Just kidding: the evolutionary roots of playful teasing

Abstract

Accounts of teasing have a long history in psychological and sociological research, yet teasing itself is vastly underdeveloped as a topic of study. As a phenomenon that moves along the border between aggression and play, teasing presents an opportunity to investigate key foundations of social and mental life. Developmental studies suggest that preverbal human infants already playfully tease their parents by performing ‘the unexpected,’ apparently deliberately violating the recipient's expectations to create a shared humorous experience. Teasing behaviour may be phylogenetically old and perhaps an evolutionary precursor to joking. In this review, we present preliminary evidence suggesting that non-human primates also exhibit playful teasing. In particular, we argue that great apes display three types of playful teasing described in preverbal human infants: teasing with offer and withdrawal, provocative non-compliance and disrupting others' activities. We highlight the potential of this behaviour to provide a window into complex socio-cognitive processes such as attribution of others’ expectations and, finally, we propose directions for future research and call for systematic studies of teasing behaviour in non-human primates.

Visual bodily signals as core devices for coordinating minds in interaction

“…kick) when used during friendly play, but the reverse applied to contest hoots used in agonistic contexts. Further, Eckert et al [197] refer to reports on the signtrained gorilla Koko, who used facial signals (the play-face) to contextualize what appeared to be intentionally produced wrong manual signs as acts of teasing.…”

The Complexity and Phylogenetic Continuity of Laughter and Smiles in Hominids

“…It seems reasonable to conclude that Pia's outburst was induced by a representation of the preceding incongruent playful encounter. Collectively, such rare incidents provide evidence that great apes are able to produce open-mouth faces outside of play after non-aggressive violations of expectations, similar to human infant smiles (Reddy, 1991 ; for a discussion on benign violations and humor, see McGraw and Warren, 2010 ; Eckert et al, 2020 ). With the upper teeth exposed, open-mouth faces of play and the silent-bared teeth displays show interesting similarities that are discussed in the next section.…”

Play vocalisations and human laughter: a comparative review

“…Teasing is non-functional in the short term, rewarding for the teasers (and potentially the target), modified from actual verbal aggression, repeated over time, and generally occurs during unstressed and ordinary moments. Laughter can help initiate and prolong a teasing attack, make it feel non-serious and playful, and can even elicit laughter in targets despite their lack of desired participation (Glenn 2003;Schnurr and Chan 2011; also see Eckert et al 2020 for a comparative perspective on playful teasing).…”