because the inconsistency is instantly resolved. They resolve the
tension well before the punchline is delivered and the joke just
isn’t funny to them.
The study found that sensation-seeking not only influences
the type of humor but also the content of the humor. This plays out
in their jokes too. High sensation-seekers who score high in disin-
hibition aren’t as offended by sexual overtones in humor and tend
to find these types of jokes funnier than those who might score
higher in disinhibition.^9
If you aren’t a sensation-seeker you may find nonsense humor
silly because you can’t find the logic in it. You might find sexual
overtones in humor off-putting. This could lead to awkward situations
when sensation-seekers are telling sexually provocative or nonsense
jokes. Additionally, sensation-seekers may not always be aware when
they have gone too far (we’ll talk more about this inChapter 7).Vicarious Experiences
Music, art, television, or movies can involve exciting conflict, risk,
and chaos that are particularly attractive for those with high sensa-
tion-seeking personalities. Even though these vicarious experi-
ences are not thrilling in the sense of being risky or requiring
intense focus, they attract high sensation-seekers because they are
interesting, or “arousing,” as psychologists say, touching on the
experience-seeking aspect of sensation-seeking.
The more unusual, complex, or surprising something is, the
more likely it is to have a higher arousal potential. Imagine some-
one walking through the mall dressed as Santa in March. This
would have a high arousal potential. But the same thing in
December would have almost no effect. It’s the unusualness – the
surprise – that causes the arousal.
But repetition of an arousing stimulus reduces arousal
through habituation. Put simply, the more you’re exposed to some-
thing, the less arousing it becomes. The first time I saw the movie
Final Destination, in which the main character thinks he and his
friends have cheated death, but death hunts them down and kills
them in ever more gruesome and unexpected ways, it was so frigh-
tening that I didn’t sleep for a week. But if I watched the same
movie 50 times (please don’t make me), the 50th time would be
much less terrifying than the first. That’s the power of habituation:
it drains the arousal potential.52 / Buzz!Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:18:13, subject to the Cambridge