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Key points
- One of many factors influencing whether or not we find something amusing is the relationship we have with the focus of our attention.
- We closely identify with our own status and emotional state, and with close associates, but much less so with the unfamiliar and distant.
- For minor setbacks, we tend to laugh more with good friends and family. For major setbacks, it helps to be less emotionally invested.
There is tremendous variability with regard to what people find amusing. Our sense of humor changes as we grow older, as we gain life experience and knowledge of the world. It differs between individuals from distinct cultural backgrounds. Our laugh response can also vary due to the social context and even our mood. As I’ve touched on each of these areas in prior posts, I’ve been able to use the Mutual Vulnerability Theory of Laughter to uncover the reasons behind such differences.
In this article, I want to discuss several additional factors, specifically those relating to the connection we have with others participating in the moment.
You, Me, We, and Them
Laughter, like all forms of communication, is predicated upon a relationship between sender (the laugher) and the receiver (or at least the potential receiver, for we do sometimes laugh while alone). As is the case with other nonverbal signals, laughter transfers information—it is an expression of one’s emotional state and our perception of the world around us. Such exchanges take into account the sender’s desire to transmit this information, but also two other factors as well. One is the sender’s expectation regarding the receiver’s willingness and capacity to acquire and correctly interpret it. The other is the sender’s expectations regarding the potential consequences of such an exchange. We should expect, then, that some of the variation in the use of laughter would be linked to the sender’s knowledge or assumptions about these determinants. And these are, in turn, a function of the relationship between the principle characters.
Typically, when we hear the word “relationship” we tend to think of the most important people in our lives—parents, spouses, siblings, in-laws, supervisors, teachers, and the like. But that’s really much too limiting. Using the broadest definition of the word, we have a relationship with...well, everyone we know. We have a relationship with our mail carrier, our mechanic, our mayor, others with whom we take the train, even the characters we observe in the movies. We have relationships with the members of our village, our country, our continent, and our planet, based on, if nothing else, our shared humanity. Some ties may be close and personal, having a significant impact on our lives, and others may be very distant and impersonal, but we have some degree of association with every person and, for that matter, every other living thing.
Other species, as we know all too well, can also inspire our laughter. Amusing animal videos abound on YouTube. Why? We presume animals act with similar motivations as ours or are subject to comparable emotional responses—an inclination touched on earlier in our brief discussion of anthropomorphism. We might, for instance, laugh sympathetically at the first wobbly steps of a fawn because we assume it’s feeling awkward and self-conscious. Similarly, we imagine animals have, or should have, human-like cognitive and social abilities, albeit at a fraction of our capacity. We’ll laugh as a dog mindlessly chases its own tail, after a thwarted attempt to exit the car through a closed window, or following an ill-advised near miss encounter with a skunk. Cartoon animators facilitate this process of anthropomorphism by endowing their nonhuman characters with characteristically human traits and motivations.
So, with regard to laughter, we need to consider not if we have a relationship, but rather how close of relationship we have.
Affiliation
In a prior post, when discussing humor, I wrote of the effects of “distancing” on both our perception of vulnerability and our wish to express mutual vulnerability. Distancing was defined as sense of diminished emotional attachment resulting from a decrease in personal interrelationship. We are less emotionally invested in other people than in ourselves or our immediate family members. We can, as a result, find certain serious setbacks funny so long as they happen to people from a distant land, or born to a dissimilar culture, or having lived at some remote time in the past.
On the other hand, our feelings for them cannot be completely absent. Some connection is required for amusement, the desire to communicate mutual vulnerability, to manifest itself. We have to identify with others, and to care something about their status relative to ours. In humor, we often employ what we might call “affiliation,” a process of making the humorist or other targets of their humor appear more relatable and sympathetic to audience members. Affiliation is the reciprocal of distancing. It attempts to cultivate otherwise vague or dispassionate relationships into ones more closely approximating those we have with ourselves, our family, and our friends. People are encouraged to “put ourselves into the shoes of others”, to identify with their needs or goals, and to hope for their success.
Another type of affiliation recalls past or distant events and places them in a more current, personally relevant context. A tragic situation that may have never directly affected us because it happened long ago or in a distant country can be “brought home,” made personal and germane. We are called to imagine ourselves in the eruption of Pompeii, or on a predator-filled African plain, or in a 15th century English prison with all the hazards and challenges they represent.
Whomever we laugh with or at, we need to relate to them in some fashion. Sometimes it helps to closely identify with them. Sometimes it helps to be less invested. It all depends on the vulnerability being highlighted.
Given the multitude of elements that I’ve suggested in my last dozen posts help to determine whether and how intensely we laugh at a given stimulus, you might be curious about something. How can all these factors influence a behavior that feels so spontaneous, if not entirely reflexive?
The answer will be the subject of my next post.
© John Charles Simon
