To Laugh or Not to Laugh, That is the Question

Have you ever wondered why a sycophantic, spineless co-worker is able to guffaw at your superior's joke whereas all that you could muster is a slight quirk on the corners of your mouth? Certainly, the said colleague is seeking some sort of approbation in his or her attempt to foster a camaraderie with the boss, but that doesn't explain the other cases involving just you and the boss? What possesses you to laugh along with his outrightly lame punchline?

Turns out, there is an explanation for this bizarre phenomenon, as elucidated in John Tierney's engaging New York Times article dated March 13th. He pointed that the approach used by well-known philosophers and psychologists like Kant, Aristotle and Freud leans heavily towards dissecting humor, when they should concentrate on the crucial component of humor which is laughter. According to the research findings, laughter acts an inextricable, instinctive and innate form of social lubricant that strengthens group solidarity and distil a nervous energy.

Occasionally we’re surprised into laughing at something funny, but most laughter has little to do with humor. It’s an instinctual survival tool for social animals, not an intellectual response to wit. It’s not about getting the joke. It’s about getting along.

The scientists further elaborated that women are more likely to be the ones laughing whether they are the speakers or the listeners. In the former case, they use the laughs as punctuation for their sentences. As for the latter, the listening women are caught laughing more if the speaker is male as opposed to female. Conversely, if the male speaker delivers the laugh line, both male and female listeners are more prone to laugh along with him than if they were with a female speaker.

When we substitute the role of listener to that of an underling, and of speaker to a boss, the same results were recorded - the boss' one-liner will elicit more laughter to the underling (male or female) while the boss is more likely to hold his/her composure when the subordinate cracks the joke. However, when a new co-worker joins the rank, she will laugh at the wise-cracks made by her female or male colleagues.

When you’re low in the status hierarchy, you need all the allies you can find, so apparently you’re primed to chuckle at anything even if it doesn’t do you any immediate good.

Adding another layer to the experimentation is the gender hierarchy involved in laughing. Despite making headway in the sexual revolution, women at large still find themselves relegated to a lower social status compared to their male counterparts. Since their social positions are ostensibly inferior to the men, women subconsciously 'hard-wired' their behaviour to laugh in presence of men, particularly high-ranking male.

This sounds fairly plausible in my case when I felt compelled to laugh at the Big Male Boss' joke eventhough on hindsight it was not even a smidgen funny. Everyone else was laughing as well to think of it. On the other hand, in the case of my immediate female superior, the gales of laughter were genuine and instilled a healthy feeling of esprit de corps. I attribute this rarefied connection to her need to establish a close rapport and an alliance with her subordinates as well as to the 'automated' female bonding in a highly patriarchal company.

However, I believe other variables are absent in the explaining the gender gap in laugh-o-meter. An interplay of one's religious or spiritual background, refined cultural experiences (or lack thereof), level of education, upbringing, geographical location and a string of other tangible factors will provide a more complete, if not comprehensible, picture to the socio-psychological motivations behind laughing. This postulation and many other worthy food for thought are duly noted in Tierney's blogsite.

And naturally, another reason for a woman laughing her heads off at a man's joke lies in her primordial response (i.e., laughing) to a man whom she is attracted to. This reaction works for the man who are attracted to a woman who yuks it up at his gag line. So everybody wins.

To paraphrase a commenter at Tierney's blogsite who quipped that laughing best serves as a 'mood-enhancer', a must-have complement, in promoting common geniality and ensuring a woman gets the attention that she greatly deserves: "...women may laugh at/with men more often because it is an easier and more effective way to communicate with men (you know, better than using all those words, half of which men ignore!)"


So the familiar adage "Marry a Man who Makes You Laugh" does have its merits, after all. I can safely bear testament to its truth since my husband's witticism garnered some heavy points in the list of traits of a desirable lifemate. :)

We, women, the so-called fairer sex and empathetic half, have the innate propensity to laugh at our menfolk's funny story because we are more in tune to a man's need to be found funny. Now you know why we are called a complex creature!