The findings of psychological scientists reveal the importance of humour

心理学家的研究揭示了幽默的重要性。<

Humans start developing a sense of humour as early as six weeks old, when babies begin to laugh and smile in response to stimuli. Laughter is universal across all human cultures and even exists in some form in rats, chimps, and bonobos. Like other human emotions and expressions, laughter and humour provide psychological scientists with rich resources for studying human psychology, ranging from the development of language to the neuroscience of social perception.

早在六周大时，婴儿就有了幽默感，那时婴儿就开始对外界刺激作出微笑和大笑的反应。笑声在所有人类文化中都是普遍存在的，甚至以某种形式存在于老鼠、黑猩猩和倭黑猩猩中。像其他人类的情感和表情一样，笑和幽默为心理学家提供了丰富的研究人类心理学的资源，从语言发展到社会认知的神经科学。

Theories focusing on the evolution of laughter point to it as an important adaptation for social communication. Take, for example, the recorded laughter in TV comedy shows. Back in 1950, US sound engineer Charley Douglass hated dealing with the unpredictable laughter of live audiences, so started recording his own 'laugh tracks'. These were intended to help people at home feel like they were in a social situation, such as a crowded theatre. Douglass even recorded various types of laughter, as well as mixtures of laughter from men, women, and children. In doing so, he picked up on a quality of laughter that is now interesting researchers: a simple 'haha' communicates a remarkable amount of socially relevant information.

专注于大笑演变的理论指出，笑声是对社会交流的重要适应。以电视喜剧节目中录制的笑声为例。早在1950年，美国音响工程师查理·道格拉斯讨厌面对现场观众的不可预测的笑声，因此开始录制自己的“笑声”。这些举动旨在帮助在家的人们感觉自己身处于社交场合，例如拥挤的剧院。道格拉斯甚至记录了混杂男女老少的各种笑声，通过这样做，他注重在笑声的质量上，这也是现在研究人员的关注点:一个简单的“哈哈“传达了大量与社会相关的信息。

In one study conducted in 2016, samples of laughter from pairs of English-speaking students were recorded at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A team made up of more than 30 psychological scientists, anthropologists, and biologists then played these recordings to listeners from 24 diverse societies, from indigenous tribes in New Guinea to city-dwellers in India and Europe. Participants were asked whether they thought the people laughing were friends or strangers. On average, the results were remarkably consistent: worldwide, people's guesses were correct approximately 60% of the time.

在2016年进行的一项研究中，加利福尼亚大学圣克鲁斯分校记录了成对讲英语的学生笑声样本。然后，这只由30多位心理学家、人类学家和生物学家组成的小组向来自24个不同社会的听众播放了这些录音，这些听众包括从新几内亚的土著部落到印度和欧洲的城市居民。他们会询问参与者认为笑的人是朋友还是陌生人。平均而言，结果非常一致:在全世界范围内，人们猜测的结果大约有60%的正确率。

Researchers have also found that different types of laughter serve as codes to complex human social hierarchies. A team led by Christopher Oveis from the University of California, San Diego, found that high-status individuals had different laughs from low-status individuals, and that strangers' judgements of an individual's social status were influenced by the dominant or submissive quality of their laughter. In their study, 48 male college students were randomly assigned to groups of four, with each group composed of two low-status members, who had just joined their college fraternity group, and two high-status members, older students who had been active in the fraternity for at least two years. Laughter was recorded as each student took a turn at being teased by the others, involving the use of mildly insulting nicknames. Analysis revealed that, as expected, high-status individuals produced more dominant laughs and fewer submissive laughs relative to the low-status individuals. Meanwhile, low-status individuals were more likely to change their laughter based on their position of power; that is, the newcomers produced more dominant laughs when they were in the 'powerful' role of teasers. Dominant laughter was higher in pitch, louder, and more variable in tone than submissive laughter.

研究人员还发现，不同类型的笑声可以作为复杂的人类社会等级的代码。由加利福尼亚大学圣地亚哥分校的克里斯托弗·奥维斯领导的团队发现，高地位人士的笑与低地位人士的笑有所不同，陌生人对一个人社会地位的判断，受其笑声中的主导或顺从性质影响。在他们的研究中，他们将48位男大学生随机分为四人一组，每组由两名刚加入大学友情小组的低地位成员和两名至少加入两年且活跃于学校的高地位学生组成。每个学生被其他人逗笑时都被轮流记录下笑声，其中涉及使用轻度侮辱性的昵称。分析显示，正如预期的那样，与低地位者相比，高地位者会发出更多的主导性笑声，而顺从性笑声偏少。与此同时，地位低下的人更倾向于根据其权力地位来改变自己的笑声;也就是说，当新人扮演“有力“的逗趣者角色时，他们会发出更多的主导性笑声，与顺从性笑声相比，主导性笑声的音调更高，声音更大，音调更易变。

