Do Animals Laugh?

A person might ask: do animals laugh?

What is animal laughter?  Is it similar to that of a human?  Do the emotions that elicit laughter from humans also apply to other animals?  Can all animals laugh or only a select few species?

Animal laughter is a peculiar topic.  Many humans think that our species is special.  While that is certainly true, it is speculated that laughter evolved prior to the origin of humans.  That speaks to just how natural laughter is; if animals around the world share it with us.

Animals have been found to have animal behaviour that resembles human laughter.  Animals that demonstrate vocalizations similar to human laughter include; non-human primates such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans; rats; dogs; and, obviously, humans.

Laughter in animals other than humans is commonly a response to physical contact, such as wrestling, play chasing, or tickling.  Humans and other mammals share similar ticklish areas on the body such as the armpits and belly.

A dog's laugh sounds like a pant.  A sonograph can be used to analyze the varying bursts of frequencies that come with the pant, resulting in laughter.  It is found that dog-laugh vocalization, when recorded and played to dogs in a shelter setting, can increase tail wagging, promote social behavior, initiate play, and decrease stress levels.  Sound similar?  Besides the tail wagging part, these same things can be, and usually are, brought out by human laughter.

Rat laughter, different than that of a dog's, cannot be heard by humans without special equipment.  During rough play and when being tickled, rats emit high frequency, ultrasonic vocalization.  The laugh is described as distinct "chirping".  Like humans, rats have ticklish skin and certain areas of the body that generate more laughter response than others.  A rat's laughter is associated with positive emotional feelings.  It has been indicated that rats can indeed laugh and express joy.

Chimpanzees generate alternating inhalations and exhalations that sound like breathing and panting, but is actually laughter.  It sounds similar to screeching.  This response from non-human primates is elicited from physical contact, such as rough play or tickling.  The difference between chimpanzee and human laughter may be the result of adaptations that have evolved to enable human speech.  Still, chimpanzees have been reported to express joy just like humans do.

Research has noted the similarity in forms of laughter among humans and non-human primates when being tickled.  Humans and these primates share similar ticklish areas and also similar facial expressions that are associated with joy.

Contrary to what many humans believe, we are similar in many ways to other animals.  We all have laughter.  We can all express joy.  After all, without laughter, how else could happiness be expressed?  The two coexist, depend on each other.  Like how we depend on the sun for life, humor depends on laughter to survive.

Can you die laughing?

A person might ask: is it possible to die from laughter?  What other negative aspects might laughing entail?

During the holidays, laughter seems to be everywhere.  People are smiling, having fun.  Laughter is in the air.  But, what are the downfalls?

Despite the many benefits, laughter is not always a pleasant experience.  Some negative aspects are associated with expressing intense joy.  Although these negativities are relatively rare, they have the possibility of resulting in death.

Excessive laughter can be dangerous.  It sometimes leads to cataplexy (sudden physical collapse, though remaining conscious, caused by strong emotion).  The upside: negative aspects of laughter often occur in people who are unhealthy or have a medical condition.  Eat your vegetables!

In some people, laughter is uncontrollable.  Literally.  They describe a fit of laughter as a time when they cannot control their body, which sometimes leads to seizures of brief periods of unconsciousness.  Some believe that fits of laughter represent a form of epilepsy (sudden recurrent episodes of sensory disturbance, loss of consciousness, or convulsions associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain).

Death from laughter isn't common by any means, but it does exist.  In these rare instances, fits of laughter can cause a cardiac arrest (cessation of function of the heart) or asphyxiation (suffocation or the condition of being deprived of oxygen).  Death is never pleasant, but at least these people died with a smile on their faces.

Moral of this story: stay healthy and don't laugh excessively.  When laughing, make sure to take breaks in between and catch your breath.

So, although laughter definitely has its perks, beware: it can also lead to death in extreme cases.  Happy holidays!

What Types of Laughter are there?

A person might ask: what kinds of laughter are there?  Laughter is not all the same.  As with snowflakes, there is not one laugh that is exactly the same.  We've went over the different types of humor (see the post Am I Funny?  and the Types of Humor), but now it's time to differentiate the types of laughter.

A multitude of different things can alter a person's laughter, including what kind of humor the person has, the cause of laughter (see Why do people laugh?), and the person itself.  These different combinations make way for a large variety of different laughters.

