Laugh All About It

There are scientific studies dedicated to find out what your laugh potentially says about you? Friends? Family? An analysis by Mark Weeks, Graduate School of Languages and Cultures, looks at laughter through philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The underpinning question that Weeks explores is can laughter actually be genuine? Or is most of laughter just due to popular convention?

If you can remember the ‘Hyena Yellow Pages Telstra Ad’ where the guys laugh sounded, yes, more like a hyena! It was popular and stayed on television for quite some time. My belief is because it carried a dark truth: this laughing hyena is someone we all know; this is my Auntie Sandie. It’s hard to believe that this type of laugh is not genuine, when the culprits’ body is nearly crippled over by stitches and loud shrieks. Perhaps from her refusal to ever dye her hair, a loud and proud laugh can say a lot about you as a person. This type of lady is not afraid to be an individual and doesn’t worry about covering the naturalness of life with a cute girly giggle.

Now that cute girly giggle, its in the shape of my best friend. She is the most composed woman that I know. Which is why when someone lets out an embarrassing snort, her hand moves over her mouth to stifle a little girly note. It’s almost like laughing can be structured like a fashion show, but that’s why she’s a fashion designer. A scientific study by Rob Martin, from the Department of Psychology, uses empirical evidence to understand laughter in a social context. So when someone does a cute little laugh, chances are its to fit in being socially acceptable. Now this is where Weeks understanding of laughter being convention fits in.

Next is the laugh that makes the person next to you laugh. That’s my Mum. Lucky enough not to share her sisters shriek; uncovered enough so that it is infectious. There’s a quality that Mum’s have that make them see life in an uncensored, natural way.

And then there’s my laugh. It can be a strange combination of everyone’s laugh that I love. And there is a real philosophy behind this – in an evaluation of Nietzsche – was the interesting comment that “it began to seem that laughter could be forced to be whatever we wanted it to be” (Weeks, M., 2004).

So what about you? Are you more of a giggler or a gulper? Or maybe your laugh is not so friendly. A psychological study conducted for Psychology Today also looks at the idea of nervous laughter, taking the approach that not all laughter originates through joy but instead stress. Or maybe the case is that you haven’t had a laugh for sometime. In which case, you should try testing yourself out!