Laughter. A physical reaction to external or internal factors that is so common, to the point that it goes unnoticed unless it’s surprisingly pleasing or completely irritating. For people, it’s a basic act, but have you ever wondered how such a small act can affect your day to day interactions?
Sure, everyone’s way of laughing and reasons for doing it are different, yet, at the end of the day they all fall under different classifications. There are three general types of laughter: affiliative, de-escalating and power.
Affiliative laughter represents a sign of social acceptance and includes many different kinds of laughter. It’s a sign of cooperation and willingness for social bonding. There’s several different kinds of laughter that can fall under this category such as the belly, contagious or the silent one (Pretty self-explanatory names, I know). So, instead of going ahead and explaining the “science” behind them, I’ll give examples. Imagine that you’re hanging out with your friends and one of them makes one of those bad jokes that no one ever reacts to. You, however, can’t help but burst out laughing which makes the person next to you do the same and, soon enough, it turns into everyone being influenced by you. In this situation, laughter helped lighten the mood and completely shift the entire vibe of your interaction.
Now let’s see what it’d be like on the other side of the same coin. You’ve just had a busy day. It’s evening, you’re exhausted, you’re on the way home and you come across someone you know. Normally, you’d talk to them about your day, right? You instead can’t help but laugh at everything they’re saying, thus telling them that you’re extremely tired without actually saying it out loud.
De-escalating laughter, as it indicates in the name, helps relieve discomfort and dissipate the stress in the room. For this one, the stress-relieving, contagious or snorting laughter qualify. For instance, let’s say you’re out on a walk with someone and a pigeon happens to poop on them. Their first reaction would either be dumbfounded, annoyed or some other negative feeling, but you laugh. You let out one of those heartfelt laughs or just a simple snort and their demeanor shifts into a happier one and the mood lightens. Therefore, you’ve managed to manipulate the interaction into a funny occurrence instead of letting it be the thing that possibly ruins the other’s day.
Power laughter is a means to express superiority that reinforces the power dynamic between the ones taking part in the conversation. It is often used by bosses when talking to less powerful employees.
Aside from these, there’s also the canned laughter or the “laugh track”, as it’s more commonly known, that, since its invention, has been mostly used for tv shows such as sitcoms in an attempt to tip the audience’s view of certain scenes. Though it sometimes fails, it aims to make the viewers laugh along to the scenes, as it was intended by the script writers.
All in all, a simple act like laughter can heavily influence feelings and our interactions with others even if it seems insignificant. While yes, it is nonverbal, it still is an important part of communicating just like gesturing or facial expressions.
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