LAUGHTER

Robert Provine says that most laughter is not a response to jokes or other formal attempts at humor. Salvatore Attardo adds that laughter may be caused by all sorts of non-humorous stimuli (tickling, laughing gas, embarrassment) and can be triggered by imitation (watching other people laugh). Giles and Oxford list seven causes of laughter: humorous, social, ignorance, anxiety, derision, apologetic, and tickling. Jodi Eisterhold discusses the “principle of least disruption,” which “enjoins speakers to return to a serious mode as soon as possible.”

Because smiles can sometimes evolve into laughs and laughs can taper off into smiles, some people think that laughter is merely a form of exaggerated smiling. However, smiles are more likely to express feelings of satisfaction or good will, while laughter comes from surprise or a recognition of an incongruity. Furthermore, laughter is basically a public event while smiling is basically a private event. Guiselinde Kuipers says that “to laugh, or to occasion laughter through humor and wit, is to invite those present to come closer.” She says that laughter and humor are like an invitation, in that their aim is to decrease social distance.

Laughter is a social phenomenon. That’s why “getting the giggles” never happens when we are alone. In contrast, people often smile when they are reading or even when they are having private thoughts. Smiling is not contagious, but laughter is contagious.

That’s why radio and television comedy performances often have a laugh track.

Smiling is not contagious, but laughter is contagious. That’s why radio and television comedy performances often have a laugh track. Furthermore, people cannot tickle themselves because the cerebelum in the lower back of the brain somehow sends an interfering message to the part of the brain that controls laughter.

Anthony Chapman did a study in which he compared the actions of a group of children who knew they were being observed with a group who did not know they were being observed.

The children who knew they were being watched laughed four times as often as did those in the other group. However, they smiled only half as much. Anthony Chapman concluded not only that laughter can be good or bad, depending on the situation. But he also concluded that humor is both the cause for laughter, and the result of laughter. That’s why humor and laughter are so closely associated.

Don and Alleen Nilsen’s Humor PowerPoints:

https://aath.memberclicks.net/don-and-alleen-power-points