Psychology Facts

▼ Humor / Laughter

》  Laughing: make the spontaneous sounds and movements of the face and body that are the instinctive expressions of lively amusement and sometimes also of contempt or derision.

》  Humor: the quality of being amusing or comic, especially as expressed in literature or speech.

》  Theories focusing on the evolution of laughter point to it as an important adaptation for social communication. Studies have shown that people are more likely to laugh in response to a video clip with canned laughter than to one without a laugh track, and that people are 30 times more likely to laugh in the presence of others than alone.

》  Some scientists believe that laughter was used as a way for humans to relate to one another millions of years before they developed the lung strength for language. The mechanism of laughter is so ingrained in our brains that babies as young as 17 days old have been observed doing it.

》  Women and men differ in laughter. When women are talking, men and women audiences laugh less than when men are talking. When women are speaking to an audience of one or more men, women laughed more than twice as much as the men. Scientists have shown that these sex differences emerge in kids as young as 6 years old.

》  Researchers also have found that different types of laughter can serve as codes to complex human social hierarchies.
Across the course of two experiments, a team of psychological scientists led by Christopher Oveis of University of California, San Diego, found that high-status individuals had different laughs than low-status individuals, and that strangers' judgments of an individual's social status were influenced by the dominant or submissive quality of the person's laughter.

》  Findings from 'the fraternity-brother experiment' also showed that low-status individuals were more likely to change their laughter based on their position of power; that is, the pledges produced more dominant laughs when they were in the "powerful" role of teasers. High-status individuals, on the other hand, maintained a consistent pattern of dominant laughter throughout the teasing game regardless of whether they were doing the teasing or being teased themselves.

》  One study found that the events from people's lives that became funnier over time were more severe events (like a car accident), while events that lost their comedic effect over time were seen as minor violations (like stubbing a toe).

》  Some tips for becoming a funnier person include practicing joke-telling, taking comedic risks (knowing that some jokes will fail to get a laugh), and, of course watching, listening to, and reading the work of comedians.

》  Across two studies, Cheng and Wang found that people who watched a funny video clip before a task spent approximately twice as long on a tiresome task compared with people who watched neutral or positive (but not funny) videos.
Prior research has found that humor can help facilitate recovery from stressful situations, even prolonging people's tolerance for physical pain.

》  Gallows humor, or black humor, involves subjects (such as death) that are threatening or highly negative in some other way. This kind of humor can feel good and provide relief in the face of dark and disturbing circumstances, including for those who are regularly immersed in them, such as soldiers and hospital staff

》  There may be a relationship between humor and depression, for example, with depressed people being more likely to use self-deprecating humor and less likely to use positive styles of humor.

》  Study after study has pointed to the health benefits of laughter: Research from Loma Linda University showed that laughing improved the memory of adults in their 60s and 70s

》  Outside of standup comedy, the speaker laughs 46% more often than the audience. What this means is that research that is limited to how audiences respond to humor are missing the action.

》  Your sense of humor might be genetic.
In a Northwestern University study of more than 300 people, those with the short version, or allele, of gene 5-HTTLPR are quicker to laugh at cartoons or funny movie clips than those with the long version of the gene.
That particular gene has long been associated with the study of depression, but this is the first study to look at its connection to positive emotions.

》  The object of laughter is often mundane, uninteresting, and humorless. We rarely laugh when someone intentionally tries to humor us with jokes or stories.

》  Certain personality traits seem to correspond with the style of humor people tend to use.
Research suggests those who are drawn to humor as a way to affiliate with people or to support their own well-being are likely to rate higher on the traits of extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience.
More agreeable and conscientious people also seem less likely to use humor in a disparaging or offensive way.

》  Just 10 to 15 minutes of laughing a day can burn up to 40 calories, according to a Vanderbilt University study.

》  In addition to being skilled in toying with people's expectations, people who are funnier than most may exhibit qualities such as a willingness to take risks when making jokes and a sensitivity to how their attempts at humor are perceived. More gifted comedians might also be more intelligent, on average.