The psychology of laughter, or why laughter is the best medicine. Jokes about psychologists Types of laughter psychology

Only people and higher primates can laugh - other creatures inhabiting our planet do not have such an ability. Although some studies confirm that laughter that is inaudible to the human ear can also be emitted by ordinary gray rats, it differs significantly from the human one. And only people can laugh out loud, control their laughter, use it in the right situations. And they do not learn this - this ability is inherent in us by nature. Young children emit their first laugh long before they start walking and talking - for different children, this event occurs at the age of 4 months to six months.

What is laughter for?

Laughter is a way of social communication, people rarely laugh alone, and if this happens, it means that there is a virtual source of social interaction. At the physiological level, it is similar to anxiety - if you take indicators of the work of the brain during anxiety and laughter, then it will be extremely difficult to distinguish them.

Laughter tends to affect people, that is, it gives us the opportunity to imperceptibly manipulate the emotional state of a person. They say laughter is contagious. This is manipulation - raising the mood of others due to their laughter. But let's not go into the complex physiological processes of laughter, but go straight to its varieties.

Laughter and a person's attitude towards you

A lot can be said by laughter - and how a person treats you, what is on his mind, what is his character. Let's start with the intonations of laughter.

2. If you suddenly heard a malevolent chuckle of a goblin, which sounds something like this - "hee hee hee", then stay alert. Before you is not the most pleasant type, especially since he obviously doesn’t tell you something, doesn’t particularly hide his unfriendly attitude or burns out from a feeling of burning hatred.

3. A dry laugh “hehehehe” also does not indicate the most friendly attitude of the interlocutor. Moreover, the more “e”, the drier and more aggressive the person. Know that he is not going to have anything to do with you.

4. An alarmed “hoo-hoo-hoo” laugh can tell you that the person is scared, does not know how to act in this situation, feels completely helpless and insecure.

5. When the letter “O” is clearly visible in laughter, and laughter sounds like “ho-ho-ho, this can only mean one thing - the person is surprised, shocked and categorically against your opinion.

By the way, if a person laughs for no reason, then contrary to the saying, this is not a sign of a fool, but the result of a disruption in the endocrine system.

Laughter and character

And now let's try to figure out what can be said about a person's laughter about his character.

2. A completely different story with people who help themselves with gestures, theatrically showing how funny they are. He can tap his palms on his knees or the table, put his hand to his chest. Know that this person simply draws attention to himself, as he always strives to take center stage in any company. Outwardly, they give the impression of very cheerful, sociable people, but if you dig deeper, you will find selfishness, stinginess and secrecy.

3. Deaf and suppressed laughter with tightly compressed lips indicates that a person is maximally collected, tense and keeps his emotions under full control. But this speaks only in his favor - he can definitely be trusted, he knows how to set goals for himself and achieve them, he is not prone to betrayal.

4. If a person, instead of laughing, only smiles wryly with the right corner of his mouth, then this can only indicate that the spirit of adventurism is strong in him. He is clearly cunning, with all this is still touchy, often deprived of a sense of humor. Often they are lonely, as they are lost in choosing a partner, choosing him for years.

5. If the left half of the mouth is involved in this process, then this tells a different story. This person is sincere, honest and decent. If you turn to him for help, he will definitely not refuse you. Such people are usually loved by members of the opposite sex.

6. People who cover their mouths with their palms while laughing are distinguished by a good level of self-control, self-doubt, and restraint in expressing feelings. Such people usually become good family men.

This is how you can tell by laughter what kind of person is in front of you, what is his character and attitude towards you. For the sake of interest, observe the people with whom you communicate and compare the results with these observations.

Perhaps each researcher has the right to his own understanding of the nature and essence of humor when he talks about his personal motivation, and not about what he thinks in others.
And then, indeed, we can agree that one creates humor (parody, caricature) from the motive of a good joke (game or fun), the other - for humiliation and self-exaltation, and the third - this is a witty and creative formulation of thought (possibly with instructive - perfecting complement in motivation).
However, one should not confuse secondary subjective motives that promote or use humor with the phenomenon and specificity itself - the objective cause and essence of humor.
So, in order to remain objective in this matter, and still capture the very essence of everything humorous and comic, many researchers, in particular, the Swiss professor of psychology V. Rukh, considered the emotion of laughter as the subject of psychological research here. For it is obvious that the sense of humor is that which is common to all humor, from witty phrases to comical images, as well as the fun itself, which can be both a consequence and a cause of the humorous.

V. Rukh himself believed that in the experience of laughter a person experiences, in fact, short-term, but strong bright emotions of joy and happiness.
This generalization by itself leads the thought to a physiological "generalization" in the mediators of pleasure, which are produced in the brain and give the corresponding sensations.
From this it should be concluded that one of the reasons for humor, jokes, fun is getting psycho-emotional pleasure.
This is physiological laughter and the first of the reasons for the need to humor.
However, the need for physiological laughter in humans is not limited to the pleasure principle.

