“Is laughter contagious? Well, actually, all emotions are contagious,” Dr Sandi Mann, chartered member of the British Psychological Society …. “We are designed to pick up other people’s emotions.”
It’s part of our evolution, and it’s something we share with other mammals. It’s been well established that apes – our closest relatives – laugh in a remarkably humanlike way.
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Part of the reason why a fit of the giggles spreads so easily, [Dr Mann said], is that shared emotions are integral to social bonding. A 2022 paper from University of Oxford Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology Robin Dunbar explored this further.
“I suggest that, when hominins needed to increase the size of their groups beyond the limit that could be bonded by grooming, they co-opted laughter […] as a form of chorusing to fill the gap,” Dunbar wrote.
Related on the SLP
Grooming – a social behavior we particularly associate with monkeys and apes, but which is seen throughout the animal world – boosts the production of endorphins in the brain. These chemical messengers relieve pain and generally make us feel good.
This is an excerpt. Read the original post here
[Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Issue 29 of the digital magazine CURIOUS]
