Gaby
Laughter is a more complex, diverse, and socially significant tool for social interactions than many people realize.
A team of researchers from the University of Baltimore (USA) has discovered that friendly laughter and the laughter of lovers sound distinctly different.
When couples embark on a workplace romance, they typically keep their relationship under wraps. They try to avoid looking at each other and don’t go to lunch together. However, they don’t realize that their laughter helps colleagues uncover their secret affair. According to Professor Sally Farley, who led the study, it only takes a few seconds of listening to the laughter of lovers for coworkers to figure it out.
The research consisted of three experiments. The team asked volunteer participants to listen to audio recordings of men and women talking on the phone first with a friend and then with a romantic partner. Notably, the participants in these conversations had been in romantic relationships for less than a year, meaning they were in the early stages of their relationships, as reported by the Daily Mail.
In the first experiment, the researchers found that volunteers could easily distinguish laughter between friends and that between romantic partners. The second experiment focused on identifying the specific characteristics of laughter that indicate the type of relationship. The third experiment confirmed the findings of the first two using participants from other countries, including India, Mexico, Poland, and Portugal.
Professor Farley emphasizes that all three phases of the study demonstrated people’s ability to differentiate between two types of close relationships in just one or two seconds of laughter.
What the Researchers Discovered
According to the study, laughter between two friends typically sounds louder and “more pleasant” than laughter between newly minted lovers. Romantic laughter, the researchers say, tends to be more “feminine, childlike, and submissive.”
The findings are explained by the theory of “vulnerable love,” which suggests that in the early stages of romantic relationships, people are uncertain about the future of their romance. This uncertainty, according to Sally Farley, seeps into their laughter.
She notes that laughter with friends is not burdened by the “emotional volatility and passionate desire” that characterize love. As a result, it sounds more relaxed and less submissive than laughter between new lovers.
In a report for the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, the team noted, “People seem less pleasant when they laugh with their romantic partner than when they laugh with a friend.”
This research is significant because it highlights the importance of laughter in social life. Now, Sally Farley plans to study the laughter of married couples who have been in long-term relationships. She speculates that it may resemble the laughter of friends.
