The naturalistic approach to laughter in humans and other animals: towards a unified theory

Abstract

This opinion piece aims to tackle the biological, psychological, neural and cultural underpinnings of laughter from a naturalistic and evolutionary perspective. A naturalistic account of laughter requires the revaluation of two dogmas of a longstanding philosophical tradition, that is, the quintessential link between laughter and humour, and the uniquely human nature of this behaviour. In the spirit of Provine's and Panksepp's seminal studies, who firstly argued against the anti-naturalistic dogmas, here we review compelling evidence that (i) laughter is first and foremost a social behaviour aimed at regulating social relationships, easing social tensions and establishing social bonds, and that (ii) homologue and homoplasic behaviours of laughter exist in primates and rodents, who also share with humans the same underpinning neural circuitry. We make a case for the hypothesis that the contagiousness of laughter and its pervasive social infectiousness in everyday social interactions is mediated by a specific mirror mechanism. Finally, we argue that a naturalistic account of laughter should not be intended as an outright rejection of classic theories; rather, in the last part of the piece we argue that our perspective is potentially able to integrate previous viewpoints—including classic philosophical theories—ultimately providing a unified evolutionary explanation of laughter. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cracking the laugh code: laughter through the lens of biology, psychology and neuroscience’.

Joyful by nature: approaches to investigate the evolution and function of joy in non‐human animals

“…Recent research provides strong evidence for various animal calls being analogous to laughter (Palagi, Caruana & de Waal, 2022). Modern phylogenetic analysis has shown that laughter dates back to at least the common ancestor of apes and humans, some 10–16 million years ago (Mya) (Ross, Owren & Zimmermann, 2009).…”

Cracking the laugh code: laughter through the lens of biology, psychology and neuroscience

“…An opinion piece provides a unifying framework across the different disciplines also suggesting further ideas to expand the knowledge through a comparative approach (Palagi et al . [ 1 ]). Then four reviews frame laughter studies in the fields of anthropology (Dunbar [ 2 ]), ethology (Davila-Ross & Palagi [ 3 ]), psychology (Scott et al .…”