Even without punishment, adult standards are often presented as an ideal to which the child must aspire, and the child, by adults or by himself, is shown to be lacking. When adults make mistakes, even simple ones such as mistakes in speech or forgetting a name, the child's tension are, for a while, relieved. Again, this is not to say that humor is basically a reflection of power, mastery, or status-demonstration. One way to discover safety within a fearful situation is to have someone else attack that situation, especially if that someone has voluntarily taken on the role, accepts the dangers associated with it, finds the laughter of others rewarding, or in other ways manages to circumnavigate the consequences of his actions. It is generally safer to be in the audience.
Adult humor is a little more difficult to understand.
When these rules are violated, by ourselves or others, we feel anxiety and guilt. Humor violates these rules, then immediately relieves us of our distress at those violations by presenting an alternative construction of the violation. We are, however, constantly aware of the limits of our comprehension, and many of us live in a rather constant, if modest, state of anxiety, that is, of expecting the unexpected. The same may be said for certain forms of therapy. Lower forms are based on relief of distress without adaptation, by means of some kind of avoidance or other external change.