A person’s sense of self-irony is a sign of high intelligence, how to learn, example

Not everyone knows how to accept their shortcomings with dignity and adequately evaluate themselves. This is quite easy for those who have self-irony. It has been noticed that the ability to laugh at oneself protects a person from negative manifestations, for example, disappointments, insults, and anxieties. Psychologists say that mastering the skill is useful, since healthy self-irony is a sign of a mature intellectual personality.

Self-irony helps a person to adequately relate to himself and not react to other people’s attacks

What is self-irony a sign of?

Inferiority complex - what kind of feeling is it?
According to research, the ability to laugh at oneself is an indicator of a balanced psyche, developed intelligence and personal maturity. In addition to everything, the presence of healthy humor emphasizes self-confidence and adequate self-esteem. It has been noticed that others intuitively consider a person who can joke about himself to be especially friendly.

Self-ironic people attract others with their friendliness

What advantages does the ability to self-irony give a person?

The ability to make fun of one’s shortcomings and mistakes gives a person many advantages.

Read also: How to make a grill at the dacha with your own hands

Self-irony protects you from criticism and barbs from other people. What's the point of laughing at a person if he has already done it himself?
An appropriate joke addressed to oneself helps to defuse a difficult situation and not slide into mutual insults.
It is impossible to offend a person capable of self-irony. This quality is very important for public people and politicians. When speaking in front of large audiences, there is always a risk of meeting opponents who disagree with your point of view. Irony in your address will allow you not to take critical attacks to heart.
Poking fun at minor flaws can simultaneously highlight strengths without directly resorting to self-praise and get a well-deserved compliment.
Knowing your shortcomings, but not being too strict about them, allows you to develop and improve. People who take themselves too seriously don't feel the need to fix anything or grow anywhere.
Self-irony is a sign of optimism and a great way to make your life easier and more enjoyable.
Self-ironic people are attractive and pleasant to deal with. Poking fun at yourself helps you make new connections and acquaintances.

Self-irony is often a method when flirting between men and women. “Could you help the blonde understand the instructions?” Addressing a random buyer in a store in this way, a girl, on the one hand, shows that she is easy to communicate with, on the other hand, she artificially elevates the man above herself, which is always flattering and invites acquaintance.

People don't perceive humor as dangerous. The schemer or gossiper is interested in the emotional reaction of the victim to a poisonous joke. What's the point of getting involved with someone who made fun of himself no worse than a professional comedian?

This does not mean that if we are directly insulted and ridiculed, we need to start echoing the offender and castigating ourselves. In no case! Self-irony is the prerogative of a self-confident person who will give the offender a proper rebuff.

Intellectual maturity

The mental development of the individual is of great value. Self-irony is a sign of intelligence, it’s hard to argue with that. In fact, this quality is relatively rare. You need to have a certain intellectual maturity in order to consider the situation from the outside. Trying to make the necessary adjustments in your own life is actually not that easy. People tend to complain about fate, but at the same time they often do not want to change anything in depressing circumstances. After all, it is much easier to complain about general dissatisfaction with life than to try to fix something.

Taking any steps in the direction of your plans is always difficult. There is a great risk that you will be disappointed. But this is not a reason to refuse the necessary efforts.

How to learn self-irony

How to develop a sense of humor - what it is and how it manifests itself

When mastering the secrets of irony, it is important not to turn it into mockery of yourself or others. It should become a reliable defense against inappropriate jokes. Advice from psychologists will tell you how to learn self-irony:

Increase your horizons to rethink negative phrases;
Learn to look at life positively, even turn a bad joke to your advantage;
Examine your shortcomings, determine what you can joke about and what is taboo;
Develop imagination and thinking, since self-irony is a sign of high intelligence;
Be able to relax by mastering relaxation techniques;
Surround yourself with people who know how to laugh at themselves, as empathy will help you joke without offending others;
Watch the jokes of comedians, since only those who are intelligently ironic can joke about others.

Important! When a person learns to joke, one cannot overdo it with self-irony. Its excess diminishes a person's confidence and intelligence. Rather, it means defense, an attempt to hide behind the mask of a jester.

Literature

Osinovskaya I. A. Ironic wandering. Ironist as satyr and god // Irony and Eros. Poetics of the figurative field. - M.: 2007, p. 84-104.