Constitution nervous system a person with his cognitive ability, experiences, stresses and information load, needs rehabilitation processes, maintaining vitality and an optimistic mood.
Laughter itself, together with its ability to sneer at adversity, directly points to these reasons for us.

In various experiences of the funny one can already observe through reflection the mechanism, composition and variety of the evoked emotion.
The strongest laughter in its manifestation is similar to a microattack of pathological laughter and a fragment of the state of drug intoxication. And judging by this, and also based on neurophysiology data, this is a separate reaction that has a reflex trigger mechanism (behind which the objective reason that provoked it already loses its "objective" meaning). Any specific case of the manifestation of the funny as a set or a separate feature reaches a generalization that triggers the physiology of laughter, and this generalization is defined as "comic". And its main code key - because of its unconditioned reflex nature - is information for the most part of the unconscious level.

The comic feeling is the aesthetic perception of the paradox and the grotesque, associations and subjective impression, the social factor and surprise, the playful attitude towards the subject of the comic.

Game behavior (feeling, attitude) is connected to the discharge and contributes to the prolongation and reinforcement of high mental tone and laughter.

Parody, caricature - these are already formed generalizations of the comic in the hereditary inclinations of the intellect.
There is an assumption that intelligence can be transmitted in hereditary memory through the formation of new archetypes, prototypes or engrams of memory. Also, it is possible to inherit the sense of the comic and the reaction of laughter in an unconditionally reflex dynamic stereotype, further development and consolidation of such reflexes.

I have already mentioned that the play behavior reflex in animals does not require particularly specific stimuli. For example, my german shepherd it is enough to see the joyful facial expressions and any dynamic movements of the owner, as she begins to run, jump, wag her tail or bark joyfully.
Such an uncomplicated, non-specific reflex in play behavior is facilitated by the very psycho-emotional constitution of the individual, which disposes to the game.

But of course, in any game instinct there is also a "business" side of behavior: the development of skills inherent in this species.
The intellectual skills of a person in game behavior are a joke, wit, humor, comedy, irony.
Without an emotional and "fun" game factor, wit acquires a purely aesthetic artistic and intellectual image in aphorisms, parables, proverbs, comparisons, analogies, and other intellectual games, technical inventions, scientific formulas.

So, what is the funny and the essence of the comic? Is stupidity always funny? Does the bizarre, the surprising, or the sudden always cause laughter? Is it always a play on words, a grotesque, a substitute or multiple meaning?
Even an obvious curiosity does not guarantee a sense of humor.

But the sense of the comic cannot exist without the comic object.

Also, there is a difference in the emotions of "funny" and "ridicule". "Ridiculous" is already becoming beyond the conscious will. All attempts by some researchers to see here the principle of a conditioned reflex and equate natural and genuine rich laughter with the “allegory” laughter of conscious ridicule is a delusion (mechanism, reductionism ... lack of introspective perception). Here, on the other hand, when the mockery is more effective (clever), it is a witty commentary or parody without laughter.
The ability to laugh, a sense of humor and the ability to humor are somewhat different things.
Also, it would be ignorant to crudely reduce the emotion of pleasure to laughter, as is often done. Pleasure or the emotion "good" is a circumstance conducive to laughter, but laughter has its own psychophysiology.

You can object - after all, we laugh at someone's stupidity, misunderstanding, mistake, strangeness, flaws in appearance, failure ...
But it is worth paying attention to the fact that we laugh with natural laughter, firstly, not at any stupidity, not at any mistake ...
And if we “make fun” of stupidity, then this is another laugh: “allegorical” or we use a witty remark. And you can artificially make fun of anything.

With natural laughter, we laugh at stupidity, which, for example, claims to be wisdom in a deliberately didactic tone, grandiloquent phrases. Or is it the stupidity of a special contrast ... unexpected ... under peculiar circumstances. The more conditions, signs and interpretations of the comic, the richer the humor. But to make it funny, it is enough to be unexpected and sentimental against a positive emotional background - it is enough to "brick" stupidity ... "blurt out" nonsense.
French philosopher and enlightener of the 18th century. Montesquieu wrote: “When ugliness is unexpected for us, it can cause a kind of fun and even laughter” (Montesquieu. 1955, p. 753). That is, "may" - if we are in a good mood or the disgrace itself is original.

When we intend to put something in a comic image, we ourselves reconstruct the image and the circumstances in it until we obtain a comic composition in the likeness of its natural manifestation.

If at the moment we are talking about stupidity or recklessness, then here we have a lot of material with anecdotes about a psychiatric hospital.
As they say, all jokes come from life. This suggests that humor involves sensuality and itself mostly refers to life, to attitudes and interactions among people, traditions in society.

