Far from simple reactions to jokes, teasing and hollers are serious business: They are innate - and large - social tools.
As heard on a crowded restaurant, punctuating the enthusiastic chatter of friends or laugh out loud laugh track on a TV, laughter is an essential part of everyday life. It is so common that we forget how strange - and important - it is. In fact, laughter is a "speaking in tongues" in which we do not move by religious fervor but by an unconscious social and linguistic clues response. Stripped of its variation and nuances, laughter is a regular series of short syllables as vowels usually transcribed as "ha-ha", "ho-ho" or "ji-hee". These syllables are part of the vocabulary of universal man, produced and recognized by people of all cultures.
Given the universality of sound, our ignorance of the purpose and meaning of laughter is remarkable. We laughed somehow the right time, without consciously knowing why we do it. Most people think of laughter as a simple response to comedy or cathartic mood elevation. However, after 10 years of research on this poorly studied, I conclude that laughter is primarily a social vocalization that brings people together. There is a hidden language we all speak. It is not a learned group reaction but instinctive behavior programmed by our genes. US bonds laughter through humor and play.
Nothing to joke about
Despite its importance in daily life, there is little research on how and why we laugh. I thought it was time to actually see people laugh and describes when they did and what it meant. The research took me laugh my labs windows of a social world more exciting way of laughing gas, religious revivals, acting classes, wars tickling baby chimpanzees and a search for the oldest joke.
As a starting point, three undergraduates and I have observed 1,200 people laughing spontaneously in their natural surroundings, the sidewalks of the city's student union. Every time we hear the laughter, see the sex of the speaker (the person who spoke immediately before laughter occurs) and the public (those who listen to the speaker), if the speaker or the audience laughs, and what he said immediately before laughing.
Although we usually think of laughter from an audience after a joke of a single speaker, contrary to expectations, the speakers have observed laughed almost 50% more than your audience. The study also shows that the banal comments like, "Where were you" or "It was nice meeting you, too?" - Just slappers knee -. It is much more likely to precede laughter jokes Only 10% to 20% of the episodes of laughter that followed witnessed joke as if nothing Even more humorous than 1200 comments that preceded laughter are not necessarily howlers. "You do not have to drink, just buy us drinks!" and "Was it before or after taking my clothes?". They are two of my favorites. This suggests that the essential stimulus for laughter is another person, not a joke.
Students in my classes have confirmed the social nature of laughter by recording the circumstances of her laughter in the newspapers. After excluding the social effects of the means of implementation (television, radio, books, etc.), its social nature was surprising: Laughter was 30 times more common in the social field as solitary situations. Students were much more likely to speak with them smile or laugh even when alone. But we can feel happy, laughter is a signal we send to others and it virtually disappears when we lack an audience.
Laughter is also very difficult to consciously control. Try asking a friend to laugh, for example. Most announces, "I can not laugh to order" or a similar statement. The observations of his friends are right - its efforts to laugh or be forced order useless. They will need several seconds to produce a laugh, if they can do it at all. This suggests that we can not deliberately activate the brain mechanisms of emotional expression. You want to play, being in a group, positive emotional tone and dial the social parameters of most of the laughs.
Giggly girls explained"happy poems"
Linguist Deborah Tannen describes the differences between the sexes in the speech in his bestselling book, not me (Ballantine, 1991) understand. Gender differences in laughter may be even higher. In 1200 our case studies, my colleagues and I found that if researchers of both sexes laugh a lot, women laugh more. In discussions with cross gender, women 126% more than their male counterparts laugh, which means that women tend to do more laughter while men tend to laugh more technical. Men seem to be the main instigators of humor across cultures, beginning in childhood. Think back to your class clown in school - most likely, it was a male. The sort of laughter every day also suggests why there are more men than women comedians. (Rodney Dangerfield probably makes more respect calling him.)
Given the differences in patterns of laughter, men and women, laughter is a factor meetings, correspondence and mating? I was looking for an answer in the market for newsprint human personals. In 3745 ads placed April 28, 1996, in eight articles of the Baltimore Sun, the San Diego Union-Tribune, women were 62% more likely to speak of laughter in your ads, and women were more likely to seek a "sense of mood ", while men were more likely to offer. Clearly, women seek men who make them laugh, and men are willing to comply with that request. When Karl Grammar and studied Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt spontaneous conversations between mixed couples of young German adults together for the first time, they found that the longer a woman laughed during these meetings, the largest of its self-declared interest in the man he was speaking. Similarly, men were more interested in women laughed good heart in his presence. Personal ads and German study complement an observation of my field studies: women's laughter, not the male, it is the critical index of a healthy relationship. Kids can laugh or not, but what matters is that women get their yuks in.