Laughter can be classified according to intensity, covertness, the respiratory pattern involved, the sequence of notes or pitches it produces, or according to the emotion it is expressed with.

Some people snort when they laugh, others shake silently with no sound coming out.  Some people's laugh sounds like a beautiful melody, while other's laugh sounds like a dying animal.  A lot of the time, however, a person can have many different types of laughter that can arise on different occasions.

For instance, someone might laugh quietly or politely, a chuckle, when they're with people older than them.  However, when with their friends, that same person might laugh crazily and hysterically.  In class, a group of students might giggle, trying to laugh quietly or stifle their laughter as not to get in trouble with the teachers.

In a previous article of mine (Why do people laugh?), I categorized laughter in three ways: amused laughter, fake laughter, and ticklish laughter.  This article will dive deeper into things, looking at certain aspects of laughter and the different types.  Most of the types of laughter will be caused by amused laughter.

Different types of laughter include, but are not limited to, the following: chuckling, giggling, outburst, sputtering, .  As you may recall, different emotions can elicit different types of laughter as well (see Why do people laugh?).  Embarrassment, nervousness, happiness, amusement, confusion, relief, and pain can all result in laughter.

The structure of laughter depends on the person, or the situation.  It is possible for a person to have different structures of laughter for different occasions.  Typically, a laugh has the structure of one of the following: "ha-ha-ha", "ho-ho-ho", or "he-he-he".  A person is physically unable to have a laughing structure of varying combinations, such as "ha-ho-he-ha".  It is, however, possible to have a variation on the first or last note in a sequence.  Therefore, "ha-ha-ho" and "he-he-ha" are possible.  Despite individual variants, a laugh is recognizable because all laughs have a basic structure.  Limitations of our vocal cords don't allow a combination of normal note durations and unusually long or short note intervals.

So, despite there being a large variety of different types of laughter with different laughing structures, all laughter has a basic structure and is recognizable from humans around the world.  Laughter is one of the only things that isn't altered by people's opinions.

Imagine visiting a foreign country and the people there spoke a language you couldn't understand.  They still smile just like you do and joke just like you do.  Guess what else?  They laugh: just like you do.

That's one of the beauties of laughter: it isn't altered by people's opinions.

What kind of humor do I have? quiz

A person might ask: what kind of humor do I have?  As you may recall from one of my previous posts (Am I Funny? and the Types of Humor), there are seven categories of humor: Self-humor, Stupid-humor, Dirty-humor, Sarcastic-humor, Dark-humor, Dry-humor, and Witty-humor.  You may have asked yourself: what kind of humor do I have?  You may not be able to tell yourself if you are funny not, at least not truthfully.  So, how are you supposed to determine what kind of humor you have if you aren't even sure you're funny at all?

Take this quiz to determine your sense or senses of humor.  (note - some people may have more than one kind of sense of humor)

Disclaimer: this quiz may not be 100% accurate.

Directions: answer each question with a yes or a no.  If the appropriate answer is closer to a maybe, simply choose one of the other, or skip the question.  Or, if the question gives you two choices, pick one.  Since a person might have more than one kind of sense of humor, feel free to continue the quiz by going to the next question even if you've already been assigned a sense of humor.  Most importantly, be honest!


1.     Do you laugh a lot?
If yes, go to question 2.  If no, maybe you don't have a sense of humor.  Continue to question 2 anyways.

2.     If you were to choose what you do more often, would it be grin or smirk?
If grin, go to question 3.  If smirk, go to question 4.

3.     Is your laugh considered loud and annoying or quiet and shy?
If loud and annoying, go to question 5.  If quiet and shy, go to question 4.

4.     Do you consider yourself the funniest out of all of your friends?
If yes, then you have Self-humor.  Sit back and enjoy your own jokes.  Maybe even share them with someone.  If no, maybe you don't have a sense of humor.  Continue to question 6 anyways.

5.     Do you laugh more than your friends?
If more, then you have Stupid-humor.  You laugh a lot and at everything.  Sometimes the cause of your hysterics might be stupid, and usually is, but hopefully you've got another Stupid-humored person by your side laughing with you.  If less, maybe you don't have a sense of humor.  Continue to question 6 anyways.

6.     Do you often get quiet when someone walks by while you're laughing with your friends?
If yes, then you have Dirty-humor.  You laugh at all the wrong things and have an extremely dirty mind.  Chances are you're a teenager or a grown-up male.  You're perverted, but in a 'that's what she said' kind of way.  If no, continue to question 7.