What is special about the jokes about the psychiatric hospital? As Shakespeare said, "Though it is madness, there is consistency in it."
In our case, such recklessness is funny, which has its own "logic", "version", "allegory". This contradiction creates a kind of intellectual and aesthetic dissonance (according to semantic theory, cognitive dissonance) and in the first moments "puzzles" the mind. But some “logic” in recklessness or even megalomania, which is an exaggerated image of widespread naivety or self-confidence - all this is a kind of “semantic composition” that unfolds in aesthetic surprise, and the “puzzled” mind becomes “sentimental” gaining “enlightenment "- catharsis.
Y. Borev has a precise remark that laughter is an aesthetic astonishment, directly opposite to delight and admiration. Joyful amazement with a minus sign.
Such contradiction and dissonance, as well as the unlimited flight of fantasy in madness, is often close to the grotesque.
The aesthetic content of humor is a necessary component that maintains a positive emotional atmosphere, as well as being a contrast to an imperfect (negative) phenomenon and image, creating a grotesque.
One dreamer, the so-called "contactee" with extraterrestrial civilizations on the net, directly claims that he flies on a "thought plane". Why not grotesque?!
In general, we can observe the grotesque and sense of humor in the usual jargon: “grandmothers” (money), “car” (car), and even humor itself is “jokes”.

External flaws are also funny in a certain way. If we take a clown as an example, then it is all made up of distortions, inconsistencies and opposites. But all this is colorful and to the necessary extent - aesthetically and compositionally served. The clown's face is painted in an attempt to create some beauty and expressiveness. It is also grotesque to the point of absurdity.
The etymology of the comic is "grimace, grimace."
But can we say that all grimaces are funny? There are ugly and scary grimaces, but there are funny ones.
Even among the funny ones, from the memories of distant childhood and the laughter room, I remember that the most ridiculous image was in the mirror of a short, plump - “round” image.
Now I can say that this image was the funniest because it was more realistic in its form (and this is “sentimental”), more aesthetic (in the perfection of natural and geometric forms), most of all reflects joy - contagious and positive as a psychological portrait (kind). And at the same time - this image is unusual and amazing (grotesque).
A grimace is also a joke, a game, a surprise, a hint, an association or a riddle, a grotesque.
Already in primitive antics, one can distinguish the desire for fun, play and a subconscious search for new unusual forms.

Continuing on the comic, you can pay attention to the movement or dance.
Not bad here is the example of a foreigner mangling your language.

In movement and dance, one can definitely observe different characteristics: beauty, perfection, or, on the contrary, clumsiness and comicality.
In dance, you can define movements as "comic" in which there is a joke. That is, this is a movement with unexpected coordination, with a combination of an awkward image with a perfect one, imitation of a fall, movement "with a hint" and the creation of comical associations.
In addition, all these movements involved in the creative content and form of art remain art, and the comic theme itself is a matter of variety and quantity of comic images.

The foreign accent and pronunciation always unintentionally produces the comic. It often seems that this, on the contrary, is a deliberate desire to joke. One way or another, a person always tends to joke, and if a subject with a poor pronunciation of your language uses a joke at least once, then this all the more disposes him to a comical perception of his sayings.
On this we can already conclude that the first thing in humor and the comic is a favorable circumstance and state of mind for fun and the intention to joke.
A joke is fun and a kind of game.
A joke is a certain form of behavior fixed in the game instinct.

Despite the fact that a joke may have its own psychological motives and evolutionary reasons, it is reasonable to consider a joke as one of the elements of the psychology of humor. Her presence in humor is almost everywhere, and in witticisms, and puns, etc.
Starting with the game "cuckoo" and other games already in babies, the joke develops, helping first of all to overcome stereotypes, brings up vigilance, attentiveness, various skills, develops and trains the psyche itself. When a mother instills a “fun” attitude to various unexpected stressful situations for a child from childhood, through a game and a joke, she thereby makes him a man, preventing him from reacting with animal primitive fear or anger.

2. The very fun and joke are sentimental. Contentment and joy do not need aggression, but are closer to a kind attitude.
The same laugh at the enemy - and that is the "call not to worry."
Natural natural laughter is always positive emotionally. And when jokes and humor are used only as a means of intellectual struggle, laughter becomes impoverished and acquires an allegorical character.
Sentimental feeling transforms the face, makes it more beautiful and expresses a good disposition.
Sentimentality (sensuality) plays a large role in the sensitivity of perception, in relation to the subject and, accordingly, is necessary for a sense of humor.
One can rightly speak of the existence of hereditary "comic" sentimentality in relation to babies, which is generalized in culture and social relations.
The comic in relation to the baby is filled with sympathy, has benevolent and improving motives. An adult deserves such an attitude - and it is.
In general, despite the "ugly" attributes that accompany the comic (misunderstandings, imperfections, or simply failures), the comic itself is always presented in an aesthetic image, being a kind of semantic composition.

