Distinguishes absurdist from standard humor by the absence of incongruity-resolving punch lines.

Evidence

Most humor theorists have noted that the seed of all humor is incongruity (e.g., Shultz, 1972; Suls, 1972; Wyer & Collins, 1992), although the standard joke is generally presented in a context wherein (a) a person expects to hear a joke and therefore the presence of incongruity is familiar, and (b) the incongruity (e.g., the punch line) allows for an interpretation that makes the incongruity ultimately sensible. Absurdist humor, in contrast, does not culminate in a punch line that restores meaning. Rather, one incongruous vignette generally segues into the next before sense can be made of what just happened (viz., “And now for something completely different”). If one is expecting no incongruities but incongruities are presented, and there is no resolution that renders the incongruities sensible, then this unfamiliar familiar experience should constitute the uncanny. Hence, in our model, these circumstances should elicit compensatory affirmation of an alternative meaning framework. — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 44

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the uncanny as an expected-no-incongruity context met with unresolvable incongruities.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s general-mechanism question: whether meaning threat operates like intergroup threat through a shared defensive-affirmation system.