7.     Do people consider you more brooding or happy?
If brooding, continue to question 8.  If happy, continue to question 10.

8.     Do you hardly smile because you have a dark personality or because you're constantly thinking?
If dark mind, then you have Dark-humor.  Congrats.  You're that person that makes Dark-humored jokes with maybe a bit of Dry-humored facial expression and a Dirty-humored mind.  You're divergent!  If constantly thinking, continue to question 9.

9.     Do you usually tell your jokes with a black facial expression?
If yes, then you have Dry-humor.  People can't always read your facial expression or body language and it's often hard for people to tell what you are thinking.  Still, you have a sense of humor.  If no, continue to question 10.

10.     Are you the person that talks back to your teacher with clever remarks?
If yes, continue to question 11.  If no, continue to question 12.

11.   Are your comebacks usually epic or lame?
If epic, then you have Witty-humor.  People in this category are probably the cleverest and most intelligent.  Or just strive for attention from their peers and do so by developing their sense of humor.  Maybe it comes naturally to you, or maybe you've trained your mind to pick up on slight details in a conversation and pick out the amusing parts in it.  If lame, maybe you don't have a sense of humor.  Continue to question 12 anyways.

12.     Are you the type of person that takes things literally and makes jokes that start with, "well, technically..."?
If yes, then you have Sarcastic-humor.  You often talk back to teachers or adults and are constantly searching your brain for a clever remark.  You might even have some Witty-humor mixed in with your sarcasm.  If no, then maybe you don't have a sense of humor.


If you got more than three 'maybe you don't have a sense of humor's, you probably don't have a sense of humor... or, you can tell yourself, it's buried deep down.

What is laughter?

A person might ask: what is laughter?  How does it work?  My last post, Why do people laugh?, describes the different types of laughter and what triggers them.  There still might be lingering questions about the anatomy of laughter, curiosity that I strive to quench.  Why is it so easy to detect when laughter is feigned?  And, why does it seem impossible to stifle laughter when you find something amusing?

Firstly, laughter is the physiological response to humor.  It's the body's way of coping with an intense flood of emotions.  Sometimes there isn't even a real explanation.  Nevertheless, some aspects of it can be explained scientifically.

The lungs are the larynx are the mechanisms used when coughing or speaking.  They also create the sound of our laugh.  Normally, air passes freely through our open vocal cords in the larynx.  When they close, air cannot pass through them and when they're partially open, some sort of sound is generated.  Laughter is the result when we exhale through closed or partially open vocal cords.  The respiratory muscles periodically activate to produce the characteristic sound of laughter.

Why is it so difficult to fake laughter?  It seems as if feigned laughter stands out clearly and makes an awkward situation even more awkward.  This is because, besides the fact that laughing can sometimes be completely involuntary, it involves the movement of a complex series of muscles to produce a proper, genuine laugh.  A simulated one, however, doesn't quite sound the same, in part because the same muscles are not being triggered.  It requires an active effort to feign laughter.  Furthermore, the risorius muscle and the zygomaticus muscle are both used in smiling and, therefore, laughing.  Since the risorius muscle affects a smaller portion of the face than the zygomaticus muscle, it is easier to control and is therefore commonly used to feign amusement, hence why fake laughter is easy to detect.

Similarly, it is so hard to suppress laughter for this reason; laughter is often involuntary and involves the moving of a complex series of muscles.  Laughter may seem uncontrollable at times.  Particularly laughter caused from amusement.

The study of laughter and its effects on the human body, both psychologically and physiologically, is called gelotology.  Sometimes it's useful, and sometimes it's just fun.  Or perhaps, ironically, funny.

Why do people laugh?

A person might ask: what causes laughter?  Why do people laugh?  Why does your body react the way it does when you're being tickled, and how come you can't tickle yourself?  What emotions trigger our bodies to dive into a condition of uncontrollable hysterics?  There are seven types of humor, but there are even more types of laughter.  Whether you're confused, nervous, or happy, laughing can always seem like a solution.

