Gray Alan W, Parkinson Brian, Dunbar Robin I
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, UK,
Hum Nat. 2015 Mar;26(1):28-43. doi: 10.1007/s12110-015-9225-8.
If laughter functions to build relationships between individuals, as current theory suggests, laughter should be linked to interpersonal behaviors that have been shown to be critical to relationship development. Given the importance of disclosing behaviors in facilitating the development of intense social bonds, it is possible that the act of laughing may temporarily influence the laugher's willingness to disclose personal information. We tested this hypothesis experimentally by comparing the characteristics of self-disclosing statements produced by those who had previously watched one of three video clips that differed in the extent to which they elicited laughter and positive affect. The results show that disclosure intimacy is significantly higher after laughter than in the control condition, suggesting that this effect may be due, at least in part, to laughter itself and not simply to a change in positive affect. However, the disclosure intimacy effect was only found for observers' ratings of participants' disclosures and was absent in the participants' own ratings. We suggest that laughter increases people's willingness to disclose, but that they may not necessarily be aware that it is doing so.
如果如当前理论所表明的那样，笑具有建立个体间关系的功能，那么笑应该与已被证明对关系发展至关重要的人际行为相关联。鉴于自我表露行为在促进紧密社会联系发展中的重要性，笑的行为有可能会暂时影响发笑者披露个人信息的意愿。我们通过比较此前观看了三个在引发笑声和积极情绪程度上有所不同的视频片段之一的那些人所做出的自我表露陈述的特征，对这一假设进行了实验测试。结果表明，发笑后的自我表露亲密度显著高于对照条件下的亲密度，这表明这种效应可能至少部分归因于笑本身，而不仅仅是积极情绪的变化。然而，自我表露亲密度效应仅在观察者对参与者表露的评分中发现，而在参与者自己的评分中并未出现。我们认为，笑会增加人们披露的意愿，但他们不一定意识到笑有这样的作用。
