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Psychology > Laughing > Flashcards

Laughing Flashcards

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1
Q

How much do we laugh per day?

A
  • Daily laughter records taken over 3 days, by both males and females ranging in age from 17-79
  • 18 daily incidents
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2
Q

What are the potential health benefits associated with laughter?

A
  • Positive effect on cardiovascular and respiratory system
  • There is some evidence showing that exposure to comedy shows can increase pain threshold
  • Stress-moderating effect - The more humorous the outlook on life, the more cognitive appraisals/attributions
  • Increased well-being
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3
Q

What is the Superiority theory of laughter?

A
  • The laughing at the misfortunes of others
  • This generated a feeling of superiority
  • Getting enjoyment out of laughing at people who think they’re better than us: richer, wiser
  • The laugher is with malice and is harmful
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4
Q

What is the Incongruity theory of laughter?

A
  • Laugher is derived because of an unexpected outcome, it is either illogical or inappropriate
  • As we live in an orderly world, we laugh at things that don’t fit the pattern that we are used to
  • This could be to unrelated things combined for a comic effect
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5
Q

What percentage of laughter is down to a ‘formal effort at humour’?

A

20%

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6
Q

What does laughing show in a social context?

A
  • Our acceptance of the other person
  • That we care for the other person
  • Our like/love for the person
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7
Q

How does laughter aid a caregivers relationship with a child?

A
  • Strengthens the social bond

- By making the child laugh and then repeating the process a ton emotional interaction cycle starts

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8
Q

What does laughter do in groups?

A

Increases cooperation and cohesiveness

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9
Q

How much more frequent is laughter in a social context over solidarity?

A

30x

- Highlights laughter as a social signal and a form of communication

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10
Q

Describe the dubbed laughter study (procedure & results) in reference to sitcoms

A
  • Group of participants
  • They all listened to 2 recordings, one had dubbed laughter, one did not.
    Findings:
  • Participants laughed more frequently to the recording with dubbed laughter compared to the one without
  • Participants also rated the material with the dubbed laughter more amusing
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11
Q

Is laughter a contagious behaviour? Describe a real life study and its results to explain.

A
  • Tanganyika Epidemic
  • Began as an isolated fit of a small group of 12-18 year olds
  • Spread throughout the school, which closed
  • Spread from one individual to the next
  • ‘Infected’ neighbouring communities
  • 14 schools closed
  • 1,000 people were affected
  • Disrupted normal community life for 6 months
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12
Q

Is laughter a contagious behaviour? Describe a laboratory study and its results to explain.

A
  • 128 undergraduate students
  • 10 trials from a laughter box
  • It was recorded whether they laughed or smiled during the trial
  • The majority of the undergraduate laughed in response to the first presentation of the box
  • Laughter then declined over the trials
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13
Q

What makes laughter so contagious?

A

Nothing is yet determined, but:

  • There is some evidence that the brain prepares to ‘join in’ with laughter
  • We experience an auditory activation when we hear emotional sounds (e.g. laughter)
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14
Q

What % of pre-laugh comments are humorous?

A

10-20%

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15
Q

How is laughter present in conversations?

A

Speech, facial expressions, gestures, postural changes

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16
Q

Describe a study that discusses laughter in regards to males and females.

A
  • 1,200 episodes of naturally occurring laughter in public places
  • Speakers laughed more than audiences (46% more)
  • Females laughed more than males
  • Audiences laugh more at male speakers (127% more)
17
Q

How much more do speakers laugh compared to their audience?

A

46%

18
Q

Explain the gender differences in laughter.

A
  • Females laughed more than males

- Males got more laughs than females (127% more)

19
Q

Where does most laughter occur?

A

99% laughter is in pauses at the ends of phrases or sentences, this is for both the audience and speaker

20
Q

How many times does laughter interrupt speech?

A

8/1,200 in the case of the speaker

0/1,200 in the case of the audience

21
Q

Sum up how laughter can interrupt speech?

A

Audiences do not tend to interrupt speakers speech with laughter, a study was conducted and it found that no times did the audience interrupt the speak with laughter out of 1,200.
However, the speaker was interrupted 8/1,200 times, which is still a very low figure.

22
Q

Why does speech not seem to be interrupted by laughter?

A

Speech seems to have priority access over the single vocalisation channel that we have. There also seems to be a lawful, (probably neurologically based) process that governs the placement of laughter within speech.

23
Q

Is laughter a recognisable emotional across cultures? Describe a study and its results to explain.

A
  • Investigation of the non-verbal expression of emotion in the human voice across cultures
  • 2 groups of participants, one from a western society and the others from the Himba tribe
  • Both groups recognised; anger, disgust, fear, sadness and laughter
  • Suggesting that laughter is a emotion recognised across many different cultures
  • However not many other positive emotions were recognised by both parties
24
Q

What are the differences between human-infants and Great Ape-infants laughter?

A
  • Human infants laughter was a predominantly voiced sound

- Great Apes laughter was a more breathy panting sound

25
Q

How do chimps use laughter to strengthen social bonds?

A

Laughter for chimps was in related to play and maintenance, which when repeated gives the same strengthening effect that a child and its caregiver have through laughter.

26
Q

Is there laughter in non-human primates. Explain and discuss the results of a study.

A

Laughing Rats:

  • Rats chirp at 50 kHz, which is not audible to the human ear. (Readily emitted during tickling)
  • The chirps are more frequently emitted by young rats and during tickling
  • The rats were seen to be social bonded to ticklers and became conditioned to seen tickling
  • Rats preferred to spend time with other rats that chirp a lot
27
Q

What evidence is there that laughter came before talking?

A
  • There are neural circuits for laughter that exist in very ancient regions of the brain
  • The things that make animals laugh (tickling) is associated with early infancy
28
Q

What is the earliest sign of humour in humans?

A
  • The earliest time we see signs of laughter is at around 18 months
  • It was initially though to be not until around 6 - 7 years
29
Q

What makes babies laugh?

A

Ripping paper, sounds, animals, approaching tickles

30
Q

In regards to social laughter, at what ages do the % of children laughing at it differ?

A

Social laugher is unexpected stimuli and is usually understood by older infants, e.g. peek-a-boo

8m - 25% 
11m - 71%
14m - 50%
17m - 86%
24m - 67%
31
Q

What is clowning?

A

Clowning is the repetition of odd actions that have previously led to laughter to re-elicit laughter

32
Q

Describe a clowning study

A
  • 16 infants, ages: 8, 11, 14, 17 & 24 months
  • Majority of all age groups reported to show any clowning
  • Clowning frequencies:
    Once a week was high for all age groups
    Daily: 8m = 69%, 11m = 60%, 14m = 73%, 17m = 64%, 24m = 62%
33
Q

What are the ‘typical’ things laughter shows?

A
  • Similarity of interest
  • Sharing a similar attitude towards things
  • Allows for further mutual understanding
  • Shows an awareness of social patterns and expectations
34
Q

What does laughing with others show?

A
  • Interest in others laughter as an emotional reaction
  • An interest in the targets of others laughter
  • An interest in a participant or audience for one’s own laughter
  • An ability for emotional relatedness
35
Q

What does clowning show:

A
  • An interest in others amusement
  • A desire to re-elicit humorous reactions
  • The ability to casually link ones own actions to others reactions
  • An awareness of audience attention

Psychology (8 decks)

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