In many societies around the world - from Tamil South India to the Tzeltal of Mexico - laughter is a modest behavior, and the women in my study can be used as a voice compliance or unconscious display solidarity with a group member dominant social. I suspect, however, that kind of laughing models are fluid and change with the unconscious social circumstances. For example, laughter in the workplace of a young executive is likely to decrease as it ascends the scale of the company, but will remain a barrel of laughs when cavorting with old friends. Consider your own workplace. Have you met a strong leader with a smile? Someone who laughs a lot, and unconditionally, can be a good team player but rarely will a president.
The virus of laughter"happy poems"
As someone who never laughed when he saw someone bent can testify, laughter is contagious. From our laughter it is under minimal conscious control, spontaneous and relatively uncensored. Contagious laughter is a compelling example of Homo sapiens, a social mammal. Still our veneer of culture and challenges the assumption that we are in full control of our behavior. These voices coming synchronized ideas neurological roots of human social behavior and expression.
Consider the extraordinary 1962 epidemic infectious laugh at a boarding school for girls in Tanzania. The first symptoms appeared on January 30, when three girls were giggling and could not stop laughing. Symptoms spread rapidly to 95 students, forcing the school to close on March 18 girls sent home from school were vectors for the spread of the epidemic. Related outbreaks occurred in other schools in Central Africa and spread like wildfire, leaving two and a half years later, and that affects about 1,000 people.
Before dismissing the African outbreak as an anomaly, consider our own mini-epidemics caused technologically produced by television laugh tracks. Laugh tracks have accompanied most television sitcoms since 9 September 1950. At 7:00 pm, "The Hank McCune Show" used the first laugh track to compensate by being filmed without an audience Live. The rest is history. Canned laughter may seem artificial, but makes audiences laugh as if they were part of a live theater audience.
The irresistible laughter of others rooted in the detection mechanism neurological laughter. The fact that laughter is contagious raises the intriguing possibility that human beings have a sound detector laughter - a neural circuit in the brain that responds exclusively to laugh. (Contagious yawning may involve a similar process in the visual field). Once activated, the detector activates a generator laugh to laugh, a neural circuit that leads in turn to produce laughter.
In addition, laughter is not distributed randomly through speech. One speaker may say "You're going where? ... Ha ha," but rarely "You go ... ha ha ... where?" This is a test of "effect of punctuation." - The tendency to laugh almost exclusively to breaks in the speech sentence This model requires that the word takes precedence over the laughter.
The appearance of speaker laughing at the end of the prayers suggested based neurological process that governs the placement of laughter in speech, and that different brain regions are involved in the expression of cognitively oriented language and emotive vocals laughing. During the conversation, discourse prevails - ie inhibits - laughter.
Poor Medicine"happy poems"
The authorities of the Readers Digest Bible reminds us that "laughter is the best medicine." Written and audiovisual journalists produce stories optimistic, often frothy as "a laugh a day keeps the doctor." Norman Cousins book a bestseller and Robin Williams movie Patch Adams People amplifies this message but not said in these reports is a shocking truth: .. The laughter did not evolve to make us feel better or improve our health course, laughter brings people together, and social support has been shown in studies to improve mental and physical health because of alleged health benefits of laughter may have unintended consequences of its main objective. unite people.
Laughter is an energy activity that pressure raises our heart rate and blood, but these physiological effects are incompletely documented and their medicinal properties are even more uncertain. Lennart Levi, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said the active comedy "fight or flight" system of the body by increasing levels of urinary catecholamines, a measure of the activation and stress. DHSC Lee Berk, School of Medicine, Loma Linda, responded with a widely cited study that reported that laughter reduces catecholamines and other hormonal measures of sympathetic activation. This reduction of stress-related hormones and is the mechanism whereby laughter is presumed to improve immune function. Unfortunately, studies of Berk, best show a biological response to comedy. Their reports include only five experimental subjects, never said whether these subjects laughed, and appeared in only three brief summaries.
A sense of humor and a playful personality add years to your life? Not necessarily. A large study of Howard Friedman, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, found optimism and sense of humor in childhood to be inversely related to longevity. This may be because people with untempered optimism participate in risk taking, thinking, "I'll be fine."
Pain reduction is one of the promising applications of laughter. Romero Cogan, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Texas Tech University found that subjects a video Lily Tomlin laughed or suffered a process of relaxation tolerated more discomfort than other issues. Humor can help alleviate the pain. James Rotton, Ph.D., of Florida International University, said the orthopedic surgery patients who watched funny videos of aspirin and tranquilizers unless asked the group considered dramas. Humor can also help manage stress. In a study by Michelle Newman, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, subjects watched a film about three horrible accident and had to tell them in a humorous or serious style. Those who have used the humorous tone had the lowest negative impact and stress.
One problem with these studies is that none of them to separate the effects of laughing mood. The possibility that the alleged effects of laughter or humor can come recreational parameters associated with these behaviors are not allowed. And none of evaluating the uniqueness of laughter contrasting it with other vocalizations as shouting.
Rigorous test that can reduce stress and pain through laughter remains a latent possibility, but reasonable. While we wait for definitive proof, it does not hurt - and it's certainly nice - to laugh. So a guy walks into a bar ..."happy poems"
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