The comic is a semantic and artistic composition (a specific artistic image).

By and large, the comic has two main reasons.
One is fun, play and joke. It satisfies emotional and social needs.
Another reason why comic in humor ("smart joke") is intellectual training and intellectual-emotional satisfaction. Therefore, in wit, for showiness, just a beautiful thought form is enough.
In fact, it is instinct and its reinforcement.
It has long been substantiated by science that play behavior is hereditarily fixed and ensures the development of specific and individual skills.
To understand the comic composition, you should focus on the above reasons.
And also we need to identify those psychological factors that trigger the physiology of laughter.
In connection with this approach, it can already be noted, for example, that denunciation in the comic is not morality, but a factor of surprise, amazement and a comic, playful, playful effect.
In order to laugh, you need the effect of surprise, sentimental and intellectual surprise. And in order for the laughter to be longer, something impressive is needed - aesthetic.
For example, I once found this simple anecdote impressive:

At the psychiatrist:
- When did you have the idea that you are a dog?
- When I was a puppy.

The comic is laughter, a joke, a game, duplicity, surprise at the combination of meanings and an unexpected turn, an impressive grotesque. But not yet a criticism.

However, nothing prevents a sense of humor from combining and conveying the comic along with criticism.
So, for example, as the most impressive from my childhood and still, I consider "Moydodyr" by Korney Chukovsky.

What makes humor impressive is artistic creative content and sparkling thought. This manifests charisma and introduces consciousness into some kind of trance and altered reality - it creates a miracle.
The main creative image of humor and the comic is the grotesque. The grotesque is always fantastic, mysterious, leaves a mark on feelings and memory.

The semantic condition and definition of the comic is "contradiction" and "dissonance".
These factors should not be confused with such concepts as "contrast" or "non-conformity to the stereotype", since the latter are not enough to reflect the necessary specifics of comedy in human action.

Comic would be such an action, where "contrast" is a surprise - an active contradiction. For example, Jesus in the gospel, instructing his disciples, gave an example of building a tower, which, if you do not make calculations, may fall, and such enthusiasm will be ridiculed.
Here is an image that symbolizes contradiction: the high is suddenly crushed in a complete fall, a long enthusiasm is refuted in a matter of seconds.

Artistry, sharpness of thought, a certain circle of people and areas of interest affected by the content of the joke affect sentimentality in the mind. This contributes to an altered state of consciousness and psyche in adrenaline and endorphin rushes.

On the one hand, through a contradiction or bizarre interpretation, an “amazing” semantic composition is created, which, perhaps, is a subconscious reflection of the general inconsistency of life and is thus a generalization or a component of a comic generalization. On the other hand, social, interpersonal relations, the sphere of activity and interest of a person is the sphere of emotional life, in which the comic is one of the reflections of this life, and in culture and communication, the feeling of the comic is expedient and necessary. And there is every reason to believe that the comic in the depths of human consciousness has a formed “generalization”, which, according to semantic theory, is identification through “frames” or “scripts”.

Beginning with Immanuel Kant and up to this day, researchers of the comic cannot explain such a simple psychological phenomenon in the comic as laughter arising from absurdity.
Kant himself, who claims that the funny appears when "the mind turns into nothing," tried to explain this through a crisis of reason and the transition of tension into the bodily sphere of sensations, where, according to Kant, laughter is born.
Also, according to Kant, the very play of ideas and aesthetic ideals (in particular, in music) can evoke a comic feeling.
Henri Bergson wrote about the absurd in the comic that it is not a cause, but a consequence of the cause that creates it. And we know this reason.
However, he does not name this reason and he does not give an explanation for this.

In his excellent article "Psychology of the Comic", psychology professor Ramil Garifullin gives a good psychological interpretation of the initiation and experience of laughter. However, commenting on Kant, he overlooked that he was already on the right track, mentioning "deceit" as part of a joke, but in his reasoning "about absurdity" as part of a joke, Kant wandered the wrong way.

The psychology of absurdity in humor and the comic is the same psychology of a joke.
People for the sake of a joke (fun, game) come up with "absurdities", "turning the mind of the listener (or observer) into nothing", and pundits are looking for global meaning here.
Therefore, in my theory in such cases, I consider a joke as an element of the psychology of humor. In another case, a joke also has its own psychology, evolutionary meaning and technology of action.

The psychology and technology of absurdity in a joke, "turning the mind into nothing" makes the person himself "slow down" a little and look comical, if you don't immediately realize that they joked (played) with you for the sake of fun and good mood.
If "absurdity" has a good "paralogical" or "alogical" - semantic or situational context, then it will be a "bizarre" or amazing composition that can cause a smile.
Or it will be an impressive grotesque...
This can have a significant context in a personified sense or in life associations, where feeling, sentiment will play its role ...
For all that, the surprise factor will operate - even if you "slow down", surprise comes with a subsequent "enlightenment".