Rhetorical figures
Amplification • Anacoluth • Anaphora • Antithesis • Apocope • Attraction • Non-union • Hyperbaton • Gradation (Climax) • Distinction • Inversion • Correction • Polycase (Polyptoton) • Polyunion • Oxymoron • Parallelism • Paronomasia • Parcellation • Pleonasm • Prolepsis •Retardation • Rhetorical question •Rhetorical exclamation •Rhetorical appeal •Symploc •Solicism •Tautology •Exact repetition •Default •Chiasmus •Ellipsis •Emphase •Epiphora

Trails

Allegory •Antonomasia •Hyperbole • Irony •Catachresis •Litotes •Metaphor •Metonymy •Personification •Periphrase •Synecdoche •Similation •Epithet

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Sources used:

https://psylogik.ru/123-samoironija.html
https://psychologist.tips/3083-samoironiya-eto-priznakom-chego-yavlyaetsya-kak-nauchitsya.html
https://srazu.pro/teoriya/samoironiya.html
https://qvilon.ru/psihologiya/samoironiya.html
https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ruwiki/1136420

Developed sense of humor

What else is self-irony needed for? What does this mean for the ordinary person? It helps to significantly develop a sense of humor. Even when one’s hands inevitably give up in the face of seemingly impassable obstacles, a self-sufficient person will always be able to find a worthy way out of the situation.

It's just important to know where to look. If we are able to laugh at our mistakes, then we are able to correct any mistakes we have made.

Ability to analyze

If a person resorts to self-irony, it means that somewhere subconsciously he already knows how to correct an unsatisfactory situation. Sometimes you really need to sort everything out to see the resources available. There comes an understanding that it is not at all necessary to suffer endlessly to get what you want. The accumulation of internal forces will occur when the individual begins to notice emerging opportunities. The ability to analyze current events is a very valuable and significant acquisition. Thanks to this skill, you can reach incredible heights in your career and become part of a big whole. You need to know your mistakes by heart so that you can try never to repeat them again. Self-irony serves this purpose perfectly.

Is self-irony given to us from birth or can it be learned?

Lele Pons, as an example - self-irony changes life!

No, self-irony is not given to us from birth. This quality can and should be developed, and its presence will help you gain self-confidence. As soon as you learn self-irony, it will be easier for you to react to cutting remarks, you will stop feeling a constant feeling of guilt, and you will become less vulnerable. When you acquire this quality, you will see that you will grow as a person and become more mature.
A person without self-irony depends on the opinions of others, has problems with self-esteem and difficulties with communication. But to achieve this, you need to get rid of your complexes. Therefore, we offer you our article “How to get rid of complexes?”
Obsessing over yourself and suspecting that everyone is making fun of your minor failures is proof of internal problems that do not allow you to relax. Conversely, someone who accepts himself and does not wait for proof of his worth and meaning from the outside is able to find joy in his surroundings and in himself. The ability to laugh, the ability to look at a situation from different angles are signs of mental health and personality balance.
But for self-irony, self-confidence is fundamentally necessary. However, you can develop self-confidence and improve your self-esteem. Therefore, we suggest you read the article “15 ways to increase your self-esteem?”

But you shouldn’t expect that you will immediately learn to laugh at yourself! This takes time.

What is postirony?

The word post-irony refers to a state where sincerity is difficult to distinguish from irony. If postmodernism presupposes a rejection of belief in “ultimate truth,” then post-irony is a refusal to recognize whether the author is being ironic or speaking seriously. The public should not fully understand what is in front of them: mockery, a double-bottom joke or sincere confession.

Post-irony is often appealed to by those who claim intelligent, complex humor. It allows, on the one hand, to give the joke additional meaning, on the other hand, it makes the audience think about serious things.

Therefore, post-irony is associated with the concept of “new sincerity”: if it is impossible to talk about something important with a serious face, it can be done in the form of a joke. This allows you to say pretentious or naive things without being ridiculed

The author of the statement remains safe - he can always pretend that he was simply being ironic.

Post-irony?

In RuNet, the concept of “post-irony” became fashionable in the summer of 2021. As usual, it is used appropriately and inappropriately. It refers to simply ironic meme pictures, attempts to discuss serious things in a mocking manner, and simply bad jokes.

As one user of The Question described it: post-irony is “a joke so unfunny that it’s funny.”

