Laughter

I was really intrigued by our discussion in class the other day about
the reasons for why we laugh. Dr. McAnulty’s personal example was his
experience at Harding when he slipped on ice and the group of guys
started laughing. They laughed because they had the expectation that
he would fall, but would not be seriously injured. They had all
experienced this same fall, so they knew what to expect when someone
came around the corner. If he would have stayed down on the ground and
held his head, or any given body part they probably would have stopped
laughing within a couple of seconds. I fully believe these
interactions are guided by each persons reaction to the situation. If
the person falls but gets up with only having a bruised ego, the
onlookers will probably laugh because there is no harm because they
see that there is no serious harm done. Another element of this
interaction we did not fully discuss in class is the person’s initial
reaction to the stimulus, then comparing this to their secondary
reaction which is to their audience’s reaction. Considering the
severity of the pain of the fall, the person’s pain tolerance, and
their personal pride each person can react to their audience’s
reaction in a wide variety of ways. For instance, when Dr. McAnulty
fell on the ice if he would have sprained his ankle while falling,
assuming the sprain doesn’t hobble him to the point where he can no
longer walk, he might get up and become angry with the group of guys.
In this same situation he might also try to save some face and join in
the laughing, even though he is in pain from spraining his ankle.
Since this group of guys knows what is coming, their initial reaction
is to laugh, then if the situation calls for it see if the person is
ok. In a typical social setting the expectations would be the opposite
of this because we are not expecting to see someone fall. I think the
decision to laugh in these types of situation is based on expectations
and individual as well as group reactions. A situation that mimics
this is how fans at a football game react when a player from the
opposing team goes down with an injury. If the player isn’t moving the
stadium falls into a relative silence. If the player is moving fans
will talk amongst themselves and try to figure out what happened and
if its a serious injury or if it is something minor such as cramping.
Once a player gets up to walk off the field whether on his own or with
help fans will cheer for him, and then possibly start making
derogatory comments at the opposing team for their players not being
tough or in good physical condition. If a player is carted off the
field, these same comments are not likely to be made. The fans are
reacting to what they can observe from how the player himself is
reacting to the injury, how the rest of the opposing team and fans are
reacting to the injury, and how the on the field medical staff is
responding to the injury. These initial reactions dictate how the
people observing the injury or accident in turn react. I think we
first survey the severity of what happened to the person, then we
check to see how the person responds to what happened, then we react
in what we deem the most appropriate way in accordance with how our
peers react to the situation.