Why do people laugh?

Robert PROVINE

1 In 1962, what began as an isolated fit of laughter in a group of schoolgirls in Tanzania

rapidly rose to epidemic proportions. Contagious laughter spread from one individual to the next
and between communities. Fluctuating in intensity, the laughter epidemic lasted for around two
and a half years and during this time at least 14 schools were closed and about 1,000 people
afflicted. Laughter epidemics, big and small, are universal. Laughter yoga, an innovation of
Madan Kataria of Mumbai, taps into contagious laughter for his Laughter Yoga clubs. Members
gather in public places to engage in laughter exercises to energise the body and improve health.
Kataria realised that only laughter is needed to stimulate laughter – no jokes are necessary. When
we hear laughter, we become beasts of the herd, mindlessly laughing in turn, producing a
behavioural chain reaction that sweeps through our group.
2 Laughter is a rich source of information about complex social relationships, if you know
where to look. Learning to ‘read’ laughter is particularly valuable because laughter is involuntary
and hard to fake, providing uncensored, honest accounts of what people really think about each
other. It is a decidedly social signal. The social context of laughter was established by 72 student
volunteers in my classes, who recorded their own laughter, its time of occurrence and social
circumstance in small notebooks (laugh logbooks) during a one-week period. The sociality of
laughter was striking. My logbook keepers laughed about 30 times more when they were around
others than when they were alone – laughter almost disappeared among solitary subjects.
3 Further clues about the social context of laughter came from the surreptitious observation
of 1,200 instances of conversational laughter among anonymous people in public places. My
colleagues and I noted the gender of the speaker and audience (listener), whether the speaker or
the audience laughed, and what was said immediately before laughter occurred. Contrary to
expectation, most conversational laughter was not a response to jokes or humorous stories. Fewer
than 20% of pre-laugh comments were remotely joke-like or humorous. Most laughter followed
banal remarks such as ‘Are you sure?’ and ‘It was nice meeting you too.’ Mutual playfulness,
in-group feeling and positive emotional tone – not comedy – mark the social settings of most
naturally occurring laughter. Another counterintuitive discovery was that the average speaker
laughs about 46% more often than the audience. This contrasts with the scenario in stand-up
comedy – a type of comedy performance in which a non-laughing speaker presents jokes to a
laughing audience. Comedy performance in general proves an inadequate model for everyday
conversational laughter. Analyses that focus only on audience behaviour (a common approach)
are obviously limited because they neglect the social nature of the laughing relationship.
4 Amazingly, we somehow navigate society, laughing at just the right times, while not
consciously knowing what we are doing. In our sample of 1,200 laughter episodes, the speaker
and the audience seldom interrupted the phrase structure of speech with a ha-ha. Thus, a speaker
may say ‘You are wearing that? Ha-ha,’ but rarely ‘You are wearing… ha-ha… that?’ The
occurrence of laughter during pauses, at the end of phrases, and before and after statements and
questions suggests that a neurologically based process governs the placement of laughter. Speech
is dominant over laughter because it has priority access to the single vocalisation channel, and
laughter does not violate the integrity of phrase structure. Laughter in speech is similar to
punctuation in written communication. If punctuation of speech by laughter seems unlikely,
consider that breathing and coughing also punctuate speech. Better yet, why not test my theory of
punctuation by examining the placement of laughter in conversation around you, focusing on the
placement of ha-ha laughs. It's a good thing that these competing actions are neurologically
orchestrated. How complicated would our lives be if we had to plan when to breathe, talk and
laugh.
Q1. Which paragraph comments on which person laughs within a verbal exchange?
A. The first paragraph.
B. The second paragraph.
C. The third paragraph.
D. The fourth paragraph.
Q2. Which paragraph uses a comparison with other physical functions to support an idea?
A. The first paragraph.
B. The second paragraph.
C. The third paragraph.
D. The fourth paragraph.
Q3. Which paragraph gives reasons why understanding laughter supplies very useful insights?
A. The first paragraph.
B. The second paragraph.
C. The third paragraph.
D. The fourth paragraph.
Q4. Which paragraph refers to someone who understood the self-perpetuating nature of laughter?
A. The first paragraph.
B. The second paragraph.
C. The third paragraph.
D. The fourth paragraph.
Q5. Which paragraph cites a study that involved watching people without their knowledge?
A. The first paragraph.
B. The second paragraph.
C. The third paragraph.
D. The third paragraph.
Q6. The current text is:
A. Biased.
B. Objective.
C. Humorous.
D. Subjective.
Q7. According to the writer, the spread of laughter as a contagious epidemic in Tanzania:
A. Was a local myth.
B. Did happen and was a real problem.
C. Did happen, but was not a problem.
D. Did not happen, but its occurrence could have caused serious problems.
Q8. Observing the way audiences react to comedians?
A. Is the best way to study human laughter.
B. Is the worst way to study human laughter
C. Is not supposed to happen.
D. Is not enough for the study of laughter.
Q9. According to the writer we learn when to laugh:
A. By watching other humans interacting.
B. By following certain rules.
C. By conducting experiments.
D. Unconsciously.
Q10. The students that helped the writer in his study were mainly:
A. Observing themselves.
B. Laughing at each other.
C. Observing other people.
D. Laughing at other people.
Q11. The writer encourages his readers to verify his theory about laugher by observing:
A. Punctuation.
B. The placement of punctuation in sentences around them.
C. Laughter.
D. The placement of laughter in sentences around them.
Q12. According to the writer, stand-up comedians:
A. Laugh in a normal way –like normal people.
B. Do not laugh at all.
C. Laugh more than their audiences do.
D. Laugh less than their audiences do.
Q13. The writer describes laughter as:
A. A cure.
B. A disease.
C. Both a cure and a disease.
D. Neither a cure nor a disease.
Q14. According to the writer:
A. Laughter is so strong that it prevents people from speaking normally.
B. Though laughter is contagious, it is dominated by speech.
C. As laughter is contagious, it dominates speech.
D. We laugh only when we want to laugh.
Q15. According to the writer’s study, most natural laughter occurs as a response to:
A. Funny jokes.
B. Banal remarks.
C. Talented comedians.
D. Anonymous people.
Q16. The public research that the writer conducted led him to:
A. The discovery of unexpected results.
B. The confirmation of the previous results.
C. The cure of the epidemic of laughter.
D. Both A and C.
Q17. The word “Contagious ” in the first paragraph means:
A. Likely to be contained.
B. Unlikely to be contaminated.
C. Likely to spread to and affect others.
D. Unlikely to spread its effects to others.
Q18. The word “consciously” in the third paragraph means:
A. Intentionally.
B. Carelessly.
C. Doubtfully.
D. Increasingly.
Q19. The expression “Another counterintuitive discovery” means another discovery that opposes:
A. Intellectual ideologies.
B. Common-sense expectations.
C. Intelligent ideas.
D. Institutional thought.
Q20. The word “surreptitious ” in the third paragraph means:
A. Surrealist.
B. Secretive.
C. Superstitious.
D. Suppressive.