An example of a post-ironic joke. But it is not exactly

Striving to become better

The need for self-improvement is inherent in human nature. Everyone, to one degree or another, has the desire to become better. We want to be proud of ourselves, to feel important and significant.

Self-irony allows you to achieve this goal. The individual stops focusing on failures. As a result, internal potential is revealed, useful energy is released, which can be used to realize what is planned.

Promotes self-development

When you treat your shortcomings with humor, you accept them, do not disguise or deny them, hiding them behind a mask of self-confidence. A person who accepts his own imperfections can calmly work on them: correct mistakes, improve skills and engage in self-development, without tormenting himself with endless soul-searching, which often leads to banal whining and self-pity.

History of irony

Irony is believed to have originated in Ancient Greece. So in ancient Greek, “ironize” came to mean “to tell a lie,” “to mock,” “to pretend,” and “ironist” is a person who “deceives with words.” Socrates used irony in his disputes with the Sophists, exposing their conceit and claims to omniscience. She opposed the complacency and limitations of the ordinary consciousness of antiquity. Irony received a certain development in ancient comedy and satirical genres of literature. She also played an important role in the folk culture of laughter. In the Middle Ages, irony was most often used in folk laughter culture. The irony of folk laughter culture has a dual character, since laughter is also directed at the laughers themselves. During the Renaissance, irony was used in the traditions of laughter, festive folk culture, by jesters with crowned heads, as well as in everyday speech. Irony is beginning to be used as an oratorical technique, as a turn of speech that helps subject someone to ridicule in the form of a “hidden hint.” Thus, jesters often laughed at their masters. But irony acquired a special role in the Baroque era, because in its philosophy there appeared a desire to compare different things and unexpectedly reveal the similarities of dissimilar things, which was considered the most essential in this culture. At the end of the 19th century, a further complication of the picture of the world occurred, for which the consciousness of society was not ready. This caused conflicting reactions. Some were fascinated by the emerging possibilities of scientific and technological progress and enthusiastically welcomed the new century. Others were alarmed by the destruction of the traditional foundations of the simple and clear values of the world. This resulted in fatigue, lethargy and unnaturalness of irony. So, having looked at the entire “history of the existence of irony”, we can conclude that irony existed from the earliest times and was of great importance - both psychological and literary

With its help, the great ancient Greek philosophers tried to offend their colleagues by pointing out their stupidity, to draw more attention to themselves by using self-irony, and jesters tried to ridicule their masters - so that they would not understand that they were actually being insulted. Writers in their texts tried to show their dissatisfaction with the authorities using irony, or simply describe a character or situation more vividly.

Self-irony beyond what is permitted

It is important to be able to distinguish between the ability to laugh kindly at yourself and the use of self-deprecating humor, which does not bring any benefit at all. Joking can carry a negative message and be a sign of psychological ill health in the following cases:

— the use of evil jokes has become a reflex;

- banter does not meet with a positive response;

- the emergence of belief in the truthfulness of one’s own negative jokes.

To prevent the occurrence of psychological problems in the future, you need to learn to laugh at yourself in the right way.

Components of self-irony

According to experts in the field of psychology, self-irony is not just humor, but the ability to be ironic. This quality has a certain structure, which consists of personal qualities:

One of the main components is self-improvement, which everyone, without exception, strives for from birth. If humor has a reasonable appearance, then it will only help a person become better and will not harm. In this way, the individual will be able to realize everything he has planned.
If a person is able to ridicule his shortcomings, then he wants to correct them. In this case, you just need to consider everything in detail in order to find the strength within yourself to achieve your goals.
A developed and healthy sense of humor helps you to be less nervous over trifles and see life in bright colors.
With the help of self-irony you can easily overcome life's difficulties.
People with self-irony are great at correcting any situation that has gotten out of control.

Taking responsibility

A person endowed with self-irony knows that he can correct the situation if it does not suit him. He is aware of his own resources and does not diminish them at all. Accepting responsibility is the most important thing that should be present in the arsenal of a mature personality. Whatever actions we take, it is important to always remember that for every step the individual will someday be accountable to society and to himself.

Thoughts about self-realization and the need to work on character come to the mind of every responsible individual. A sense of self-irony will not hurt here at all. What it is, an intelligent person begins to understand intuitively. When you want to achieve something more than just having mediocre rewards, a person begins to take active steps. It is very important to choose the direction towards the desired goal. If something doesn’t work out right away, you need to look at what’s happening with a smile, not tears.