The actual meaning behind laughter. Why we laugh even when it’s not funny.
Taylor arrives late to kindergarten. As she enters the classroom, her class is having circle time. Taylor moves to the blocks center (her favorite) and begins to build. Taylor’s teacher invites Taylor to circle time. Taylor continues building quietly. Taylor’s teacher approaches Taylor, kneels down to face Taylor, and asks her to join circle. Taylor answers “no” and continues to build. Taylor’s teacher again tells her that it’s time for circle and to clean up her toys. Taylor’s teacher takes Taylor’s hand to remove a block. Taylor spits and it hits her teacher. Taylor laughs.
In this situation, nothing overtly ‘funny’ has happened. If something isn’t funny, than why does Taylor laugh?
Let’s explore why some children laugh in situations that aren’t what we would generally consider to be ‘funny’ situations. We’ll discuss the actual meaning of laughter, why it happens, and how we can alter our teachings to reflect the true reason for laughter.
Why do we laugh when it’s not funny?
During outside recess, Avery is playing tag with his peers. Avery pauses to tie his shoes and while he is kneeling down, Emily trips over Avery and falls down. Emily begins to cry and states that Avery tripped her on purpose. Avery looks up and laughs.
While going over math problems during class, Alex is looking at their math sheet. Alex’s teacher calls on Alex to share their answer to the next problem. Alex looks at their friend, laughs, and says that they do not know the answer.
Why do some people laugh when someone else is hurt? Why do people laugh when they are ‘in trouble’ or have done something they’re not supposed to? Does laughter mean someone finds it funny when someone else is upset or hurt or displeased? Does laughter mean someone enjoys what happened?
Very often, people interpret laughter as meaning that someone took pleasure in the action - or found it to be funny. In Taylor’s spitting example, the interpretation was that Taylor spat at the teacher intentionally and laughed because she found the spitting to be funny. From this perspective, Taylor’s teacher was upset and Taylor was removed from the classroom and sent to the office.
For Avery, the view was that Avery laughed at Emily falling. As a result, after checking on Emily, Avery’s teacher spoke to Avery about it being mean to laugh at others when they fell. There was also uncertainty as to whether or not Avery tripped Emily on purpose.
For Alex, their teacher interpreted the laughter as being disrespectful and indicative of Alex not paying attention or caring about math class. All of these interpretations were incorrect and all of these interpretations resulted in ‘punishments’ or ‘consequences’ for the students - all due to a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of laughter.
If laughter doesn’t mean ‘funny’ than what does it mean?
“Often, people laugh for the exact opposite reason of finding something enjoyable - they laugh when they experience emotional distress.”
Unfortunately, current teachings on emotions and emotional expression tend to focus on laughter suggesting enjoyment or finding something funny or humorous. The ‘funny thing’ is that laughter does not always mean this. Instead, research suggests that we can laugh as a result of increased energy states and sensations within the body. Often, people laugh for the exact opposite reason of finding something enjoyable - they laugh when they experience heightened emotional distress.
The ‘undo’ hypothesis
The ‘undo’ hypothesis suggests that we experience a ‘positive’ emotional response such as laughing or smiling around negative events to ‘undo’ the effects of these negative experiences (Levenson, 1988; Levenson & Fredrickson, 1998).
Basically, when our body experiences a negative or stressful event, we experience an internal response (we actually experience bodily responses to all emotions we experience - check out our blog focused on teaching emotions with sensations). Stressful events tend to increase a person’s heart rate and blood pressure. Prolonged increased heart rate and/or blood pressure can negatively impact our body and overall health. Therefore, to help protect ourselves and our body, we engage in an action that helps to ‘undo’ these responses. These actions can include things like smiling and/or laughing.
Smiling and laughing in response to stressful situations helps to regulate our sensory system and to decrease stress (Zander-Schellen et al., 2020; Borrelli, Sinha, & Scott, 2021). Basically laughter helps us to release all of that increase in energy and sensations that occur because of the stressful event. Laughing in the face of stressful or challenging situations is designed as a protective mechanism for our body - not an indication of enjoyment.
expanding our definition of laughter
When we expand our understanding of laughter beyond ‘enjoyable’, we gain an entirely new perspective. Instead, when we notice someone laughing in a situation that doesn’t seem to be ‘funny’ or ‘humorous’ in the traditional sense, we can get curious.
We often notice people experience laughter when they are experiencing increased anxiety or fear. Perhaps you’re a ‘nervous laugh-er’ yourself. When you find yourself in an uncomfortable or anxiety producing situation, you may laugh as a protective mechanism. Does that mean you find the situation funny? Probably not. In all likelihood, you’re probably experiencing stress or embarrassment or fear or anxiety or nervousness.
Similarly, if a child is overwhelmed and experiencing increased stress and anxiety, they may laugh while also engaging in other actions to help reduce the amount of stress and overwhelm they are experiencing in their body.
Let’s reflect back on some of our earlier scenarios as examples.
For Taylor, instead of viewing her laughter after spitting as suggesting that she liked/enjoyed/found it humorous that she spat at her teacher, we can recognize that her laughter likely indicated a high level of stress and discomfort in her body. In a relatively short period of time, Taylor experienced the stress of arriving late to class, being provided with redirection, and physical touch from her teacher. It is very likely that Taylor’s overall energy levels were so high that she was no longer in control of her body and its response. As a result, she may not have even realized that she spat until after it occurred. Once she realized, the stress of recognizing she spat at her teacher was likely too much and increased her stress response further - resulting in laughter. Taylor wasn’t laughing because she enjoyed spitting at her teacher, Taylor was laughing because she was stressed and overwhelmed.
