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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LAUGHTER

Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D.

© 1913, 1919, 1923

 

CHAPTER I

LAUGHTER

        The cause and nature of laughter have been examined by many thinkers, each one contributing his mite to the analysis of this highly complex phenomenon. What is laughter? What is its source? Whence flow those rich manifestations of wit, the comic, the joke, the jest, irony, sarcasm, that, like ethereal light keep on playing on the surface of human life? What are the constituents, what is the mechanism of an event, of a phrase, of a comedy, that awaken in us a smile, or make our chest and limbs shake and heave with laughter?

        The particular essence which we discover in the funny and in the ridiculous is hard to analyze; it is as elusive as the delicate perfume of the rose and the violet. Many highly intelligent people when they are asked on the spur of the moment what it is specially that they find funny in a joke, in a comedy, or in a particular situation at which they laugh heartily, are unable to tell the special points that awaken in them merriment and laughter. They know it is funny; it is ridiculous. The ridiculous appears to exhale an essence which men directly perceive without being able to analyze the constituents. In fact, there are intellectual people who think that the fun of the joke is gone when touched by the scalpel of analysis. The comic is evidently something living, and, like the living, cannot be dissected without giving rise to symptoms of decay and death. The comic, like the beautiful, is to be enjoyed directly, intuitively, without analysis, without criticism. There is a unity, a living unity, which is directly perceived by the mind and reacted to by the living human organism. The analysis, the dissection of the constituent elements, means the killing, the death of the living unity of the comic.

        Still the difficulties may not be insurmountable, after all. We study the human body and its functions by means of anatomical investigations as well as physiological researches. We study the functions of the mind by means of physiological and psychopathological work, both experimental and observational. Why not do the same in the case of laughter? We can obtain the constituents by means of analysis, and their functions by means of psychological and psychopathological study of the facts. In this way we may be able to find some of the important elements that go to make up the the nature of the comic.

        It may be well to look for the general aspect of what we regard as ridiculous, funny, and amusing. Perhaps the psychological side may be more accessible and help us in the investigation of the subject. In the first place, all the different manifestations of the comic, the witty, and the ridiculous belong psychologically to that particular emotional side of our being which we class under joy. Whatever is joyful awakens in us, if not intense laughter, at least a smile, however flitting. We may observe it in undeveloped characters, or in people who lack self control. Anything which awakens in them the emotion of joy also arouses in them smiles and laughter; in many the laughter is almost uncontrollable. This is manifested in young people, especially children.

        Play that arouses the emotion of joy gives rise to smiles and laughter. Observe girls and boys, or children when in full active play: you will always find that along with the play there goes the manifestation of laughter. There may not be anything especially funny and comic, and still the laughter is often uncontrollable. Listen to the noisy laughter of schoolboys and schoolgirls at play, especially after they have been released from their lessons at school. The mirth and laughter of an audience at a comic play or in listening to the funny remarks of a favorite orator remind one of the play of unrestrained schoolboys and girls. We may, therefore, lay down the law that all unrestrained spontaneous activities of normal functions give rise to the emotion of joy with its expression of smiles and laughter. If we remember that play is the manifestation of spontaneous, unrestrained activity we can begin to understand the nature of laughter, which is one of the manifestations of the play instinct present not only in man, but in the whole animal world. We observe this play instinct in puppies, in kittens, and, in fact, in all young animals.

        If we inspect this play activity more closely, we find that it belongs to the type of artistic activities. The word play is used for dramatic work and for ordinary play activities of animal life. Instrumental music, dancing, singing, dramatic plays, and all forms of æsthetic and artistic activities, as well as games, combats and contests, all belong to the same general root of the play instinct. We may possibly add that even the religious activities of man belong to the same class of human life activities, activities which have their root in the play instinct present alike in the kitten, puppy, squirrel and bird. Among the modern savages, ancient nations, the Greeks, the Israelites, we find alike that all those artistic activities having their source in the play instinct. In the Olympic games of the Greeks, the gladiatorial combats of the Romans, the religious psalms and songs of the Hebrews, the dances and poetry of the Australians, the Andamanese, the Bushmen, the Esquimaux, the religious temple performances of the Middle Ages, of the Hindoo dancing girls, the wild ecstatic whirling and dancing of the dervishes, as well as the singing and praising of the Lord in modern church services, we can see the connection of art, play, religion, and games.

        Football and church hymns are apparently disconnected, and still they are intimately related. They are offshoots of the same parent root, the play instinct. The minister may war on Sunday, play games on holidays, but he must know that the church service, however sacred and solemn, is the outcome of the game impulse and the satisfaction of the play instinct inherent in the animal, child and adult. The football player, the actor, and the priest are brothers of the same mother―the play instinct. Church services, religious ceremonies, theatrical plays, dancing balls, football and baseball games are intimately related; they are so many offshoots of the same parent stem. In all the processes of metamorphosis through which they have passed in the course of the ages they still at bottom keep on subserving the same function―the satisfaction of the animal play instinct of man.

