Laughter is said to be the best medicine. Research even suggests it can relieve stress while stimulating vital organs like the heart and lungs.
But what many of us likely don’t know is that funny memes or jokes don’t trigger the ha-has. According to University of Maryland neurobiology professor Dr. Robert Provine, the catalysts are the people around us.
A 2022 journal based on Dr. Provine’s theory states that laughter is “behaviorally contagious” and typically occurs because someone else laughed. It is often a response to “overt humor” and a tool for people to “seek affiliation, affection, agreement, understanding, and recognition” in conversations.
“These contagious laughs are also highly social—people are much more likely to catch a laugh from someone they know than from a stranger,” an excerpt from the paper reads.
Laughter is also thematic. According to British psychologist and author Dr. Richard Wiseman, regional references may crack up a specific group of people. Americans, for example, prefer jokes with a sense of superiority.
Europeans, on the other hand, may be more amused with jokes that poke fun at topics that induce anxiety. British people, meanwhile, are fond of quips that include wordplay.
Some of the memes on this list, along with the others we’ve covered in the past, feature dark humor and sarcasm, themes that may not be as amusing to others. According to neuroscientist Prof. Sophie Scott, inappropriate subject matters often trigger laughter.
“One of the best tools are clips of people trying to not to laugh in situations where laughter is highly inappropriate,” Prof. Scott wrote in an article for the BBC.
Prof. Scott gave BBC Radio 4 presenter Charlotte Green as an example. Green was attempting to read a news clip about the earliest recording of the human voice and struggled to keep it together.
Here is the recording, where Green could no longer contain her laughter toward the end. Listen to it and try not to crack up. It’s quite a challenge.