In the 18th century, J. Beatty designated ordinary psychological laughter as "sentimental" laughter. This implies a communicative and socio-mental, cultural characteristic of laughter.

Here too, sentimental laughter can be attributed to intellectual commitment in humor.

Also, with sentimental laughter there is always a place for a comic component.
But the comic image itself, from a humorous point of view and with this laughter, is not focused on the "anti-behavior" of the object, as an "ugly" ("holy fool") characteristic.
Here, the aesthetic, communicative, social, intellectual and "shock" factor (surprise, improbability, amazement and relaxation in the reaction of physiological laughter) is more at work.

Sarcasm.
This is laughter, described by Aristotle, in which there is a reaction (attitude) to the “ugly”, “ugly”.
This laughter can already be considered "mocking" laughter. In other words, we are talking about “parody”, caricature, “absurdity”, for which nature and intellect itself sanction this type of laughter.
This is an archaic perception, nevertheless of an intellectual nature. One of the archetypes of perception here is associated with a person's understanding of his advantage of reason over the unreasonable animal world - "a person sounds proud."
When animals behave irrationally, or some insects are bizarre and barely mobile, somewhat ugly, and the person himself often looks “narrow-minded” in appearance and unreasonable or awkward in deeds - all this, through abstraction, creates a “ridiculing” tradition, finds similar signs in human compatriots. And then there is ridiculing and humiliating laughter.
In one case, this laughter is fueled by a "righteous" convicting feeling, as a cultural means of dealing with imperfection and vice.
In another, it is the arrogance of the proud.
However, with the growth of negativity, ignorance and evil in vice, laughter in a certain objective and particular case becomes impoverished.
And even more so, having no good inside, it remains very limited opportunity for laughter, where healthy laughter owes only to the residual intellectual-human quality in the personality.

According to one version, laughter is a protective reaction of the body. It helps to get rid of an overabundance of positive emotions. Therefore, happy people can laugh for no reason - they constantly need a splash of positive. Those who are depressed find it hard to force a smile even under very funny circumstances. According to another version, this is a way of defusing, freeing the body from excess - not only positive, but also negative. It is not for nothing that primitive people during festive ceremonies comically portrayed violations of taboos or victory over the enemy. All scenes were accompanied by friendly laughter. Thus, our distant ancestors relieved stress, the reasons for which were more than enough.

Another option: laughter is a way of communicating. We rarely laugh alone with ourselves, well, except when we read, watch TV or remember funny stories. Much more often we have fun for the company. It turns out that we need laughter to unite, create and strengthen relationships.

Joking with health

Since then, they began to actively study the effect of fun on a person. It turns out that when we laugh, chemical reactions occur in the cells that improve blood circulation, normalize arterial pressure, strengthening immunity, increasing resistance to ailments. Clowns even appeared in hospitals, arranging comic examinations and performances. And the process of recovery of patients (especially children) is faster. And laughter compensates for the harm from the so-called shallow breathing. Many people do not breathe deeply enough. While laughing, a person gains more oxygen into the lungs. Then exhale vigorously. Great workout for the lungs!

natural gift

Meanwhile, a man reacts to a woman's laughter in the same way as to her figure, face, clothes: mirror neurons are activated in his brain, which are responsible for the perception of beauty. So, along with makeup courses, it would be nice to attend classes on proper laughter. The chance of finding a life partner would definitely increase!

Expert opinion

Rimma Umyarova,
laughter therapist, head of the Laughter Club school
(http://smile-it.ru/club):

« Laughter is a gift given for survival. Otherwise, a person could not get rid of stress, replenish the resources of vitality. The original laugh is always beautiful. Look at the children: they laugh sincerely and contagiously. They are nice to see and hear. And adults often laugh repulsively, annoyingly. What is the difference? Children are completely relaxed, they have no complexes. But the main thing is that they breathe deeply, not shallowly.

You can learn to laugh beautifully and resoundingly. To do this, learn breathing exercises.

2 Standing, hands down. Bend over and take a deep breath. Straighten up, raising your arms up, and exhale strongly (6-8 times).

3 Standing, put your palms together, put them under your chin. Elbows to the sides. Inhale, and as you exhale, spread your arms up and laugh as loudly as possible (5-10 times).

4 While inhaling, push the abdominal muscles forward and, holding them, take short, sharp exhalations, at the same time quickly say “Aaaa.”

