Some people might laugh because of nihilistic triumphalism (alternatively, triumphal nihilism), which would lie at the extreme end of the range of laughter phenomena covered by Hobbes's superiority theory*:

« I recall speaking to Anjem Choudary, the now imprisoned militant activist who is thought to have inspired scores of jihadists at home and abroad. I asked him to describe how he wanted life to be in his ideal world. He painted a bleak picture of crucifixions, no freedom of expression, enforced segregation, gay people and apostates put to death, no alcohol, no theatre, no concerts, and countless other prohibitions.

« Is that it? I asked.

« “We have a laugh,” he protested. “I could sing an Islamic song to you.”»

— quoted from Andrew Anthony, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/23/the-culture-that-makes-a-jihadi-thomas-hegghammer-interview-poetry-militancy

____________

* "The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly." — Thomas Hobbes

Laughing and laughter are a healthy manifestation of a stress free character. It has been observed that human beings laugh more during their childhood years. As we grow older, the cruel impacts of our often outrageous fortunes make our hearts callous and apathetic to the lighter side of life.However, Laughing is and will always be a panacea for the cure of our ills. I honestly think that laughter is one of the things we should like most, because it is the only way to preserver our composure and peace of mind and it is probably the most important thing that a person needs today.”

Sometimes, to release stresses of life

Dear Karl Pfeifer,

Dear Reza Biria,

Dear Qasim M. Shakir,

Your answers are very interesting and instructive.

Thank you very much.

Harun

I think we laugh when our train of thoughts is destabilised...explaining some of the reasons why we laugh when someone falls (or us)...not injured....The distance between what we expect and what the reality unfolds might be a good ground for laughing. So many more other reasons (not reasoning ones) to laugh!

Dear Isabelle Faubert,

I agree with those opinions that say that laughing is a big puzzle. That it is the privilege of the human race. That is the definition of mood. That it is a mysterious message to the interlocutor.

Who knows whether the laugh is normal or abnormal, or when it's normal and when not. After all, it's nice to see a smiling man.

Laughter is often a great mediator in distinguishing truth from lies. (Vissarion Belinsky)

Please notice 1) that we are predominantly laughing WITH someone. 2) we are laughing AT something. These two dimension should be kept in mind. Then there are many attempts at classifying types of laughter, as you all know. A huge literature. — At the end, laughter comes out as a lubricant of communication (cf. (1)). And the ultimate object 'causing' laughter seems to be stupidity (cf. (2)), through themes such as sex, slides in language, misunderstandings, slides in life, and ultimately, death. Very funny.

I agree with Per Aage Brandt

For some examples see my:

Article Review of John Morreall, Taking Laughter Seriously

Here is a little article on inter-national laughter: people laughing at each other's nationality. "Laughter in Europe". A typical thing to do :)

Who is only one of the heart's laughs is not irreversibly bad.

(Thomas Carlyle)

'Laughter is best medicine', as it is important part of funny anecdotes of Readers digest.

I had a classmate in primary school who was laughing every time he opened his mouth to talk. Was he in a constant good mood or what? It puzzled me for years, but I never met another person like him, so I don't know.

People laugh when something strikes their funny bone are kind of odd

الضحك هو من ألطف وأشد التعابير التي تؤثر بشكل إيجابي في صحة الإنسان الجسدية والنفسية؛ إذ تساعد مشاهدة المسلسلات أو المسرحيات المضحكة على تغيير المزاج وتحسينه بشكل فعال جداً؛ لأنّ الضحك يفرز هرمونات السعادة في الجسم، ويعزز من صحة الجهاز التنفسي، بالإضافة إلى أهميته في المحافظة على صحة القلب والعقل بسبب دخول كمية أكبر من الأوكسجين للجسم، و أهم الفوائد النفسية، والصحية التي يقدمها الضحك للإنسان انه يقلل الإجهاد. يحسن النوم يحارب الاكتئاب وينشط الجسم لذلك ونتيجة للاسباب السابقة اصبح هناك ما يسمى بعدوى الضحك كأحد العلاجات النفسية.

