Bulletin

Issue: January/February 2003

Research in Action

Laugh and not all the world laughs with you

The old axiom 'Laugh and the world laughs with you' is not entirely true.

Research at La Trobe University into the effects of 'canned laughter' strongly indicates that laughter is infectious primarily within groups of like-minded people.

Dr Michael Platow, a senior lecturer in the School of Psychological Science, led a team of students in a novel experiment that revealed some surprising facts about social laughter.

Their results showed that laughter is subject to the same psychological factors governing other forms of social influence, including those often involved in advertising, religious and political communications, and collective action.

Dr Platow began his analysis by building upon 'Self-Categorization Theory'. Among other things, this theory locates social influence within people's group memberships.

'Group memberships can be based on nearly any category people belong to, such as race, gender, university or political parties,' Dr Platow said.

'Research has shown that we are persuaded by people in our own groups, our 'in-groups', and not by people in other groups, known as 'out-groups'. This finding is quite robust, having been shown with people's attitudes toward school exams, drug-taking, and even preferences for modern paintings,' he said.

The desire to test the effects of 'canned laughter' came to Dr Platow when riding on a Melbourne train. Overhearing a group of school kids laughing at jokes he did not find funny, he realised that he probably would have found the jokes funny if he were one of the kids Æ a member of their group.

Dr Platow figured that laughing with the laughter of others was most likely subject to known principles of social influence.

To test his ideas, Dr Platow and seven third-year Bachelor of Behavioural Science students conducted a controlled laboratory experiment of social laughter.

The research team recruited 60 La Trobe University students. Each student listened for six minutes to a tape recording of a stand-up comedian whose jokes had been screened to eliminate racist and sexist content.

Half of the student-participants listened to a recording with canned laughter, while the other half listened to the same recording without canned laughter.

Added to the presence or absence of canned laughter was the critical twist in the experiment. Half of all participants who heard canned laughter and half who did not were told that the comedian performed live in front of a La Trobe University audience. In this way, when there was canned laughter, it was supposedly coming from fellow in-group members, and should therefore be influential.

In contrast, the remaining participants were told that the comedian's audience comprised One Nation Party supporters. Dr Platow's research showed that the La Trobe University student participants did not identify with One Nation. To that degree, it was an 'out-group', and any canned laughter should not be influential.

After receiving appropriate ethics approval, the research team observed all participants through a one-way mirror, noting the frequency and duration of laughter. Participants themselves also rated the comedian on scales of 'humorous', 'entertaining', 'boring' and 'potential for success'.

The most revealing result was that canned laughter was influential only among those participants who also believed they were listening to the comedian performing to fellow La Trobe students. These participants laughed nearly four times as much as those in the other three experimental groups. Hearing laughter from the 'out-group', the supposedly One Nation Party supporters, was as useful as hearing no laughter at all.

The same pattern was found in the ratings of the comedian. Those participants who heard 'in-group' laughter rated the comedian as having greater potential for success, as well as finding him more humorous and entertaining, and less boring than the other three groups of participants.

Dr Platow concluded that canned laughter works like other forms of social influence. 'It is not the case that our laughter in response to that of other humans is a basic human response. We laugh to the laughter of fellow in-group members.' •

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