        Laughter, smiling, and grinning are the external manifestations of the play instinct. Laughter be sublimated into a barely perceptible smile; the smile in its turn may become sublimated into a grin or an expression of satisfaction, or contentment, or the inner emotion of joy which accompanies the activity of the play instinct. Whatever gives us joy makes us laugh, or gives rise to an expression akin to laughter and smiles. A number of objects may give rise to the emotion of joy with its concomitant motor manifestations of smiles and laughter. What is common to all these objects is the fact that they all belong to the class of playthings. This we can easily observe in the case of little children who laugh and jump with joy when they keep on playing with their toys. Adult life is not in any way different: adults laugh and are amused with their toys, but the toys are more disguised and far more complex. We must have our toys and our playthings to amuse us and to make us laugh. The character of toys, however, changes with the nation, age, and environment. The character of the plaything also changes with the age of the individual. In spite, however, of all the various changes the plaything undergoes, it must still preserve its nature of a plaything. We laugh in play. The play instinct must remain dominant.

         A few passages from the great biologist, Darwin, may be to the point:

        "Joy, when intense, leads to various purposeless movements―to dancing about, clapping the hands, stamping, etc., and to loud laughter. Laughter seems primarily to be the expression of mere joy or happiness. . . . A man smiles―and smiling, as well she see, graduates into laughter―at meeting an old friend in the street, as he does at any trifling pleasure, such as smelling a sweet perfume. Laura Bridgman, from her blindness and deafness, could not have acquired any expression through imitation, yet when a letter from a beloved friend was communicated to her by gesture-language she ‘laughed and clapped her hands, and the color mounted to her cheeks.’ On other occasions she has been seen to stamp for joy.

        "Idiots and imbecile persons likewise afford good evidence that laughter or smiling primarily expresses mere happiness or joy. . . . There is a large class of idiots who are persistently joyous and benign, and who are constantly laughing or smiling. Their countenances often exhibit a stereotyped smile; their joyousness is increased, and they grin, chuckle, or giggle whenever food is placed before them, or when they are caressed, are shown bright colors, or hear music. Some of them laugh more than usual when they walk about or attempt any muscular exertion. The joyousness of most of these idiots cannot possibly be associated, as Dr. Browne remarks, with any distinct ideas: they simply feel pleasure, and express it by laughter or smiles. With imbeciles rather higher in the scale of personal vanity seems to be the commonest cause of laughter, and next to this pleasure arising from the approbation of their conduct.

        "From the fact that a child can hardly tickle itself, or in a much less degree than when tickled by another person, it seems that the precise point to be touched must not be known; so with the mind, something unexpected―a novel or incongruous idea which breaks through an habitual train of though―appears to be a strong element in the ludicrous.

        "The sound of laughter is produced by a deep inspiration followed by short, interrupted, spasmodic contractions of the chest, and especially of the diaphragm. . . . From the shaking of the body the head nods to and fro. The lower jaw often quivers up and down, as is likewise the case with some species of baboons when they are much pleased.

        "During laughter the mouth is opened more or less widely, with the corners drawn much backward; and the upper lip is somewhat raised. The drawing back of the corners is best seen in moderate laughter, and especially in a broad smile―the latter epithet showing how the mouth is widened.

        "In laughing and broadly smiling the cheeks and the upper lip are much raised, the nose appears to be shortened, and the skin on the bridge becomes finely wrinkled in transverse lines, with the other oblique longitudinal lines on the sides. The upper front teeth are commonly exposed. A well-marked naso-labial fold is formed, which runs from the wing of each nostril to the corner of the mouth; and this fold is often double in old persons.

        "A bright and sparkling eye is characteristic of a pleased or amused state of mind, as is the retraction of the corners of the mouth and upper lip with the wrinkles thus produced. Even the eyes of microcephalous idiots, who are so degraded that they never learn to speak, brighten slightly when they are pleased. . . . According to Dr. Piderit, who has discussed this point more fully than any other writer, the tenseness may be largely attributed to the eyeballs becoming filled with blood and other fluids, from the acceleration of the circulation, consequent on the excitement of pleasure.

        "A man in high spirits, though he may not actually smile, commonly exhibits some tendency to the retraction of the corners of his mouth. From the excitement of pleasure the circulation becomes more rapid; the eyes are bright, and the color of the face rises. The brain, becoming stimulated by the increased flow of blood, reacts on the mental powers; lively ideas pass still more rapidly through the mind, and the affections are warmed. I heard a child, a little under four years old, when asked what was meant by being in good spirits, answer, ‘It is laughing, talking, kissing.’

        "Savages sometimes express their satisfaction, not only by smiling, but by gestures derived from the pleasure of eating. Thus Mr. Wedgwood quotes Petherick that the negroes on the Upper Nile began a general rubbing of their bellies when he displayed his beads; and Leichhardt says that the Australians smacked and clacked their mouths at the sight of his horses and bullocks, and more especially of his kangaroo dogs. The Greenlanders, ‘when they affirm anything with pleasure, suck down air with a certain sound’; and this may be an imitation of the act of swallowing savory food.

        "Laughter is frequently employed in a forced manner to conceal or mask some other state of mind, even anger. We often see persons laughing in order to conceal their shame or shyness. When a person purses up his mouth, as if to prevent the possibility of smile, though there is nothing to excite one, or nothing to prevent is free indulgence, an affected, solemn, or pedantic expression is given; but of such hybrid expressions nothing more need here be said. In case of derision a real or pretended smile or laugh is often blended with the expression proper to contempt and this may pass into angry contempt or scorn. In such cases the meaning of the laugh or smile is to show the offending person that he excites only amusement."

        All these quotations from Darwin’s "The Expression of the Emotions" clearly indicate the intimate relation of joy, satisfaction, laughter, and smiles.

 

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