Laughter is one of the nicest and most expressive expressions that positively affect human physical and mental health. Watching funny dramas or plays helps to change moods and improve them very effectively because laughter produces hormones in the body and promotes respiratory health. On the health of the heart and mind because of the entry of more oxygen to the body, and the most important psychological benefits, and health provided by laughter to humans that it reduces stress. Improves sleep, fights depression and activates the body. Therefore, as a result of previous reasons, there has been a so-called laughter infection as a psychological treatment.

Robert Provine has demonstrated that in the wild, laughter is a largely social behaviour, a way of making and maintaining social bonds. He has argued that though we associate our laughter with humour and jokes, in fact we laugh most when we’re talking to others, and in those conversations we are rarely laughing at jokes.

And laughter is hugely potentiated by the presence of other people – Provine has shown that we’re 30 times more likely to laugh when we are with someone else than when we are on our own. And we laugh to show that we like people – we might even love them – and that we agree with them, understand them, are part of the same group as them.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/01/why-do-people-laugh-google

People are indeed laughing together. Other animals are probably not doing this, although they may be gregarious. It has to do with human mimetic routines: we mirror each other's expressions, and must do that in dialogical exchanges — so language is involved. Henri Bergson wrote a famous book about laughter, but I think Georges Bataille, who criticized Bergson's insensitive hypothesis, had a much better grip on the phenomenon. Laughter as a sort of symbolic transgression, shared. (Many people laugh when they make love).

"Use every opportunity for laughter. It's the cheapest remedy." George Gordon Byron

Laughter is part of the universal human vocabulary. All members of the human species understand it. We’re born with the capacity to laugh.

One of the remarkable things about laughter is that it occurs unconsciously. You don’t decide to do it. While we can consciously inhibit it, we don’t consciously produce laughter.

Laughter provides powerful, uncensored insights into our unconscious. It simply bubbles up from within us in certain situations.Very little is known about the specific brain mechanisms responsible for laughter. But we do know that laughter is triggered by many sensations and thoughts.

When we laugh, we alter our facial expressions and make sounds. During exuberant laughter, the muscles of the arms, legs and trunk are involved. Laughter also requires modification in our pattern of breathing.We also know that laughter is a message that we send to other people.

Laughter is social and contagious. We laugh at the sound of laughter itself.

In my opinion better question would be "Why people should laugh" because I have always felt that laughter in the face of reality is probably the finest sound there is and it can cure every wound. In this world, a good time to laugh is any time you can.

Including laughing at yourself, of course —

"The smile enriches those who receive it, and does not impoverish those who give it."

Dale Carnegie

Laughter is an expressive expression of entertainment and fun, and laughter is a natural reaction to a healthy person on ridiculous situations. Laughter is an expression of compassion and mutual understanding between humans.

laughter is a largely social behaviour, a way of making and maintaining social bonds. He has argued that though we associate our laughter with humour and jokes, in fact we laugh most when we’re talking to others, and in those conversations we are rarely laughing at jokes.

To express the inner joy

Laughter is a blessing from God so that people do not live at depression and die sad

Asmaa, when religious ideas make me laugh, do you think I should try to stop it?

Per:

People laugh or smile when they're happy, when they're sad, when they're embarassed, etc. Laughter is a public event, while smiling is largly a private event. Here is a PowerPoint related to laughter and smiling:

Thanks, Don, for the ppt, full of examples and ideas. I would add to the opposition laughter/smile that laughter is more about thinking and smile is more about feelings — therefore smiling is more private. Thinking is often abruptly negative, releasing spasms.

I wonder: do you happen to have something on humor and music, or humor IN music? (A musician friend asks me).

Per Aage Brandt Smiling can be abruptly negative too and we even have a name for that: it's called a smirk. Generally, there's nothing much private about smirks either.

Per:

Here is a PowerPoint about "Humor and Music" for you and your friend. Enjoy:

Asking why do people laugh is like asking why do people breath. Laughter is oxygen. Without it life ceases. It is a basic part of human nature.

