The positive effects of laughter also have to do with a social component. “Laughter is social glue,” says Carsten Niemitz of Freie Universität Berlin. Thus, people laugh out of politeness when their superiors tell a joke. People conceal their own deficits with a dose of self-irony.
Or the affiliation to a group is decisive. Members of a travel group who do not know each other laugh significantly more often on the first day of travel. Within the group, this is how it is classified: Those who laugh together spend more time together, due to the same “wavelength”.
Ability to laugh innate
Swiss researcher Willibald Ruch is convinced that the ability to laugh is innate. There are even people who do not make a face with a dose of laughing gas. Other scientists argue that laughter does not have to be learned. Young children can laugh up to 500 times a day.
Education and societal pressures diminish laughter as children get older. “And did you know why women always emphasize in personal ads that they are looking for a man who should be humorous and funny?” the laughter expert raises the question.
He sees the answer in an archaic behavioral pattern of man. It says that women seek for themselves and their children a man/father who is strong, healthy, long-lived and peace-loving. This is the only way he can best provide for his family. “A man who likes to laugh a lot fulfills this requirement,” Heiner Uber notes with a wink.
Laughter as therapy
Laughter has been used therapeutically in the USA since the 1980s. In the meantime, humorous visits with clowns are also taking place in many European countries, ensuring that sick children can take life a little easier. With their colorful costumes, their games and magic, they ensure that the little ones – but also staff and visitors – can forget everyday life for a few moments and find comfort and hope.
But the fun visitors have also proven their worth in senior citizens’ homes. Bedridden seniors and dementia patients in particular really blossom among the visitors. They show curiosity and joy again and find strength to communicate. Social withdrawal is thus interrupted for a while.
