• Question: hey why do we laugh?

    Asked by anon-179963 to Viren, Sam, Noel, Amy, Abby on 15 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Amy Warnock

      Amy Warnock answered on 15 Jun 2018:

      There’s actually evidence that laughing is an evolutionary mechanisms as other species such as monkey’s laugh as well! Even rats make certain sounds in the ultrasonics range (outside the range of human hearing) that are associated with good experiences and are sometimes assumed to be the rat equivalent of laughter! It’s likely that laughing has a communicative function or has to do with social bonding but I’m afraid I don’t know that much about it!

    • Photo: Abby Hunter

      Abby Hunter answered on 15 Jun 2018:

      Laughter is an unconscious process. That is why it can be hard to force laughter. It doesn’t feel natural.
      It can be triggered by many different sensations and thoughts. I don’t really know much more about the topic. I don’t think researchers are fully clear on why we laugh.

    • Photo: Noel Brick

      Noel Brick answered on 15 Jun 2018:

      Smiling is also interesting. Like laughing (as Amy and Abby mentioned), smiling is very much a social bonding tool. Before humans began to talk, we communicated mostly through hand gestures, some vocal sounds, and facial expressions. So, when we smile, we are communicating messages like “I’m friendly”, “I’m nice”, etc. Though there are different types of smiles that we all recognise. A real, enjoyment smile of laugh is called a Duchenne smile. But there are also fake smiles that have different meanings, like “I’m pretending to be happy, but actually, I want to go home!”. So, it is a pretty complicated evolutionary device that communicates lots of meanings. It is only very recently in human history that we started telling jokes to encourage laughter. Hopefully you laughed a little at the jokes each psychologist wrote on their profile 🙂

Comments