Karl: a smirk, in the dictionary, is a smug smile — self-satisfied, self-complacent, and maybe not even an expression of anything humoristic; rather of feeling superior and worthy of congratulations for it, so still a feeling. A feeling of an inflated self.

I would venture that humor is related to self-deflation; moments of non-self. Laughter has something of this kind — sudden selflessness, hence its social effect of bonding.

And thanks, Don, for the music piece; it is great!

Per Aage Brandt Exactly. A smirk is a smug smile. I said that smiling has no special claim to non-negativity and privacy, despite what you suggested in your answer, and smug smiles are a counterexample to your suggestion.

As for your further suggestion that smiling is more about feeling whereas laughter is more about thinking, again I demur. The problem is that "feeling" is ambiguous. It can refer to opinions, beliefs, sensations, thoughts, attitudes. A feeling of superiority is more like a thought or belief and quite unlike a sensation. Someone's feeling superior is tantamount to their thinking that they are superior.

Hobbes's superiority theory of humor may fail as a general theory, but it certainly correctly captures a significant number of cases of finding something funny or amusing. People are sometimes amused by the failings of others in contrast to their own self-perception of superiority with respect to those failings. When someone laughs or smiles at someone else's stupidity, for example, they usually do not think of themselves in a similarly deflationary way in that regard.

Because they have fun.

Karl: I was reacting to or reflecting on Don's contrast between laugh and smile, and wanted to add a consideration on (more) thinking in laughter versus (more) feeling in smile. This would correspond to: less "self" in laughter and "more" self in smiling; But there is a so-called social smile, which almort looks like the face expression of shame, with eyes down. (For face expressions, see the specialist in basic emotions Paul Ekman's famous research).

Thank you all for the valuable comments.

We can also find these data in the literature and on the Internet:

Adults laugh about 17 times a day, and the youngest do so about 300 times a day. Women laugh at men more often than men at women. It has been proven that people used to laugh for an average of 18 minutes a day, and today that has been reduced to just 6 minutes.

When Madan Kataira, an Indian, founded World Laughter Day in 1998, he launched a slogan that is also scientifically proven "Laughter is the best medicine"

Interesting numbers, Harun Hadžić . But even allowing for generous margins of error, I am dubious about their validity. I doubt that observations were made 24/7. Also, there are problems with how laughs are individuated and counted. There are many kinds of laughter, and not all of them are "best medicine".

Dear Karl Pfeifer,

You can find more texts that provide information about the usefulness of laughing, as well as how many times adults and children laugh a day. Here are some links:

https://radiojadran.com/zdravo-je-smijati-se/

https://www.uspm.com/does-a-laugh-per-day-keep-the-doctor-away/

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-stress-management-and-health-benefits-of-laughter-3145084

Harun Hadžić I remain skeptical. Your one website says adults laugh about 17 times a day, and the youngest do so about 300 times, the other says 15 and 400. No citations are given. As I implied in my answer, one would need around-the-clock monitoring over a period of many days to establish reliable averages for individuals, as well as for adults and children in general. I sometimes laugh on the toilet when I think of something amusing, as well as in bed during the night. I doubt that anything approaching 24/7 monitoring would have been carried out. Also there is the difficulty of counting. Some people laugh noiselessy, as I myself sometimes do, although the respirational behavior is there. Is a short snicker a laugh? A giggle? And when do laughs begin and end? When there are short pauses of a few seconds, is it a continuation of the same laugh or the onset of a new laugh? Yes, laughter may often be beneficial or therapeutic for the laugher; but sometimes laughter can also be a symptom of psychosis.

