Some have identified differences between dominent status laughter and
laughter from those of lower status.
[www.psychologicalscience.org]
Have a look at this.
could it be that an incentive for group laughter around a guru such as Moo
is to gain status by laughing in the same way Moo laughs?
You have not reached his level of realization, but at least you can match his laughter -- and feel safely a part of the laughing satsang audience -- not
be isolated and laughed at.
quote:
laughter from those of lower status.
[www.psychologicalscience.org]
Have a look at this.
could it be that an incentive for group laughter around a guru such as Moo
is to gain status by laughing in the same way Moo laughs?
You have not reached his level of realization, but at least you can match his laughter -- and feel safely a part of the laughing satsang audience -- not
be isolated and laughed at.
quote:
Quote
high-status fraternity brothers produced more dominant laughs and fewer submissive laughs relative to the low-status pledges. Dominant laughter was higher in pitch, louder, and more variable in tone than submissive laughter.
Previous research, published in Psychological Science, demonstrated that holding a position of power can influence the acoustic cues of our speech. The voices of individuals primed with high-power roles tended to increase in pitch and were, at the same time, more monotone. Listeners, who had no knowledge of the experiment, were able to pick up on vocal cues signaling status: They rated individuals in the high-power group as being more powerful with a surprising degree of accuracy.
Findings from the fraternity brothers also showed that low-status individuals were more likely to change their laughter based on their position of power; that is, the pledges only really broke out into dominant laughter when they were in the “powerful” role of teasers. High-status individuals, on the other hand, maintained a consistent pattern of dominant laughter throughout the teasing game.
In another study, the research team tested out whether naïve observers could detect an individual’s status based just on their laughter.
A group of 51 college students was randomly assigned to listen to a set of 20 of the laughs recorded from the fraternity brothers. Each participant listened to an equal number of dominant and submissive laughs from both high- and low-status individuals. Participants then estimated the social status of the laugher using a 9-point scale.
Indeed, laughers producing dominant laughs were perceived to be significantly higher in status than laughers 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 explain. “Thus, by strategically displaying more dominant laughter when the context allows, low-status individuals may achieve higher status in the eyes of others.”