Perhaps something was copied and moved, it doesn't matter now. The main thing is that you are my Horcrux.
Harry: Congratulations.
Voldemort: Nothing.

Harry: - I don’t understand, sir, why do you always answer a question with a question?
Dumbledore: - What's wrong with that?
Harry: - Here we go again!
Dumbledore: What again?

The best way organize a panic at Hogwarts - ask Slytherin to remain calm.

Returning to the living room, Harry finds Ron in tears.
- What happened, why are you crying?
- You see, I wrote a letter to my parents asking them to send me money for a new magic wand...
- They probably refused you, right?
- Worse. They sent me a new magic wand!

Hermione in front of the mirror, thoughtfully:
- Lush breasts can make even an intelligent woman beautiful....

Drunk as fuck... Dobby bursts into Malfoy's office and says right in the face of the crazy owner: - Fuck you!
Lucius is shocked: - How dare you, you filthy elf?.. I mean you!..
Dobby: - ​​Oh, sorry, sorry...Fuck you...SIR!

Potions. Draco and Hermione work together. Draco, lazy:
- Eh, Granger... You, of course, are a mudblood, but I really want to fuck you...
Innocent Hermione, of course, blushes, turns pale - and runs out of the classroom as fast as she can.
Professor Snape, who was watching this scene, approached unnoticed and quietly:
- Mr. Malfoy, if you are so unbearable, I can help. Granger spends every evening in the library, at a table by the window. Put on a wig, call yourself Potter - and then, you know...
In the evening, Draco, hastily painted a zigzag scar on his forehead and put on a wig, comes to the library and hides behind a bookcase. Soon Hermione arrives there too. Draco, in a loud whisper:
- Hermione! It's me, Harry! I have loved you for a long time, I want you even longer, and you must give yourself to me right now!
Hermione, how a true friend:
- Okay, but I want to keep my virginity, well, you understand... Got it, right?..
After sex, Draco rips off his wig and gloatingly yells:
- Ha ha, and I'm Draco Malfoy!
Hermione also takes off her wig:
- Ha ha. And I'm Professor Snape.

“And even this morning is still good!” - Voldemort thought sadly on the day of his death.

Evening. Dirt. Slush. Cemetery. The sad Death Eaters stand guiltily before Lord Voldemort. Voldemort waves with a magic wand and lazily says:
"Nott!" Nott takes a step forward. "Crucio!" Nott writhes in agony.
"McNair." McNair steps forward. "Avada Kedavra" McNair falls dead.
"Malfoy." Malfoy falls and begins to fight in hysterics, shouting: “No, no!!! I don’t want it, I don’t need it!!!”
Voldemort: "Oops. Malfoy is free. He doesn't want to"

Recently, Neville Longbottom obtained a new substance that no one can wash their hands of to this day.

The owl Hedwig sits, all in bandages, towards Sychik:
- Oh, Hedwig, Hedwig, what happened?
But reluctantly:
- I flew up to the hollow yesterday. I go there: “Ooh!”, I go there, “U-U!”, I go there, “U-U!”, I go there, “U-U!”, I go there, “U-U-U!”, and from there the Hogwarts Express! !!

In potions class:
-Weasley, how to prepare a Sleeping Potion?
-We need to mix...
-Wrong! I ask again, how to prepare a sleep potion?
-You need to grind...
-Wrong! Last time I ask how to prepare a Sleeping Potion?
-I don’t know, Professor Snape!
-That's right, Weasley.

The reborn Voldemort in front of the mirror:
-Wow! 70 years - and not a single gray hair!

Hagrid:
-I will teach CARE OF MAGICAL CREATURES!
Ron, seeing what creatures Hagrid prepared for the lesson:
-And I will teach RUN AWAY from Magical Creatures!

Hermione was exhausted with the Time Turner:
-Yesterday was Friday, tomorrow will be Saturday... Merlin, what about today?

