The fear of being laughed at among psychiatric patients

Abstract

The fear of being laughed at brings to the fore the problematic side of an otherwise very positive aspect of human experience. In the streamline of investigations analyzing the presence and characteristics of gelotophobia, a study focusing on psychiatric patients was carried out. The diagnoses were established according to the criteria of the DSM IV TR (American Psychiatric Association 2000). Based both on clinical and empirical observations, the main hypothesis advanced was that using the Geloph3154 scale, Ss with a psychiatric diagnosis would have higher mean scores than Normal Controls. An additional hypothesis was that intragroup di¤erences were also expected among the various diagnostic categories. The main hypothesis was amply supported, and explanatory suggestions of the finding were proposed. Intragroup di¤erences proved also to be significant. Patients with personality disorders and patients with schizophrenic disorders scored higher than Normal Controls and the other diagnostic groups. And also the number of years spent in psychiatric care resulted significantly associated with higher gelotophobia mean scores. From the present study, a circular, interactive relationship was confirmed between laughter and mental health, which can alternatively be highly positive or deeply negative.

Teasing, Ridiculing and the Relation to the Fear of Being Laughed at in Individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome

“…Such high rates of gelotophobia have not been reported in other populations or clinical groups. For example, 40% of individuals with eating disorders report a slight form of gelotophobia (cut-off score[2.5), 35.71% of individuals with personality disorders (Forabosco et al 2009 2 ), and 24.53% of shame-based neurotics (Ruch and Proyer 2008b). This indicates that gelotophobia is a very important, but understudied, phenomenon in individuals with AS.…”

“…In the past 3 years, more than thirty studies have been published that examined the fear of being laughed at in a variety of contexts (e.g. Forabosco et al 2009;Platt 2008;). For example, it was shown that a group of clinically diagnosed gelotophobes could be separated by means of a self-report measure from groups of shame-based and non-shame based neurotics (Nathanson 1992) and from normal controls .…”

The state-of-the art in gelotophobia research: A review and some theoretical extensions

“…Psychiatric samples in Italy (Forabosco et al 2009) and Russia (Ivanova et al 2012) yielded higher scores compared to healthy adults, and the number of years spent in psychiatric care correlated positively with gelotophobia in Italy. Weiss et al (2012) found that gelotophobia partially overlaps with Cluster A personality disorder (mostly with paranoid personality disorder but also with schizoid and schizotypal personality disorder) in gelotophobic students, and also Italian patients with personality disorders or schizophrenic disorders scored higher than normal controls and other diagnostic groups (Forabosco et al 2009). Comorbidity studies are needed: separating the three components of gelotophobia might yield the result that Cluster A personality disorder converges with paranoid sensitivity to anticipated ridicule and social phobia with coping with derision.…”

Gelotophobia: Life satisfaction and happiness across cultures

“…Recently, studies in non-English speaking countries were conducted in China (Chen et al 2009), Czech Republic (Hrebícková et al 2009), Denmark (Führ et al 2009), Israel (Sarid et al 2011), Italy (Forabosco et al 2006(Forabosco et al , 2009a(Forabosco et al , 2009b, Lebanon (Kazarian et al 2009), Poland (Chlopicki et al 2010), Romania ), Russia (Stefanenko et al 2010), Slovakia (Hrebícková et al 2009), andSpain (Carretero-Dios et al 2010). examined the measurement equivalence of a gelotophobia questionnaire in 73 countries around the globe (involving more than 22,500 participants).…”