Penquin Essay, Research Paper

There?s a penguin in the middle of the ocean swimming around. All of a sudden he looks up and sees a helicopter flying over him carrying a sign that says ?RADIO? ?RADIO?!!!

The person that told the joke laughed continuously suggesting that the punch line (radio radio) was the funniest thing she had ever heard.

A very good friend of mine told the joke. She?s a high school student, most popular in the class, and plans on majoring in psychology. A group of about 15 people heard the joke. We had nothing in common except we all happened to be in Spanish class at the time. The point is to make sure everyone knows (except one person) the joke has absolutely no meaning but laugh anyway. In the end if the one person left out laughs at the ridiculous joke they become the joke. The ?butt? of the joke would be of course the person left out. The function and purpose of the joke is to simply see if a group of people can influence one person to laugh at something that has no meaning, regardless of their status and certainty. The joke doesn?t ridicule anyone because that?s all it is an innocent joke. In the end we let the unknowing person in on the joke, she was stunned at first but was quite eager to play the joke on someone else. Most often the one left out laughs regardless of if they get it or not.

This joke shows how the agents of socialization apply to the behavior of someone else. Simply because others laughed the unknowing person wanted to fit in so she laughed to.

The joke didn?t violate any ethical considerations. She voluntarily listened to the joke, she suffered no harm, we didn?t violate her privacy, and in the end we told her the truth about of the joke. The group laughing at the meaningless joke was the causation of the unknowing girl laughing at it.