🔗 Share this article

"What was the price did Santa's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This joke is greeted with groans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that makes supplies for social events. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the joke. But the pun has been selected and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," she says.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, children and potentially neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

Gathering to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is probably to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are chuckling with people at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammalian play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin release," the professor adds.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with friends over a particularly awful Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly pun with a Christmas cracker," she says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important task of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you love."

What Occurs In the Brain?

But what is truly taking place inside the mind when we hear a joke?

An awful lot occurs in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood flow.

Testing involves imaging the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a database of humorous phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a very fascinating activation pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding speech, but also brain areas associated with both planning and initiating motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Put these elements together, and individuals listening to a pun have a complex set of brain reactions that underpin the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with chuckles there is a stronger response in the mind than the same phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to move your face into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

It indicates people are not just responding to funny jokes, they are reacting to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found around a Christmas gathering?

"People laugh harder when you know people," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good effect is more probable to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate gag?

Probably not, but that has not stopped experts from attempting to.

Years ago, a professor established a scientific project for the planet's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke needs to be short, he explains.

"But they also be poor jokes, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

The more "terrible" the gag, he says the more effective.

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker jokes is that not one person considers them funny.

"That's a common moment around the gathering and I think it's wonderful."