Thinking in patients with schizophrenia is impaired according to a different principle - they make generalizations based on some implicit signs.
Drawing of a patient with schizophrenia

Every year, 8 million citizens officially seek psychiatric help in Russia. 3% of the population suffers from depression and 1% from schizophrenia. In neighboring China, the situation is even more tense: schizotypal disorders affect more than 4 million Chinese. And at the same time, there is still no satisfactory definition, generally accepted by all scientists and doctors, of what schizophrenia is. This is why any new research that brings us closer to unraveling the mysteries of this mental illness is so valuable. Especially if this study is of a very unexpected nature - “Impaired sense of humor in schizophrenia and affective disorders.” This work was carried out at the Department of Neuro- and Pathopsychology, Faculty of Psychology, Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov. A conversation with the author of the study, candidate, about this psychological sciences Alena Ivanova.

– Alena Mikhailovna, what definition of schizophrenic disorders did you proceed from when starting to study such intriguing topic, as “Impaired sense of humor in schizophrenia and affective disorders”?

– It is very characteristic that the first question you asked me concerns not what humor is, but what schizophrenia is. This is very revealing: why ask about humor - and everything is clear! Everyone has their own idea about humor.

- Isn’t that so?

– Indeed, every self-respecting philosopher, since ancient times, has said something about humor. It is traditional to study humor in linguistics and literature. But experimental science became interested in humor relatively recently. This applies not only to psychology, but also, for example, to applied linguistics, or research artificial intelligence. Comic humor is gradually emerging as an independent subject of study, as evidenced by the emergence of thematic associations such as the American Humor Studies Association and the International Society for Humor Studies.

- And yet, if you consider that, according to expert assessments, in Russia alone, almost one and a half million people suffer from schizophrenic disorders, my first question is quite justified.

– You correctly noted that there is no single clear view of what schizophrenia is, although there are a lot of classifications of its forms. My research involved three groups of patients: patients with sluggish and attack-like progressive schizophrenia, as well as affective disorders.

In domestic psychiatry, low-progressive, or sluggish, schizophrenia is distinguished, in contrast to more severe forms. Low-progressive means slowly progressing; that is, low-grade schizophrenia is limited to mental disorders, which, as a rule, do not reach the stage of severe psychosis. Paroxysmal-progressive schizophrenia is one of the more severe forms of the disorder, the most striking manifestations of which are psychotic phenomena: delusions and hallucinations.

Patients with affective disorders are patients with depression or, conversely, manic patients.

Patients with schizophrenia of any form always exhibit specific thinking disorders. But that doesn't mean they are stupid. On the contrary, the patients who participated in my research were very smart - for example, students of the faculties of philosophy and mathematics, translators. These are specific thinking disorders that can lead to a specific perception of humor.

- Please clarify. It turns out that with various forms Can schizophrenia study philosophy and mathematics?

– Of course, there is no contradiction in this. With sluggish schizophrenia, there are often no restrictions at all. But even with severe forms of schizophrenia this is quite possible. The fact is that schizophrenia does not violate formal logic. On the contrary, formal logic may even be better developed in these patients... Thinking in patients with schizophrenia is impaired according to a different principle. This is called “distortion of generalization processes.” That is, they make generalizations based on some implicit characteristics.

A typical example. A patient with schizophrenia is asked to compare different concepts– what is common and what is different about them. And the patient says that a shoe and a pencil are very similar objects. From an ordinary point of view, these are very distant concepts. But the patient is surprised: “Why! Both can write something: with a pencil on a piece of paper, with the toe of a shoe on the sand.”

This kind of thinking is basically correct. From the point of view of formal logic, everything is correct! And patients with schizophrenia, when making generalizations, rely on these criteria. By the way, due to this, a rapprochement between schizophrenia and genius occurs, because creativity is also based on some unexpected generalizations, the generation of some unusual metaphors.

