Laughter – social glue for building happiness which sticks.
Today is International Day of Happiness and this year’s theme is, “Happier Together”. How appropriate then to look at the social aspect of laughter, our social super-glue.
Laughter is a universal social glue. It connects people without using language. It is present across cultures and is a big subject. When we hear other people laughing together, we don’t need to know why they are laughing to want to join in.
Laughter helps people to get along together. When we meet new people, we may often share a laugh when we feel we have something in common. In fact, when on a first date, the amount of shared laughter has been shown to be a good predictor of whether the relationship will develop. Strong relationships are often built on the foundation of memories of laughing together.
It turns out that because laughter is a great mood elevator, it is a powerful way of creating happy memories. It is as if laughter acts as a re-enforcer of good times. When we laugh together it builds trust and may reflect trust already gained. In the act of laughing, we often make ourselves vulnerable as we let our guard down from our usual self. In this way laughter is a great way of levelling hierarchy and getting people onto the same level.
During the pandemic a team of scientists investigated low-cost accessible interventions which might be used to reach vulnerable people who were shielding. They were interested in potentially scalable activities for people having limited social contact. Laughter therapy was shown to have a significant improvement in loneliness and social support (1).
It is somewhat surprising that laughter is most often generated by the person who is talking, rather than the listener. It seems intuitive that we laugh in response to something funny. However, in conversations over seventy percent of the observed laughter comes from the speaker.
We do not often laugh alone. In fact, we are thirty times more likely to laugh when we are in the company of others. A study showed that people who perform a strike at a bowling alley do not smile when the strike actually happens, only when they turn around and see the faces of their friends and co-bowlers. So, smiling and laughing are social behaviours, drawing us together.
However, we know that smiling and laughing are not always benign. They can be used unkindly to exclude or make fun of others. Noticing when others are laughing and trying to guess about the motive behind the laughter is an interesting exercise. People have different laughs, just as they have different voices or ways of walking. It is fascinating to observe how we use smiling and laughing in a social setting and see what the reaction is.
Next time you attend a social gathering, perhaps putting on a laughter lens might be fun but also instructive. Looking at who is laughing with whom and when is a natural social experiment. It’s social bonding under construction.
Anna
(1) Williams, Christopher YK, Adam T. Townson, Milan Kapur, Alice F. Ferreira, Rebecca Nunn, Julieta Galante, Veronica Phillips, Sarah Gentry, and Juliet A. Usher-Smith. "Interventions to reduce social isolation and loneliness during COVID-19 physical distancing measures: A rapid systematic review." PloS one 16, no. 2 (2021): e0247139.