Decoding the Unexplored World of Smile — Anatomy of Laughter
This is the script for my video that you can watch here
Who doesn’t laugh? We all do it. Children, adults, everyone. Even apes, rats and dogs express forms of laughter. Some of us even pay to enjoy a good few hours of laugh at the local comedy club. But why do we laugh? And how does laughing make us more connected in our society?
We start laughing very early in our life. Laughter possibly evolved over millions of years and was a key factor in the way us humans have developed as individuals and as a society. Laughter definitely worked as an indicator to gauge the amount of friendliness or hostility of individuals in a group, most times the first signal upon which one formed the final impression of others. In the social context, laughter is influenced by the amount of individual and familiarity among the group. A person is expected to laugh more when others in the group does and also if they are acquaintances. Laugh tracks have been a part of TV shows for most of its history and are still an essential to ON AIR comedy.
Anatomy of Laughter
Laughter basically refers to a physical reaction involving vocal sound, facial expressions and contraction of several muscle groups. Laughter often is a response to a stimulus, which is humor, but can also be caused by others. We can categorize laughter into five types: first is a spontaneous laughter, then there is self-induced, stimulated(poking/tickling), induced via drugs and pathological which is an emotional expression disorder. Theory behind the psychological motivation of laughter is divided, but there are three main ones. One argues it’s the physical expression of subconscious thoughts and desires, while another argues it’s a tool for one’s self esteem and another stating humor is the result of differences in the elements of a joke.
The Universal Language?
In 2016, a study of 966 participants spanning six continents from 24 societies was conducted by researchers from University of California and other universities to see how perceptive and relative laughter is globally. Samples of laughter from group of friends and strangers were played to the participants. The results showed majority of the participants were able to distinguish groups of friends and strangers. Regardless of language or cultural differences, participants were able to guess the degree of familiarity of the groups.
One of the possible reasons for laughter being so universally recognizable and similar is the fact that it predates verbal languages and might be a derivative of our ancestral behaviors and even though laughter has gone through socio political and cultural settings throughout history and our increasingly complexity in Behavior dynamics, it has stayed relatively unchanged in its basic form.
Role of Laughter in Social Construct & Hierarchies
Studies have shown that it possible to guess the level individuals and groups have in a social power structure through focusing on the acoustics of laughter. Individuals higher in position of power demonstrate characteristics of dominant laugh such as higher, irregular pitch and faster bursts. Lower status individuals wait for opportunities to express dominant laughter to increase their status. In most occasions, this display has earned them much higher status in the group.
Humor of Trouble or Trouble of Humor
In the last decade or so, memes have become an integral part of human expression and reaction online. From niche popular subculture memes to dark humor memes to memes as a form of moral warfare, the evolution of memes is definitely tied to the concept that humor rises best from trouble. The complex connection of humor with human behavior and moral psychology gives rise to this grey area of universally acceptable humor, if there is such a thing. Our increasingly sophisticated allegiance to different philosophies, emotional intelligence, moral differences, religion and bias towards specific social groups all mix together to form unique blends that results in difference in accepting something as humorous. This is why universal humor is such a debated concept, and also why one meme or comedy skit will yield various degrees of emotional response from different individual and groups.
A Stand-up a day keeps the doctor away
The biggest benefit of laughter is that there are not many downsides and its FREE! Along with psychological benefits such as overall improvement in mood, stress level and anxiety, there are some physiological benefits to laughter which can include muscle relaxation, better immunity and improved heart condition. Other than that, there are potential social benefits of laughter. What’s better than a quick dose of laugh to defuse a tense situation, or sharing a funny video among peers and lightening the mood.
The last laugh
We can say with quite the confidence that laughter and humor will continue to play a significant role in society everywhere and will stay intertwined in our life. The general impact of laughter is mostly positive and there is not much to lose laughing. Its safe to say that regardless of the path humanity takes in the future, there will always be something along the way we will stop and smile about.
Credits:
1.The Laughter Prescription: A Tool for Lifestyle Medicine by Dexter Louie, BA, Karolina Brook, MD, and Elizabeth Frates, MD
2.Humor, laughter, learning, and health! A brief review by Brandon M. Savage, Heidi L. Lujan, Raghavendar R. Thipparthi, and Stephen E. DiCarlo
3.he Science of Humor Is No Laughing Matter by Kathleen D. Vohs
4.Detecting affiliation in colaughter across 24 societies by Gregory A. Bryant Et al.
5.Humor Production and Perceptions of Psychological Health by A. Peter McGraw, Erin Percival Carter and Jennifer J. Harman
6.Benign Violations: Making Immoral Behavior Funny by A. Peter McGraw and Caleb Warren