A random group of volunteers then listened to an equal number of dominant and submissive laughs from both the high- and low-status individuals, and were asked to estimate the social status of the laughter. In line with predictions, laughters producing dominant laughs were perceived to be significantly higher in status than laughters producing submissive laughs. 'This was particularly true for low-status individuals, who were rated as significantly higher in status when displaying a dominant versus submissive laugh,' Oveis and colleagues note. 'Thus, by strategically displaying more dominant laughter when the context allows, low-status individuals may achieve higher status in the eyes of others.' However, high-status individuals were rated as high-status whether they produced their natural dominant laugh or tried to do a submissive one.

然后，随机抽取一组志愿者，听取相同数量的来自高地位和低地位者的主导及顺从性笑声，并要求他们估计笑声发出者的社会地位。与预测相符，产生主导性笑声的笑声发出者被认为比产生顺从笑声的笑声发出者具有更高的地位。奥维斯和同事指出:“对于地位低下的人来说尤其如此当他们在发出主导性笑声时，地位显著高于表现出顺从性笑声时。因此，在条件允许的情况下策略性地表现更多的主导性笑声，可能会使地位低的人在他人眼中获得更高的地位。“但是，无论地位高的人是自然地发出主导性笑声还是试图发出顺从性笑声，他们都会被评为是高地位的。

Another study, conducted by David Cheng and Lu Wang of Australian National University, was based on the hypothesis that humour might provide a respite from tedious situations in the workplace. This 'mental break' might facilitate the replenishment of mental resources. To test this theory, the researchers recruited 74 business students, ostensibly for an experiment on perception. First, the students performed a tedious task in which they had to cross out every instance of the letter 'e' over two pages of text. The students then were randomly assigned to watch a video clip eliciting either humour, contentment, or neutral feelings. Some watched a clip of the BBC comedy Mr. Bean, others a relaxing scene with dolphins swimming in the ocean, and others a factual video about the management profession.

澳大利亚国立大学的郑大伟和王璐进行的另一项研究，是基于幽默可能会缓解工作场所中的乏味这样的假设。这种“精神休息“可能有助于丰富精神资源。为了验证这一理论，研究人员招募了74名商科学生，表面上告诉学生要进行感知实验。首先，学生们要完成一项繁琐的任务，他们必须圈出两页文字中的每个“e“字母。然后，学生被随机分配观看能激发幽默、幸福或没什么感觉的视频片段。一些学生观看BBC喜剧憨豆先生的片段，另一些观看了海豚在大海中游泳的轻松场面，另一些则观看了有关职业管理的实况视频。

The students then completed a task requiring persistence in which they were asked to guess the potential performance of employees based on provided profiles, and were told that making 10 correct assessments in a row would lead to a win. However, the software was programmed such that it was nearly impossible to achieve 10 consecutive correct answers. Participants were allowed to quit the task at any point. Students who had watched the Mr. Bean video ended up spending significantly more time working on the task, making twice as many predictions as the other two groups.

然后，学生完成了一项需要耐力的任务，任务要求他们根据所提供的资料猜测员工的潜在表现，学生被告知连续10次正确评估正确将获得胜利。然而，软件设置了连续10次正确答案的可能性几乎为0。他们允许参与者随时退出任务。观看了憨豆先生视频的学生最终坚持了更多的时间来完成这项任务，做出的预测是其他两个小组的两倍。

Cheng and Wang then replicated these results in a second study, during which they had participants complete long multiplication questions by hand. Again, participants who watched the humorous video spent significantly more time working on this tedious task and completed more questions correctly than did the students in either of the other groups.

然后，郑和王在第二个实验中得出了相同的结果，在此期间，他们让参与者手动完成了长乘法问题。观看幽默视频的参与者又一次比其他组的学生坚持了更久的时间来完成这项繁琐的任务并答对了更多的问题。

'Although humour has been found to help relieve stress and facilitate social relationships, the traditional view of task performance implies that individuals should avoid things such as humour that may distract them from the accomplishment of task goals,' Cheng and Wang conclude. 'We suggest that humour is not only enjoyable but more importantly, energising.'

'虽然我们发现幽默可以缓解压力、促进社交关系，但传统观点依旧认为，从完成任务角度来看，人应该避免诸如幽默这类可能会使他们无法完成任务目标的事情。“郑和王总结道，“我们认为幽默不仅仅令人愉快，更重要的是，它可以激发人的活力。