Dear Karl,

You are partly right. However, I think most people agree that laughter is a reflection of a healthy personality. Of course there are some exceptions, some pathology. But every exception only confirms the rule. It is best when both the spirit is healthy and the body is healthy. "Mens sana in corpore sano". Why is World Laughter Day and World Smile Day celebrated all over the world? We have multiple laughter day celebrations. Among those who contributed to these celebrations are Madan Kataria and Harvey Ball:

"The World Laughter Day takes place on the first Sunday of the month of May each year. (...). Dr Madan Kataria was the first person to create the World Laughter Day in 1988. He is also the founder of the worldwide Laughter Yoga movement. It is celebrated to change the mental state of a person and is also a good remedy to lead a healthy and happy life i Harvey Ball".

https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/smile-day/

https://nationaltoday.com/world-smile-day/amp/

Thr Laughter Day is no doubt a fine thing. I would also suggest that a worldwide Screaming Day would be a nice invention. Just every other year.

Some of us also practise inner laughing — as if our little homunculus in the mind performed the relevant convulsions. And inner screaming, very useful in countries where severe dictatorships monitor our expressions.

Ha, ha, ha ... Very interesting.

If you love inner screaming you'll love this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream

And while we're on the theme of screaming, here's a line from Will Rogers:

"When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car." 🤡

Screaming is not good, and it is not the same as laughing. And as for death, it is a great secret.

Have you ever heard people screaming on a roller coaster ride? It is sometimes a screeching laugh expressing the exuberance of the thrill. As for death, secret or not, "gallows humor" is a huge genre with a long pedigree.

Dear Karl,

Maybe laughter and screaming have the same or similar effects, but I belong to the people who prefer laughter to screaming. Because, for example, it has been proven that laughter has a beneficial effect on human beings.

Laughter has been shown to reduce stress:

"Comicotherapy, is a treatment that uses laughter and positive emotions. Laughter has been shown to have a positive effect on bringing people together, but also against stress and many other diseases. It also eliminates the feeling of fatigue. Laughter activates the muscles of the face, throat and chest. When laughter is thunderous, then almost all the muscles of our body are involved. Scientists have calculated that if we laugh a hundred times during the day, we achieve the same effect as if we were actively engaged in a sport for ten to fifteen minutes. Laughter lowers blood pressure, increases blood flow through the body, increases the blood supply of oxygen, reduces the level of stress hormones in the body, and reduces the feeling of pain, which significantly improves mood". (My private translation).

https://www.trt.net.tr/srpski/nauka-tehnologija-i-zdravlje/2015/02/20/smehom-protiv-stresa-225175

I hope the following articles may help you to know the apt answer to your question.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-we-laugh/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-so-funny-the-science-of-why-we-laugh/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-i-m-approach/201912/why-do-people-laugh

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-science-of-humor-is-no-laughing-matter

Let's not ignore the unhealthy laughter:

https://www.headway.org.uk/about-brain-injury/individuals/brain-injury-and-me/pathological-laughter-its-no-joke/

Also refer to my article,

Article Laughter and pleasure

Dear Devinder Pal Singh,

A very nice explanation of the reason for laughing is found in the article you cited:

"According to the Mayo Clinic, there are also a multitude of physical health benefits to laughter. Laughter can increase your oxygen intake, which can in turn stimulate your heart, lungs, and muscles. Laughing further releases endorphins, the feel-good chemicals our bodies produce to make us feel happy and even relieve pain or stress. The act of increasing and then decreasing our heart rate and blood pressure through laughter is also ultimately calming and tension-relieving. Laughter can even boost our immune system response through the release of stress-and illness-reducing neuropeptides.

So laughter signals cooperation, a key aspect of human survival, and promotes a healthier body to boot. That’s the best excuse I’ve heard to make sure to take the time to enjoy a few laughs over dinner and drinks with friends."

Dear Karl,

You have cited one beautiful and instructive article. He deals with one abnormal situation, which is not so common, but deserves serious attention. My question, on the other hand, is about normal and not sick laughter. I point to this quote of yours:

"Anyone affected by this or other behavioural or emotional problems after brain injury needs access to specialist support to help them cope with the significant challenges that brain injury can bring."

Greeting.

Harun Hadžić It's not an isolated example of pathological laughter. Moreover, the range of "normal" everyday laughter is quite diverse, even though the hardiness of cultural traditions and memes might suggest otherwise. I presented some examples in an old paper, "Laughter and Pleasure" (1994).

"Precisely because it is so warm, a smile is more beautiful than any flower in the world."

