Truth Spoken in Jest // Psychology

So i wanted to add a little more backing behind my idea of the prophetic jester.

What is the purpose of speaking truth in jest? Why dose one do it?
It turns out that it has to deal with conflict.  Wither we are dealing with members of our family, co-workers, or just customers, eventualy challenges and conflicts arise.  We have a few ways to react but the most common are to try and avoid the situation, pretend it isn't happening, we can stand toe to toe with it, or more like the first we can try and save our face.

Saveing face often refferse to our tendancy to be more concerned about how we are perceived that saying what needs to be said.

...we may err in saying too little when things go wrong. ... This is especially so during what could be called a "courting period." Instead of saying things directly, we often try to hint. But the honeymoon is likely to end sooner or later. At some point this "courting behavior" often gets pushed aside out of necessity. We may find it easier to sweep problems under the psychological rug until the mound of dirt is so large we cannot help but trip over it.  Gregorio Billikopf

 Ultimately the jest allows both parties to choose wither or not they want to continue feeding the conflict.  It allows the truth to be spoken plainly while allowing the speaker to save face.  It the offending partly is ready to change he has the option of changing while if choosing not to hear the speaker still appears a good person.

In Lear the jester is allowed to speak the plain blunt truth and remain in Lear's company because the truth is spoken in jest.  The truth is allowed to work in Lear till he is finally ready to change.  However, the fight it out approach, that Cordelia and Kent take just end up getting them banished because Lear will throw out the baby with the bath water at that point to save admitting he is wrong.