Whatever the practical implications, Algoe believes her findings further the research on laughter, showing that social context is important for evaluating its effects. Likewise, she speculates that shared laughter could be incorporated into staff meetings to make people feel more on the same page and, thereby, become more productive. How can we put these findings into practice? Algoe suggests that relationship partners may want to find opportunities to laugh together in order to boost closeness, especially before having difficult or conflict-prone conversations. Perceived similarity ends up being an important part of the story of relationships.” ―Sara Algoe “Shared laughter signals that they see the world in the same way. In other words, it’s sharing a laugh-not just laughter, in general-that benefits relationships the most. This finding also jives with Algoe’s prior research, which showed that shared laughter was uniquely linked to people’s overall evaluations of quality, closeness, and social support in their relationships. This held true even when controlling for other factors that might explain the good feelings, such as the length of the relationship and number of verbal and physical expressions of love.
When they reported more shared laughter (compared to unshared laughter), participants said they experienced more positive emotion and less negative emotion during the interaction, saw the person as more similar to them, and were more satisfied with the relationship. These results align with two other surveys they conducted, where participants recalled and answered questions about a recent interaction they had-this time, with someone close to them. “Perceived similarity ends up being an important part of the story of relationships.” “For people who are laughing together, shared laughter signals that they see the world in the same way, and it momentarily boosts their sense of connection,” says social psychologist Sara Algoe, co-author of the study with Laura Kurtz. Results showed that, across the different videos, the amount of shared laughter had consistent effects on the participants’ sense of similarity to the video partner-and that this, in turn, increased how much participants liked their partner and wanted to affiliate with him or her. This produced more shared laughter in the first scenario, minimal shared laughter in the second, and no shared laughter in the third (but still a positive interaction).Īfterwards, the participants then filled out questionnaires about their positive and negative emotions, their sense of similarity to their video partner, and how much they liked or wanted to get to know their video partner. Unbeknownst to them, the video chat displayed a pre-recorded clip of someone laughing the same amount for each of the two funny videos, but only smiling occasionally during the unfunny video. Participants watched a funny, not-so-funny, or not-funny-at-all video while supposedly video-chatting with another same-sex participant. Researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, devised a way to produce shared laughter in the lab, to measure experimentally how it might impact a relationship with a stranger. From the GGSC to your bookshelf: 30 science-backed tools for well-being.
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