Folk humor

Ekaterina Babkova

Laughter prolongs life. It is difficult to argue with this statement. After all, scientists have long proven that during it, a person produces hormones of joy. They help fight stress and other psychological and physiological problems. But experts also argue that laughter is a multifaceted phenomenon. There are about a dozen of its types, which are accompanied by polar different emotions. What is human laughter? And what are its reasons?

Definition

In the scientific world, there is a clear definition of such a phenomenon as laughter. This is a person's reaction to humor, unexpected, pleasant sounds, tactile impact, etc. The manifestation of this reaction consists in an involuntary change in facial expressions and the movement of the respiratory apparatus.

The study of laughter and its effect on human body deals with the section of psychiatry - the science of gelotology. Since ancient times, philosophers have paid attention to the phenomenon of laughter. Aristotle, E. Kant, A. Bergson made a significant contribution to the study of its nature. Thus, the correlation of human laughter with friendliness, aggression, illness, play, etc. was revealed. It has been proven that there are several types of laughter. And each of them has various reasons and affects the human body in different ways.

Humorous

It is natural for an adult to laugh when he sees or hears something funny, ridiculous, unexpected. It can be a joke, funny sounds or an action, a grimace of another person. Such a situation causes humorous, or cheerful laughter. Also in Russian there is set expression"infectious laughter". Indeed, as soon as one person laughs, a smile, laughter appear in those around him.

Humorous laughter can be open (with opening of the lips) and closed / restrained (with closed lips). Psychologists say that his character is directly related to the personal qualities and circumstances in which the person is. As a rule, open laughter is characteristic of a family circle, a group of friends, a work team. He speaks of some kind of closeness (kindred or spiritual), warm relationships, trust. Closed laughter is a reaction of people constrained by certain conditions or norms.

Children's

Children's laughter falls into a special category. This is the spiritual impulse of a child, pure, flowing and enthralling and fun for everyone around. From a scientific point of view, any pleasant and unexpected sounds, funny facial expressions, (tickling) can be its causes. Young children do not know how to read and perceive humor in the form in which it evokes in adults.

Moreover, experts note that regardless of circumstances and environment, children's laughter is the same. This is an open display of joy. It occurs unconsciously and lasts as long as the external influence continues. Thus, children's laughter is instantaneous and does not repeat as a memory of the situation.

Hysterical

Hysterical laughter has a different nature. It is associated with neuro-psychic overexcitation of a person. The trigger is a vivid experience of events that once caused a shock. It does not require illustrative examples. Hysterical laughter begins involuntarily, as an option - when a person becomes hurt, scared or offended.

This phenomenon does not cause positive emotions in the laugher himself and in those around him. Rather, it is a mixture of despair and surprise. To the ear, it is perceived as intermittent laughter, turning into loud laughter. When the seizures recur, a person needs medical attention.

True, there is another interpretation of hysterical laughter. It is understood as unbridled and prolonged laughter.

Physiological

Physiological laughter is a joyful human reaction to tactile sensations (tickling), although it may also be the result of taking narcotic drugs. It is characterized by openness, spontaneousness and discontinuity. When tickled, it coincides in duration with the duration of the tactile impact. When taking certain drugs, the causes of physiological laughter are due to mental processes. The general mood can be called upbeat, laughter is intermittent, superficial, unreasonable. At first glance, it resembles hysterical laughter, but it is longer and does not have episodes of nervous shock.

Social

Social laughter is called the laughter of people united by a common idea, the reason for the meeting. A striking example is the reaction of listeners to political speeches. This is general excitement, jubilation. Of course, it has similarities with the humorous laughter evoked from the audience at concerts by comedians. However, in the first case there is a spiritual, ideological unification of people. High spirits are due to gaining hope and prospects for the future. This is not idle fun, but inspiration. As a rule, this is open or restrained laughter, accompanied by shouts of support and applause.

Ritual

Ritual laughter is an artificial, actor's manifestation of joy, hysteria, aggression, fear or other emotions. As a rule, it is used by actors in the productions of comedies or humorous scenes. The main task is to ensure that laughter is colored as accurately as possible with a certain emotion, accompanied by the necessary gestures, facial expressions, and conveyed to the listener / viewer. There are, of course, many options for its manifestation. It can be rude and haughty laughter, open and mocking, cowardly and insinuating, restrained, through gritted teeth, or boisterous, sincere.

Pathological

Pathological laughter, as a rule, can be observed in mentally ill people. Recently, however, laughter therapy, or the treatment of stress and other disorders, has become increasingly popular. nervous disorders with fur. To do this, a person, for a reason and without it, must intentionally laugh for a certain period of time. This process can be confused with ritual laughter. However, these events have different purposes. In the first case, laughter serves as a brain stimulation for positive impulses. In the second (ritual) it is necessary to laugh in order to fulfill the actor's task - to convey emotions corresponding to the action.