It is believed that in patients with schizophrenia, the perception of comic and humor is disrupted by the same mechanism. Their jokes involve combining distant concepts. There is even an opinion that especially intellectual jokes– now we have all sorts of advertising posters full of them: when completely different concepts are combined and humor is based on this, they are invented by patients with schizophrenia. But, nevertheless, healthy people can appreciate it.

– This picture is immediately drawn in the cyberpunk style: patients with schizophrenia sit in basements full of computers or, conversely, in high-rise offices of advertising firms and write advertising slogans, which we read...

– I can only say that not all patients with schizophrenia are in clinics; a very large number of them work, and quite successfully.

“But still, the phrase has become a banality: “Laughter, a sense of humor is a sign of mental health.” And you, then, were engaged in research on humor in people who are not completely mentally healthy. Is there a contradiction here?

– Is humor a sign of mental health? This issue is now being actively discussed on a very serious level. scientific level. This big topic. A lot of experimental and theoretical works. These works also go into the field of physiology, related to immunity (there is a hypothesis that laughter increases the immune status of the body), mental illness, and psychotherapy. The general conclusion that scientists make in Lately, is that not all humor is healthy humor. There is positive humor, adaptive. And there are forms of humor that, on the contrary, are destructive and maladaptive - for example, aggressive, so-called sarcastic humor.

But, paradoxically, there are practically no studies of the sense of humor in mentally ill people. In our country, as far as I know, my work is almost the first study. And in the world this direction is still just beginning to develop. Meanwhile, it is very interesting with different points vision.

In my research, for example, I found out something very useful for diagnosis: in severe forms of schizophrenia, the very recognition of humor is impaired. We presented the patients with mixed phrases: humorous and non-humorous. It turned out that healthy subjects, patients with affective disorders and patients with low-grade schizophrenia easily identified where humor was and where it was not humor (regardless of whether they liked the joke or not). And only patients with attack-like progressive schizophrenia had difficulty recognizing jokes. And this allows us to identify this group of patients and carry out diagnostics.

A reaction - a laugh or a smile - means that the person appreciated your joke. This is a matter of taste above all. And in our research we were talking specifically about recognizing humor. You may not like this or that joke or anecdote, but you understand that the interlocutor was joking. Another thing is that humor is very diverse. It's already subtle nuance. There are semi-ironic statements and the like.

– And there is also “idiotic laughter”┘

– Idiot laughter, generally speaking, is not always connected with humor. It can also occur without humor - laughing gas or marijuana... Therefore, there is a certain blurred line where even a healthy person cannot always determine whether it is said with humor or not.

In our study, we talked about humor that was clearer, more unambiguous. That humor that all the subjects—both healthy and patients with affective disorders—identified exactly as humor. But patients with schizophrenia could not cope with this task.

It was once again confirmed that patients with depression appreciate humor, but their laughter activity and external emotional manifestations decrease.

We tried to identify which types of humor different patients prefer and which, on the contrary, they avoid. As a result, we were able to identify five types of humor that divided our patients.

First, the humor of absurdity. These are jokes that are based not so much on intellectual effort, but on the absurdity of the situation itself. The perception of such humor is more connected with the emotional component. My favorite joke from this series: “A man bought a hat, and it was just right for him.” Patients with schizophrenia do not have a special relationship with the humor of absurdity.

The opposite of humor of absurdity is humor of mystery. We called this type of humor resolving contradictions. This is similar to the perception of riddles. And this humor is especially preferred by patients with schizophrenia. Moreover, the more pronounced the thinking disorders are, the more they like this kind of humor. Most likely, they themselves come up with such jokes in large quantities. Here’s an example: “What are we drinking today? - Yes, this is dry wine. “Well, pour it in!” There is purely linguistic ambiguity here.

As for affective patients, they love a specific kind of humor - we called it cynical-pessimistic. It reflects a cynical, depressive view of the world: everything is bad, everything will only get worse. But nevertheless, this is also humor. For example: “As soon as you get to know a person better, you want to send him away.” Or: “The doctor says to the patient: I have bad news for you. Patient: Am I going to die? Doctor: we will treat you.”

