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Source: pixabayA woman in labor is having a terrible time and suddenly shouts out: "Shouldn't! Wouldn't! Couldn't! Didn't! Can't!"

"Don't worry," says the doctor. "These are just contractions."

A pregnant woman was suffering when suddenly she began to shout: "syringe! syringe! analgesia! it hurts!"

"take it easy," said the doctor. "it's just labor pains."

So far, several theories have tried to explain why something or a picture is so interesting that it makes people laugh. These include surprises (something tacit), annihilation of one's authority or sense of superiority (mockery), incongruity-unrelated things appear at the same time.

So I decided to study all the English literary works related to laughter and humor that had been published in the past decade to see if I could find any clues.

After reviewing more than a hundred papers, I found a new possibility: laughter is an instrumental behavior that may help us survive.

I have read some research papers on humor theories. The important information of these theories involves three aspects: the physical characteristics of laughter, the central area of the brain associated with laughter, and the health benefits of laughter.

More than 150 articles have proved the important characteristics of the condition of laughter.

By applying all the theories to specific areas, I condensed the laughter process into three main steps: "confusion", "solution", and the "alarm signal" I'm going to introduce next.

This raises the possibility that natural selection has preserved laughter in order to help humans survive over the past few thousand years. It also explains why we are attracted to people who make us laugh.

The theory of evolutionary incongruity of laughter well explains what laughter is caused by humor, but it is not enough.

In this case, laughter is not a common perception of disharmony and disproportion between things, but to find that the environment we live in is contrary to normal.

For example, a tiger walking on a city street, although it looks strange, is not funny and even makes people shiver. But if the tiger rolls around like a ball, the picture can't help laughing.

The anti-hero character Homer Simpson will bounce like a ball into the sky after falling off the roof; his son Bart will stick his eyes out like a rubber pinball and shake his tongue like a rubber marble when he is "choked" by his father. This kind of shot often makes the audience laugh.

Photo Source: pixabay these are examples of everyday human activities turning into exaggerated animation scenes, where anything can happen, especially ridiculous things.

But if they want to be interesting, they have to do no harm. We laugh because we know that tigers or Homer will never hurt us or themselves, because their world is not real in nature.

So we can divide laughter into three steps. First, it needs a strange-looking situation and induces a sense of disharmony (confusion or panic).

Second, the concerns or pressures caused by lack of coordination must be overcome. Third, laugh as an alarm to tell onlookers that they are safe (relax).

Laughter may be a signal that people have been using for thousands of years to show others that there is no need to fight or flee, and that the perceived threat is over.

That's why laughter is usually contagious: it keeps people close, gregarious, and tells people not to worry anymore. Laughter is vitality.

The 1936 film Modern Times can help us understand. In the film, the funny little tramp played by Charlie Chaplin screws bolts like a robot in the factory.

We laugh here because we subconsciously want to show others that we know that this anxious plot-humans have become robots-is fictional. He's human, not a machine. There's nothing to worry about.

How does humor work similarly, the joke at the beginning of this article starts with a scene in normal life and then becomes a bit strange and confusing (the mother's behavior is very abrupt), but we finally realize that instead of being serious, the scene has some comic effect (the double meaning of the doctor's reaction is relaxing, and contractions is the meaning of an acronym (shouldn't-should not). It also means contractions), which finally makes people laugh.

As I have shown in a previous study of human crying behavior, laughter is important to the physiology of our bodies.

Like crying, chewing, breathing or walking, laughter is a rhythmic behavior and a release mechanism of the body.

The central area of the brain that controls laughter also controls mood, fear and anxiety. Laughter can break the tension in the environment and make people feel relieved.

In hospitals, humor is often used to help patients recover, such as clown therapy.

Humor can also improve blood pressure, improve immune defense, and help overcome anxiety and depression.

My research also shows the importance of humor in teaching-it helps to strengthen memory and thinking.

Humor in the classroom can enable students to focus and create a more relaxed and efficient learning environment. In teaching, humor can also reduce anxiety, increase participation and increase learning motivation.

Love and laughter by studying these data about laughter, we can put forward a hypothesis: why people fall in love with someone because "they make me happy". This is not only about whether it is interesting or not, but also about some more complicated factors.

If other people's laughter arouses our laughter, then that person is implying that we can relax and that we are safe-and trust is created.

If we are amused by their jokes, it helps us overcome our fear of strangers or unfamiliarity. If someone's humorous ability can inspire us to overcome our fears, we will be more easily attracted to him. This explains why we like people who make us laugh.

In contemporary society, we will not be wary of laughter, we will enjoy the joy and happiness it brings.

From an evolutionary point of view, it may be this human behavior that plays an important role in risk awareness and self-preservation.

Even now, after passing by danger, we often can't help laughing because of a complete sense of relief.

Original text link:

Https://www.sciencealert.com/why-do-we-laugh-new-study-suggests-it-may-be-a-survival-strategy

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: global Science (ID:huanqiukexue), author | Carlo Valerio Bellieni Translation | Zhang Naixin revision | Wang Yu

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