100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, 2nd Edition

70 Laughter Bonds People Together

How many times a day do you hear someone laugh? Laughter is so ubiquitous that you don’t even stop to think about what it is and why people do it.

There’s less research on laughter than you might think. But a few people have spent time researching it. Robert Provine is one of the few neuroscientists studying laughter. He has concluded that laughter is an instinctual (not learned) behavior that creates social bonding.

Provine (2001) has spent many hours observing when and why people laugh. He and his team observed 1200 people spontaneously laughing in different locations. They took notes on gender, situation, speaker, listener, and context. Here’s a summary of what they found:

• Laughter is universal. All humans ...