If we talk about manic patients, then this group showed very interesting patterns in the perception of the comic. On the one hand, by definition, they love to laugh and are in a state of euphoria all the time. However, the manic state is believed to be protective: in the background, at the subconscious level, there is depression. And manic patients appreciated this specific, depressive humor most of all.

- It turns out: I saw a cheerful man on the street - go around!

– In general, affective patients evoked a sea of ​​emotions in me while I was conducting the research. They are completely unpredictable. But it was believed that depressed patients do not laugh at all and do not respond to humor. It turned out that this is not so, absolutely not so! I presented depressed patients with jokes to read. It happened that while such a patient was reading a joke, he laughed. But as soon as he finished reading, his facial expression, as they say, “creeps”, and he returns to his depressive state. Or vice versa. I had a manic patient who laughed all the time while we were communicating with him, for absolutely no reason. Except for those moments when he read jokes. He took jokes seriously.

– So, we’ve reached the fourth type of humor┘

- This is indecent humor. This type of humor is not very popular and is ignored even by patients with depression. The same thing applies to sluggish schizophrenia.

– And how can these results be interpreted?

– With depression, the level of expansion into the world decreases, a person closes himself off from everything and everyone. But the perception of indecent jokes is still associated with a certain shockingness: that’s the joke I told!

In patients with low-grade schizophrenia, most likely this reaction to indecent humor is also associated with depression. The fact is that patients with schizophrenia who are in the clinic often lie there with complaints of depression. Interestingly, the more depressed, the less they like indecent humor.

The fifth type of humor. We conventionally designated it as humor that discriminates against the opposite sex. Example. “What's the difference between women and mosquitoes? Mosquitoes are a nuisance only in summer.”

Analyzing these jokes, I realized that, despite their discriminatory, aggressive nature, their goal is rather flirtation, establishing relationships between the sexes, rather than aggression and isolation. It is interesting that an overly “black” joke (“She was beautifully built, although her right arm was sticking out of her suitcase”) received a negative loading on this factor. Paradoxical moment!

Therefore, depressed patients like this humor less; they are not in the mood for any kind of relationship. And with increased thinking disorders, patients with schizophrenia, on the contrary, begin to love this type of humor. Because this type of humor is more catchy; aggression is not such a subtle humor, it is a deliberate manifestation of one’s intentions. For patients with an attack-like progressive form of schizophrenia, aggression can be a sign of a joke. And even the humor of resolving a contradiction, which is most typical for schizophrenics, is also associated with aggression: when we tell someone an intellectual joke, it’s as if we are measuring our intellects with the enemy - will he understand, will he get it?

We asked such patients to make jokes themselves. So, it turned out that all of their jokes were very aggressive, and some did not contain any humor at all, it was pure aggression. True, this is not yet at the level of scientific results, but at the level of observations.

– I’m listening to you, and Freud’s statement keeps coming to mind: “Humanity always laughs at three things: sex, bowel movements and its government.”┘

– You know, similar studies with factorization of joke ratings, but on healthy people, were conducted by the Swiss scientist Willibald Ruch. There are, of course, some nuances, but in general three factors coincide: the humor of the absurd; humor of conflict resolution and sexual humor. (In our research, it was not sexual, but obscene humor: it was not just about sex.)

But when sick subjects are included in this sample, two additional factors arise - cynical-depressive humor and humor that discriminates against the opposite sex. That is for healthy people two last factors do not play a noticeable role in evaluating, for example, an anecdote.

And this fact is very important for diagnosis. Cynical humor is preferred by depressive and manic patients, and humor that discriminates against the opposite sex is preferred by patients with schizotypal thinking disorders. But patients with schizophrenia can simultaneously have depression and thinking disorders.

If we can come up with a working methodology based on the perception of humor, this will make it possible to diagnose the structure of the defect. After all, the current status of the patient is very important for the doctor: what this moment prevails, what you should first pay attention to is a disorder of thinking or a depressive state.