Pathological laughter should be open, joyful. As a rule, it has a wavy or avalanche-like structure. That is, it can subside and flare up again. Or it can move from a quiet, artificial phase to a sonorous, boisterous, sincere one.

Laughter and character

In a deep study of the ways in which laughter manifests itself, scientists have established its relationship with the character of a person. Let's share the most interesting observations:

• If a person laughs openly, throwing his head back slightly, then most likely he has a broad nature. Among its main qualities are gullibility, gullibility and the manifestation of momentary emotions.
• If, when laughing, the interlocutor lightly touches his lips with his little finger, then he probably likes to bathe in everyone's attention, adheres to good manners and conventions.
• If a person covers his mouth with his hand while laughing, then perhaps he is inherently shy. It is easy to confuse such an interlocutor. He prefers to remain in the shadows.
• It is not uncommon to notice how people wrinkle their noses when laughing. Psychologists believe that this manner belongs to egocentric and capricious individuals who change their views and feelings according to their mood.
• When the interlocutor opens his mouth wide with laughter, it is safe to say that this is a mobile, temperamental nature. He is a great speaker who, without the attention of others, becomes discouraged.
• And finally, if before laughing softly, a person slightly tilts his head, then this speaks of his kindness, conscientiousness. In life, they are indecisive conformists. It is quite difficult to guess what they really feel.

According to Anokhin's biological theory of emotions, emotions arose at a certain stage of evolution as a means of assessing a need and the degree of its satisfaction. As a rule, any unsatisfied need is accompanied by negative emotions, while the satisfaction of this need causes positive emotions, one of the manifestations of which is laughter. According to another theory, laughter is a person's reaction to something unexpected - for example, to the denouement of an anecdote or to being touched while being tickled by parts of the body that are usually not touched. The mechanism of laughter is a "joint product" of our intellect and emotions. The intellect perceives some amusing paradox, absurdity, contradiction, and the process of laughter itself is a discharge of accumulated emotional stress.

Obviously, the physiology of laughter has not yet been completely unraveled. At the same time, it is known that during laughter, many life-giving processes occur in the body: the level of production of "stress hormones" - cortisol and adrenaline, decreases, and the hormone endorphin is released into the blood. It is endorphin - a kind of "drug" produced by the body - that dulls pain, causes a feeling of satisfaction, allows you to look at troubles from a new perspective. Prolonged laughter (for example, when watching a comedy or a humorous program) first increases and then reduces the heart rate, lowers blood pressure. When laughing, a person takes a deep breath, and then a short exhalation, so intense that the lungs are completely freed of air. Gas exchange is accelerated by 3-4 times, which is a natural breathing exercise.

The strength of laughter changes from a slight grin to Homeric laughter. The difference in response depends on many indicators: the amount of neurotransmitters - biologically active substances, affecting the corresponding structures in the brain, which are responsible for the "start" of laughter; emotional and physical condition in which the person was before they tried to make him laugh; finally, from the individual perception of a specific absurdity (the one who has had similar situations in life will laugh harder at jokes about the mother-in-law). Different people may find the same anecdote both funny and outrageous.

Sometimes we laugh so hard we can't stop. Why is this happening? This is where the "mirror reflection" mechanism comes into play; we look at something or hear something that seems very funny to us. We begin to laugh and look again or remember what gave our laughter an impetus. Up to a certain point, this circular reinforcement intensifies laughter, and as the internal tension decreases, laughter weakens and finally stops.

Optimism - against the flu
According to the US National Academy of Sciences, scientists led by Richard Davidson from the University of Wisconsin found that optimists produce more protective antibodies against. A group of 52 people aged 57 to 6o was selected for the experiment. They underwent comprehensive testing, including the method of studying brain activity, and divided the subjects into two groups: "optimists" and "pessimists". Both groups were then given the flu vaccine. Then, within six months, the subjects took blood three times to determine how protective antibodies are formed after the introduction of the vaccine. It turned out that in the group of "optimists" the increase in the level of antibodies went much faster than the "pessimists".

Laughter that heals

One of the most famous people who healed himself with laughter was the American psychotherapist Norman Cousins. Doctors said that with his diagnosis (collagenosis - a continuously progressive disease in which the connective tissue in all organs and tissues is affected), medicine is powerless. Instead of "burying" himself and moaning about his fate, Cousins ​​closed himself in his house and watched humorous programs from morning to evening. First, the paralyzed fingers began to move, the pain disappeared, and then Cousins ​​learned to walk again and was completely cured. It was he who founded "helotology" - the science of laughter.

Today gelotology is a popular direction in psychotherapy, gaining more and more adherents in different countries peace. She has three main areas:

1. Classical laughter therapy. A laughter therapist conducts individual or group sessions in which people laugh. They are told jokes, funny stories, they listen to laughter in the recording, they watch comedies.
2. Medical clowning. Medical clowns perform in front of hospital patients, which is good for the sick.
3. Laughter Yoga. It was developed by Indian physicians; they teach a person to laugh easily and naturally, naturally and often.

