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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 19, 2026

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

Published on: April 6, 2018

Humour as Resistance: Deviance and Pathology from a Ludic Perspective.

Ivette Cardeña, Roland Littlewood

Anthropology & Medicine

|June 9, 2016

Summary

Street humor in socially dysfunctional communities re-frames interactions and identity. Understanding this humor as a complex communication act is vital for mental health professionals to bridge gaps and overcome community resistance.

Area of Science:

Social psychology
Anthropology of communication
Psychopathology studies

Background:

Humor is considered a higher form of social cognition.
Previous work (Cardeña, 2003) explored humor's role in social identity assertion.
Street humor in a slum community with social dysfunctions was observed.

Purpose of the Study:

To scrutinize the role of 'pathology' through the lens of humor theory, the ludic, and meta-communication.
To emphasize the significance of socially patterned psychopathology as a communicative act.
To analyze the discontinuity between street humor and mental health perspectives.

Main Methods:

Participant observation within the community.
Analysis of community documents.

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Clinical work with community members.

Main Results:

Street humor serves to re-classify messages, situations, and relationships.
Deviant and aberrant behaviors function as ludic processes with higher signification.
Mental health agents often overlook the communicative nature of these behaviors.

Conclusions:

Addressing socially patterned psychopathology as a communicative act is crucial.
Failure to recognize humor and ludic processes in psychopathology hinders communication.
This communication gap perpetuates community resistance to mental health interventions.