Developing a social functional account of laughter

Abstract

Laughter is ubiquitous, universal, and variable. This article develops a social functional account to explain the many physical forms laughter takes and the many social contexts in which it occurs. In contrast to previous perspectives that emphasize the internal state of the producer or the eliciting context, the current social functional account distinguishes laughter according to the behavioral intentions it conveys and the behavioral response it elicits in the recipient. The general function of human and nonhuman laughter is to signal harmless intentions, and within this function, we identify 3 distinct social tasks accomplished by human laughter.We propose that the first social function of laughter, both evolutionarily and developmentally, is to reward the behavior of others and reinforce the ongoing interaction. The second task accomplished by laughter is the easing of social tension and signaling of affiliation and nonthreat. A third form of laughter nonconfrontationally enforces social norms, negotiates status, and corrects undesirable behavior in others by conveying dominance or superiority. We propose that the acoustic modulations that communicate these social intentions follow principles common to human and nonhuman vocal signaling.

Social Context Influences the Acoustic Properties of Laughter

“…The research team assigned 40 videos to each social context (reward, affiliation, and dominance) based on the proposed social tasks and prior research on humor (for details, see Wood & Niedenthal, 2018). Independent ratings from naïve participants were not obtained beforehand, but ratings from participants who completed the Stimulus Rating Task instead of the primary tasks (N = 118) are reported in Appendix D. Stimulus Rating Task participants reported feeling the most derision towards and feeling "better than" the targets in the dominance videos and they felt the most tenderness towards the targets in the affiliation videos, but the reward videos were not rated consistently higher than the other videos on any of the other judgments.…”

“…We propose laughter serves at least three social tasks (Wood & Niedenthal, 2018): contagious, pleasant-sounding laughter induces positive affect in the recipient to reward their behavior (Owren & Bachorowski, 2003); muted, low-arousal laughter that sounds like it comes from a smaller and unthreatening body signals affiliation, reassuring the recipient (Mehu & Dunbar, 2008); and unpleasant laughter that makes the producer sound larger enforces norms and conveys dominance (Szameitat et al, 2009). Of course, context adds meaning to a signal (Curran et al, 2018), so laughter acoustics should be more distinctive and contain more information in ambiguous contexts (Wood & Niedenthal, 2018). Multiple contextual and acoustic meanings might even enable a laugh to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously (Scarantino, 2018).…”

Social context influences the acoustic properties of laughter

“…But perhaps the acoustic variability across chuckles, snickers, and howls reflects variability in the social functions laughter serves. In particular, prior work suggests laughter can serve at least three social tasks (Wood & Niedenthal, 2018): inducing positive affect in the recipient to reward their behavior (Owren & Bachorowski, 2003); signaling affiliation, undoing social tension and smoothly coordinating interactions (Mehu & Dunbar, 2008); and punishing norm violations and exerting dominance over the target (Szameitat et al, 2009). Of course, context often provides information about the meaning of a laugh (Curran et al, 2018), so a person need only exaggerate rewarding, affiliative, or dominant features of their laughter to the extent that is necessary to disambiguate their intent (Wood & Niedenthal, 2018).…”

“…The research team assigned 40 videos to each social context (Reward, Affiliation, Dominance) based on the proposed social tasks and prior research on humor (for details, see Wood & Niedenthal, 2018). Independent ratings from naïve participants were not obtained beforehand, but ratings from participants who completed the Stimulus Rating Task instead of the primary tasks (N=118) are reported in Appendix D. Stimulus Rating Task participants reported feeling the most derision to ards and feeling better than the targets in the Dominance ideos and they felt the most tenderness towards the targets in the Affiliation videos, but the Reward videos were not rated consistently higher than the other videos on any of the other judgments.…”

Recognizing affiliation in colaughter and cospeech

“…A fairly substantial body of work strongly suggests that laughter functions, at least in part, to communicate positive affect and cooperative intentions among groups of mutually trusting individuals in ongoing relationships. The notion that laughter helps people signal affiliative intentions is central to all current functional approaches [13,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. But few theorists have considered seriously the ubiquitous phenomenon of laughter in groups.…”