Laughter and positive emotions help to deal with allergic diseases, and such studies were carried out by Japanese scientists under the direction of Dr. Jaime Kimato. The experiment involved 26 people with allergies to house dust. Before the test, they were injected with an allergen that provoked the appearance skin rashes. The size of these lesions was measured. Then the subjects were divided into two groups, with one shown a classic comedy with Charlie Chaplin, and the second - boring weather forecasts. After 87 minutes, the results were summed up. After measuring skin rashes, scientists found that in patients who were laughed by the great comedian during this time, the allergic rash while this did not occur in the other group.

Who laughs how much?
A newborn baby can neither laugh nor smile. But by the end of the first month, when the mother appears, a "complex of revival" sets in: the baby smiles, twists his legs. The baby begins to laugh only by the end of the 3rd month, and the most fun period comes by the age of 6, when the child can laugh heartily up to 300 times a day! Unfortunately, with age, a person laughs less and less. An adult smiles on average only 15 times a day.

Laughter even treats depression, which affects at least 20% of the population of developed countries. If we do not stop its spread, then, according to the studies of the World Health Organization, by 2020, mortality due to suicide will come in second place among other causes of death (heart disease is in the first place), overtaking cancer and all other diseases! Scientists from the Austrian Society for Diseases Associated with have proposed an original way to treat depression, used in addition to medicines. They released a CD containing laughter and encouraging remarks from the most famous people in this country: Olympic champion skiing, songwriter, governor and famous football player. Psychotherapists give this 20-minute disc to their depressed patients and note good results. Patients are "infected" with someone else's good mood, and their own condition improves.

Make humor your ally:

• Try to find something funny in any unpleasant situation. Imagine how a famous humorist could tell about what happened to you. Or imagine that the situation has already been resolved in a favorable way. How would you tell it in the company of friends, wanting to amuse them?
• If you have the choice to watch a comedy or an action movie, always opt for a comedy.
• Fill your home with fun things that make you want to smile when you look at them. Let it be funny photos from the family archive, some things that remind you of fun events. The more there are, the better. In a difficult moment, looking at them, you will receive the charge of positive energy you need.
• Even if you don't feel like laughing at all, force yourself to smile. Remember that even an artificial smile activates the part of the brain responsible for positive emotions, which means that the situation will no longer seem hopeless!

In Western European countries, for 20 years now, "medical clowns" have been an integral part of the health programs of large hospitals. About 40 people work in this field. Almost every hospital in Holland is proud of its own medical clown. In Israel, there is an official specialization "medical clown". In Russia, such programs are also starting to work.

So far, the mechanism of the healing action of laughter is not yet completely clear. According to some scientists, its role is to protect the body from stress. So laughter protects immune system from negative influences, which leads to better treatment outcomes. Therefore, no matter what you are sick with, try to maintain a good mood and help your relatives in this if they are sick.

What are we going to laugh at?

One of the main functions of humor is to protect our psyche. It "turns on" at the stage of thinking about the situation. Without humor, one could go crazy (and this is no exaggeration) talking about the betrayal of a loved one, family problems, illness, an attempted robbery, and many other stressful situations.

It is humor that helps us not to "burn out" after an experienced shock. And it can be said without exaggeration that if a person is able to talk about his troubles with humor, or at least with a smile (albeit "forced"), then the situation is not hopeless, and there is light at the end of the tunnel! Smiling, the person, as it were, invites the interlocutor: "Confirm that what happened to me is not so bad!" And if the interlocutor smiles in response, then the heart of the narrator becomes even easier.

Another function of laughter is to establish positive relationships with other people. An interesting study was conducted by scientists from Westfield College (USA, Massachusetts). In the course of it, it was found that for women, when choosing a prospective partner, the presence of a sense of humor was one of the defining indicators. Women were offered two photographs of young people with similar external data. Each photo was accompanied by an autobiographical story, one of which was "stuffed" with jokes, and the second was in the "official" style. The vast majority of women expressed a desire to get acquainted with the "joker".

But the researchers didn't stop there. Eric Bressler of Westfield State College in Massachusetts and his colleague Sigal Balshine of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, also found that women's ability to joke is not a determining factor for men. It is much more important for them that the partner laughed at their jokes. Why is this happening? Women prefer witty men, as a sense of humor is an indicator of high intelligence and creativity, which means a healthy brain and a good set of genes. Therefore, it is possible to pass these genes on to their children. Those. women, as always, according to evolutionary theory, "choose the best."

The benefits of humor are almost endless. And now you understand that laughter should be taken seriously. He will help you if you are sick, in a difficult situation, or want yours to be happy. And therefore, no matter what happens - do not lose your sense of humor!