Title: Sarcasm is the 'highest form of intelligence', researchers say | Stuff.co.nz
Headings: Sarcasm is the 'highest form of intelligence', researchers say
Sarcasm is the 'highest form of intelligence', researchers say
Sydney Morning Herald

Content: But, new research by Harvard, has found that sarcasm's bite is mostly benign. Benevolent even. Like Wilde however, the researchers from Harvard Business School have called sarcasm the "highest form of intelligence" in a new paper. Sarcasm increases creativity for both expressers and recipients as we do mental gymnastics to understand the irony, they add. "To create or decode sarcasm, both the expressers and recipients of sarcasm need to overcome the contradiction (i.e., psychological distance) between the literal and actual meanings of the sarcastic expressions," said author Francesca Gino. " This is a process that activates and is facilitated by abstraction, which in turn promotes creative thinking." To come to these conclusions the researchers conducted a series of tests, including imagining a cartoon with the caption, "I am sorry I splashed you, I tried to miss the puddle", was sarcastic, sincere or neutral. They were also asked to imagine conversations or recall real chats that had been sarcastic, sincere or neutral. They were then asked to perform cognitive tasks. Despite stretching us mentally, to avoid the potential for confusion and conflict, sarcasm is best reserved for people we love and trust, the researchers warned.