In Avery’s instance, having someone trip over him was unexpected and took Avery off guard. Not to mention, Emily was suggesting that Avery tripped her intentionally. Accessing the narrative skills and ability to advocate for yourself and to share your perspective can be stressful and nerve wracking. It can also be anxiety producing to be accused or doing something that was not your intention. Laughter helps decrease muscle tension and slow heart rate in response to stress and anxiety. Avery wasn’t laughing because he thought Emily falling was funny. Avery was laughing because he was stressed and surprised.
What about Alex? Being called upon in class to answer a question in front of the group when you don’t know the answer can certainly be a stressful situation! Instead of viewing Alex’s laughter as indicating they did not care about math class or were not attending to the lesson, we can consider that Alex may have felt nervous to be called upon to answer a question in front of the class. In addition, if they didn’t understand the question or didn’t know how the solve the problem, they could be nervous about others learning this information. Alex was laughing because they were uncertain and nervous.
“Laughter is a protective mechanism against stressful situations”
so what *should* we teach about laughter?
First and foremost, we can talk about and teach the nuances of laughter and what it can mean/convey. In particular, it’s vital that we teach that laughter does not always mean that someone enjoys something or finds something funny. In instances when we are uncertain, we can also encourage asking the person laughing how they are feeling or what they are experiencing.
As grownups, we can identify instances when we may laugh when we do not find something funny. For example, if we’re recounting a stressful event from our day, we may find ourselves laughing as we share the story. We can notice that the laughter helps to lift some of the stress from the situation - not that we find the situation funny.
If you don’t happen to be someone who laughs in response to heightened emotional states (that’s okay!) we can use books to help guide these conversations. Being someone who is a ‘nervous laugh-er’ herself, my current book collection on this topic is somewhat limited. However, I hear you and I know that it would be helpful if this list grew. So I’m working on it!
My current book suggestions/recommendations are below. This list is ‘okay’ but definitely far from great. To stay informed as I add to this list, be sure to sign up here.
Can I Play Too? - Mo Willems:
I feel as though almost all things ‘relationship’ can be taught with a Mo Willems book. The nuances of laughter is no exception. This story features Gerald with a nervous smile as Piggie tells Snake that Snake cannot play catch with them because he does not have arms. This is a potentially uncomfortable situation and Gerald is smiling not because he finds it to be funny, but because he is nervous or scared that the comment may upset or offend their friend, Snake.
I Love my New Toy - Mo Willems:
I love this book for so many reasons. Mostly, I use this story to notice the emotional response from characters and to discuss accidental versus intentional actions and emotional outcomes. But it also features Piggie with a nervous smile when he realizes that his toy was not broken after-all. Piggie is likely experiencing some embarrassment over his response and also some fear that his relationship with Gerald may be somewhat damaged. This certainly isn’t a funny situation for Piggie.
The Girl who Never Made Mistakes - Mark Pett & Gary Rubinstein:
In this story, we meet Beatrice who is known for *never* making a mistake. Of course, eventually, she does make a mistake. When Beatrice experiences her mistake, it’s on stage in front of a whole audience of people. Initially, the people in the audience just pause. Beatrice then starts to laugh and the audience members laugh too. We can use this scene to explore why we might laugh at something that didn’t turn out the way we were hoping? The audience members aren’t laughing at Beatrice because they think the fact she messed up was funny. They’re laughing at the sequence of events and also to lighten the mood/to reduce the stress surrounding the events. For Beatrice, she may very well be laughing because she is so embarrassed and overwhelmed.
We Don’t Eat our Classmates - Ryan T. Higgins:
Love-able Penelope Rex just has a hard time not eating her classmates. She knows that she’s not supposed to eat the other children, but sometimes she eats them anyway. The good news? She spits them out afterwards ;-). When Penelope’s teachers redirect her from eating her classmates, Penelope has a slight smile. It’s unlikely that Penelope *likes* getting this reminder and redirection from her teacher. Instead, we can consider that she might be feeling a little guilt or stress from the fact that she did eat a classmate even when she knows she’s not quite supposed to ;-).
In these stories, the illustrators tend to include facial flushing in the characters to indicate their discomfort and/or embarrassment. This type of visual representation may or may not be present in ‘real life’ situations. However, we can still notice that the laughter or smile depicted in the visuals does not mean that a character finds something to be funny :-)
So there you have it! If you take nothing else away from this conversation, please consider that laughter does not mean enjoyment. Join the mailing list to stay informed as the list of resources and recommendations for having this conversation grows!
References:
Borrelli, M., Sinha, V., & Scott, S. (2021). Laughter down-regulates negative emotional arousal amongst friends [version 1; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations]. F1000Research 2021, 10:325 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.52112.1)
Fredrickson, B. L., Levenson, R. W., (1998). Positive emotions speed recovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 12, 191–220
Fredrickson, B. L., Mancuso, R. A., Branigan, C., & Tugade, M. M. (2000). The Undoing Effect of Positive Emotions. Motivation and emotion, 24(4), 237–258. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1010796329158
Levenson, R. W. (1988). Emotion and the autonomic nervous system: A prospectus for research on autonomic specificity. In H. L. Wagner (Ed.), Social psychophysiology and emotion: Theory and clinical applications (pp. 17–42). John Wiley & Sons.
Zander-Schellenberg, T., Collins, I. M., Miché, M., Guttmann, C., Lieb, R., & Wahl, K. (2020). Does laughing have a stress-buffering effect in daily life? An intensive longitudinal study. PloS one, 15(7), e0235851. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235851