(Henrik Arnold Wergeland, 1808 - 1845, Norwegian writer)

"Too often, behind that smile of mine, I hide a thousand tears." — Alex V.

“A smile can mean a thousand words, but it can also hide a thousand problems.” — Anonymous

“I smile not for that I am happy, but sometimes I smile to hide sadness.” — Rahim Chamkanai

"Only warm smiles are warm." — Karl Pfeifer

Smiling is mainly an expression, signifying something to someone. Whereas you do not normally laugh TO someone (*"He laughed to me and said..."), because it is a physiological reaction, an eruption, possibly reinforced by intention when found appropriate. Smiling is not an eruption (*"He burst into a smile and said..."). This physiological specificity of laughter is a remarkable indication of how mind and body can interact in 'real time'.

Per Aage Brandt "Smile at" and "laugh at" bridges the gap. ("Smile to" is less commonly used in English,). And if you laugh at someone, you can certainly be signifying something to them.

And a smile, if not an "eruption", can be sudden like a laugh ("he broke into a smile"). Laughs can be the continuation of a smile, and a smile can be what remains after a laugh. This is suggested by the German lachen (to laugh) and lächeln (which is the diminutive form of lachen, and which is translated as "to smile"). However, smiling and laughing are generally regarded as having had different evolutionary origins. "

And there is nothing unidiomatic about "burst into a smile". Google just told me "About 1,650,000 results (0.56 seconds)" 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-we-laugh/

Karl: As you mention, 'smile at', and 'laugh at', seem to bridge the gap. But only superficially, since the 'at' here is negative. My smile can positively address someone; laughing cannot do the same work. Fundamentally, laughing is a reaction, whereas smiling is an intentional expression. The reaction is highly interesting, because it seems to be able to manifest a deep metaphysical insight of the body (like: the idea that the universe is absurd! Or that god is insane!). The French philosopher Georges Bataille distinguished helpfully between 'le rire majeur,' which is of this metaphysical sort, and a 'rire mineur', which would be just making fun of someone.

Per Aage Brandt Smiling can be a reaction too. ("He made me smile"). And "laughing at" isn't always negative or belittling. One can laugh at oneself or, in a friendly way, at one's children or chums because of their antics.

Of course "laughing at" may not always be the best idiom for some contexts. But one may, with a shift in sense, laugh with delight at encountering an old friend, which is a positive reaction directed towards them (this is a use of "at" in the sense of "on" or "upon").

Laughing is not smiling, but some particular instances of smiling may share properties with some particular instances of laughing. Laughing can sometimes also be intentional: there may be a point where one could avert an incipient laugh but choose not to (some people claim to have even more control than that). Moreover, smiling is often unintentional or, indeed, unconscious.

I want to show you something, but don't laugh — Here a *don't smile would not work. To be laughed at is humiliating. One feels as a victim of an aggression. Precisely because it is a cognitive and physical reaction potentially affecting muscles all over the body, not just a face expression. It is also dangerous: Charlie Parker died of laughing. The body cannot "smile". The only exception may be La sonrisa vertical (Vargas Llosa's expression).

Per Aage Brandt Granted, there are physiological differences between smiling and laughing. Yet if you contract tetanus you can also die of a smile, namely a rictus grin: "An unnerving and unintentional grin that bears the teeth, known as risus sardonicus, results from contracted facial muscles. The respiratory and laryngeal muscles can spasm as well, obstructing the passage of air and causing death. Convulsive seizures, too, may occur."

Also, a smile can be humiliating for someone; it can be an indication that one is not being taken seriously or is being patronized. And it can serve an exclusionary purpose, as when people exchange "knowing smiles" in respect of someone present who is regarded as lacking in some respect.

Finally, "don't laugh" also wouldn't work for the kind of diseases that cause death, since the laughter in those cases is not in one's control. Charlie Parker's death certificate stated that lobar pneumonia was the cause of death; laughter may have been the death-enabling trigger in that case but there is no intrinsic connection between lobar pneumonia and laughter as there is between e.g. kuru disease and laughter.

