Laughter. As human beings, it’s something that most of us are bound to experience. Whether it’s from browsing YouTube and finding a ridiculous dog fail compilation, or when your friend cracks out a joke that you just find funny for some apparent reason, the feeling of laughter is a common occurrence in our lives.
Check out the video below that not only showcases the diversity of laughter between all types of race and gender but also for a quick laugh!
the mechanisms of Laughter is complex
Laughter is something that we take for granted. If we find something funny, then we’re going to laugh. However, scientists to this day are unable to home in on the exact science of the reasoning of laughter. In fact, the results from the many studies that do exist out there further confirm that laughter is much more complex than we think. As an example, one study conducted in PNAS suggests that we laugh differently depending on who it is directed to. Have you noticed that you laugh differently with your friends than with strangers? This is something that we have probably realized as well!
A photo of two people laughing, by Emanuele Spies from São Leopoldo, RS, Brasil, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
laughter can help relieve stress?
A recent study conducted by Dr. Zander-Schellenberg and others were able to attribute this strange phenomenon as a way to relieve stress. More specifically, an increased frequency of laughter was found to have a positive correlation with the ability to weaken the effects of stressful events, while also dampening certain symptoms that may arise from stress. However, it was found that the intensity of laughter did not have such a significant effect.
In order to see if the experiment applies to daily life experiences, data were collected from 41 psychology students, 33 of which were female, from the University of Basel in real-life settings for 14 consecutive days. Through the usage of a smartphone application, a sound queue that triggered randomly throughout the day would prompt participants to answer questions about both the frequency and intensity of laughter, as well as any details regarding their current levels of stress and stressful events.
By investigating the effects of laughter on stress outside the laboratory, the study was able to show greater validity towards real-life dynamics, however, Dr. Schellenberg and others suggest that future studies that replicate their findings are required in order to further test for robustness. As the sample consisted of predominantly female students, recreating the experiment with a sample that more closely represents the general population is something that could solidify their findings.
For more information about laughter, this video does a great job of not only going over the origins of laughter but also the significance of it:
-Aaron Yoon
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