Social Relationship Wisdom: The social function of laughter

In one example of the important role of laughter in social contexts, Devereux and Ginsburg examined frequency of laughter in matched pairs of strangers or friends who watched a humorous  video together compared to those who watched it alone.

The time individuals spent laughing was nearly twice as frequent in pairs as when alone.

Frequency of laughing was only slightly shorter for friends than strangers.

According to Devereux and Ginsburg, laughing with strangers served to create a social bond that made each person in the pair feel comfortable.

This explanation is supported by the fact that in their stranger condition, when one person laughed, the other was likely to laugh as well.

Interestingly, the three social conditions (alone, paired with a stranger, or paired with a friend) did not differ in their ratings of funniness of the video or of feelings of happiness or anxiousness.

This finding implies that their frequency of laughter was not because we find things funnier when we are with others but instead we are using laughter to connect with others.

 

Referenced by H2220334