Dear Karl Pfeifer,

Dear Pet Age Brandt,

You are very argumentative about various types of laughter and smiles, perhaps even ridicule, but here it is important to answer at least three more questions:

- Is laughter healthy and useful?

- Is a smile also healthy and useful? and,

- Why was the International Day of Laughter and Smiles established?

And as for ridicule I don’t think this discussion applies to it because ridicule means intentional insult, cynicism, or provocation?

Harun Hadžić RE: Your 3 questions:

RE: "And as for ridicule I don’t think this discussion applies to it because ridicule means intentional insult, cynicism, or provocation?"

Your question asks and explains: "Why are people laughing? … The reasons for the laughter can be different … from the aspect of anthropology, sociology, psychology, politics, humor, cynicism, optimism, morality, non / freedom, hypocrisy ... "

Humor can be nasty and insulting, as we know from some of the standup comedians who have been in the news of late (and there are lots of examples on Youtube as well), and cynicism and hypocrisy can be objects of ridicule, and ridicule figures largely in satirical humor. So your question doesn't preclude ridicule but actually invites its recognition. But let's face it, subjecting a person who one doesn't like to humorous ridicule can be salubrious for oneself, despite what goody-two-shoes moralists may claim. Laughing isn't always altruistic with its benefits.

Very nice, dear Karl. You're right. Thank you very much.

Harun Hadžić It's my pleasure to share with you the attached article entitled "Why Do We Laugh?" by Wilson D. Wallis

Thanks, Zied Ben Amor

Wallis makes a good point that I myself have made many times and which is generally not acknowledged by writers on laughter and humor:

« Laughter is not always elicited by the pleasurable, nor is it always the expression of pleasure » (p. 346).

Common causes for laughter are sensations of joy and humor. A general theory that explains laughter is called the relief theory. Sigmund Freud summarized it in his theory that laughter releases tension and "psychic energy".

Smiling is a private behavior. Laughing is a public behavior. Public behaviors tend to be more exaggerated, and louder. Here is a PowerPoint about "Laughter and Smiling."

Both laughing and smiling may be both public and private. And even at the same time, now that CCTV cameras are all over the place. You can probably find some examples on Youtube.

I think what Don may be saying is that while it is typical and natural to smile privately (especially when you are alone and thinking about something), and that the same thinking&smiling then typically becomes laughing when expressed to others under circumstances making this natural; in this case, laughing is amplified smiling, smiling for borakkasting, so to speak. Example: smiling privatelt about a politician's absurd declaration, and then laughing about the same thing with friends at the pub. We may laugh aloud when alone, but it is less frequent or typical or natural. (All descriptions of human behavior has a graduality to their propositional validity, but they can still characterise important distinctions).

Well, I agree, laughing when alone is probably less common than laughing in public, although a lot of people are still moved to laugh, snicker, or chuckle, when watching TV sitcoms by themselves. However, I don't agree at all that smiling in public is untypical. Walmart greeters, friendly coworkers, strangers in bars, parents at playgrounds — people don't just smile to themselves but also regularly smile at one another.

Common causes for laughter are sensations of joy and humor.

Smiling has a different social function, Karl, namely to signify friendly behavior, politeness, openness, things of that kind. This social smile is extremely common, of course, and has no privileged relation to humour; it is not a diminutive of laughing at all. Smiling on photos, selfies, etc. often has no conceptual content. But when you are alone, smiling no longer takes on this function, and it becomes a thinking-smile. At least that's how it works in my case. In the little photo above, I have been caught holding a speech in my garden, in front of folks celebrating a birthday, and sharing a joke.

Per Aage Brandt The idiom "beam with pleasure" can find application in both private and public situations as well as both thoughtful and (relatively) unthinking situations. One doesn't need an audience to take a selfie of oneself smiling and one can smile with satisfaction while eating a tasty treat by oneself without giving the matter much thought. And babies also can be seen smiling when alone.

Yes, Karl, but I am not referring to pleasure, which is also a semantic feature, as you rightly indicate, of smiling. The social function of smiling resembles more of a message like: "I will no bark at you!" —

Amazing research Karl. Can we say that laught is an aplication that God put in human kind?.

Per Aage Brandt You insist on pointing out an intermittent feature of smiling and then giving it the status of a generalization. Smiling can have many functions in public or social situations and what you call the social function is but one of them.

Wilson Rajagukguk

I favor some sort of evolutionary coping-mechanism story for the paleo origins of laughter but now it is a multifaceted phenomenon and many different kinds of laughter need to be distinguished. Smiling is considered by many to have a different evolutionary origin than laughter, one that has been suggested being the musculature involved in pleasurable breastfeeding. However, just as with laughter, different kinds of smiling (both infant and adult) need to be distinguished.

Harun Hadžić, laughter is part of daily life and also expresses physical changes in a person, and this also leads to a change in the terms and words used by the person.

Karl, I will not bark at you. By the social function of smiling I mean the way we, and especially women, are required to smile on photos, if they are not for passports. The smiling woman is a hostess, or a hooker, or an educated academic greeting the audience, or a politician meeting the press. Smiling this way means "I will cater to you". Men do less of this, but maybe the proportions are levelling, slowly. Laughter's social function is clearly distinct, as I see it: it must be done collectively at the same time (to be successful), and it signifies something quite different, something like "we are on the same side". — Then there are of course thousand variants and strange cases...

Per Aage Brandt RE: "Laughter's social function is clearly distinct [from that of smiling], as I see it: it must be done collectively at the same time (to be successful), and it signifies something quite different, something like "we are on the same side".

You mean like that knowing smile a number of people sometimes exchange when someone is making a fool of himself? Let me put my position this way: Sometimes laughter serves this-or-that function, sometimes another function, ditto for smiling. And sometimes a function served by laughter can also be served by smiling, and vice versa. But simply to speak of the function of one or the other gives an unbalanced perspective.

Don and Alleen Nilsen's powerpoints are an awesome and all-encompassing resource on laughter and humor:

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

Karl, if we don't generalize at all, we won't find knowledge at all. The problem is "cutting things at their joints". In Paul Ekman's work on basic emotional face expressions, smiling transculturally signifies /joy/. But like in social formulae such as "I am happy to...", "it is a pleasure to...", etc., there are infinitely many possible meanings of this /joy/, depending on contexts. Now, expressive contexts may be classifiable, so there is room for a pragmatic semantics of smiling. Part of which will be culture-specific, of course, but only partly, I think. There could be things that smiling cannot (easily, spontaneously) mean, except through explicit coding..

Laughter is contagious. Check out this PowerPoint about "Laughter and Smiling":

Per Aage Brandt

You don't need to make generalizations that have such obvious counterexamples. It's not like physics where generalizations involve idealizations. You can identify different paradigms or types of laughter and smiling and make generalizations about or within those. Identifying the distinct paradigms or types may be a way of carving nature at its joints, though I suspect such behaviors and functions are at levels of description far removed from the actual joints of nature and in many cases run orthogonal to them. Granted there are things smiling cannot mean; but you shouldn't discount things it can and often does mean.

Laughter may also have a sociocultural nature: people from different geographical and social cultures may find different things funny (e.g. Ziv, Goddard, Holcomb & Dubinsky, etc.). Age might be a determining factor. The newborn starts smiling when she is about 2 months old. There is an age when toddlers always smile and frequently laugh.

Here's a new book that's worth a look:

Book Jewish Humor: An Outcome of Historical Experience, Survival,...

Laughing is a good habit for health

Thank you all. Very interesting and instructive discussions.

There is also a cluster of articles by Holmes on humor in the office environment. Humor is used strategically for business communication. (Sorry, I am only mentioning the authors. Please, let me know if you are interested in the titles of books or articles. Ok?)

Socially laughter is about normal vs ubnormal. Laughter is a (collective) satisfaction of being in luck not to experience some sort of socially unfavourable states or conditions when others do. They who laugh feel stronger than those who are laughed at. IMHO.