On the subject of the cause of laughter, the answer isn't a simple one.  It depends.  Laughter is categorized in three ways.  The first instance: a person telling a joke, cracking a smile that soon turns into an insane path of laughter.  The second instance: a person that feigns a soft chuckle, either from embarrassment or pretending to be amused at a joke that they don't find all that funny.  The third instance: someone being tickled, choking on gasps of laughter.  So, ultimately, there is laughter caused from amusement, fake laughter, and laughter caused from someone being tickled.  Multiple different types of laughter can fall into each group.

What is the difference between these three different categories of laughter?  Aren't they all the same thing?

First, I'll delve into the category that seems to get the least amount of attention, and for good reason.  Feigned laughter.  It can almost always be spotted when it occurs, despite how convincing of an actor the sound is coming from.  People may imitate laughter for a variety of different reasons, including being distracted from the topic of conversation (or just not in the mood) but not wanting to stand out by being the only one not laughing at a joke, embarrassment, or from being nervous.

Oppositely, laughter caused from happiness or amusement is completely genuine and extremely difficult to fake.  This particular type of laughter, sometimes known as "happy laughter" or "hysterical laughter", can be triggered from intense emotions ranging from amusement to satisfaction to confusion to relief.  Regardless of the reason, it is typically a pleasant sound and elicits smiles or similar laughter from people around the room.

Laughter from being tickled might be a completely different experience than amused laughter to some people.  It might bring a smile to your face, but not necessarily a smile of happiness.  Many people hate being tickled, and for good reason.  The act of tickling triggers a sensation that activates part of the brain that copes with pain.  Have you ever wondered why we have certain "ticklish" spots on our bodies?  If you notice, most people are ticklish in their weakest spots, such as their feet, neck, or stomach.  This results in our "fight or flight" mechanism being triggered, leading to what we know as ticklish laughter.  Unlike genuinely funny laughter, tickling causes the hypothalamus - which controls instinctive reactions (think fight or flight) - to activate.  The hypothalamus also controls body temperature, hunger, and tiredness.  Some people start to laugh at merely the mention of being tickled.  In someone being tickled, their unmyelinated nerve fibers that cause pain are being stimulated.  This is the reason why people are known to lash out at their attacker when being tickled.  This also explains why you can't tickle yourself; your brain is aware that there is no need to produce a response to the action because it knows you don't need protection and aren't in any danger.  Tickling may be playful to some people, but to others is can just be painful.

So, those are the three categories and a basic summary of what they entail.  The causes and triggers of laughter have been listed and details about each category of laughter have been explained.  Next time you want to get even with an enemy, who would have thought tickling would be an option?

How do I become funny?

A person might ask: how do I become funny?  After reading my previous post about the importance of humor and the benefits of being funny, it's hard not to find the prospect tempting.  But you aren't sure how to make that fantasy into a reality.  Read on to unlock the answers to that burning question.

*note*  A whoopie cushion doesn't count as having humor.  You may get some laughs from the Stupid-humored prank, but being able to make people laugh by actions doesn't automatically make you have a sense of humor.

First of all, in order to be considered funny, you can't just memorize jokes.  They sound rehearsed and oftentimes don't make you seem like a truly funny person.  For a joke to really hit home, it has to be witty, clever, and made on the spot.  How, you may ask, does one do that?

Everyone has an inner sense of humor.  Some people may have it closer to the surface, while in others it is buried deep down.  In order to tap into your natural sense of humor, you must unlock your inner sense of humor.  To do that, first develop a sense of Self-humor and realize what makes you laugh.  How can you make other people laugh if you aren't sure what you find funny?

A naturally funny person may seem to have sporadic, in the moment jokes that they make up on the spot. This is because people with a strong sense of humor are more detail-oriented.  In order to be funny, one must pick up on certain details in conversation and work from there.  The funniest jokes are those that are focused on a minor detail or phrase that a person says rather than a general topic or larger concept.  With practice, focusing in on such details transfers over into the rest of your life and becomes habit.  Humorous people train their brains to pick up on individual features or specific aspects of a conversation.  This can help them analyze the words and think of witty comments or clever remarks that give people the illusion of the speaker being clever and intelligent.

Even once you've unlocked your inner sense of humor, you can't make jokes if you don't have any reference material.  So be pop culture savvy!  The broader your general knowledge is, the funnier your remarks will be.  Remember that funny comments are usually one-liners or quick remarks rather than long-format dialogues.

Being funny requires creativity.  Maybe your jokes help with your creativeness, or maybe your creativeness helps with your jokes.  Either way, having creativity is essential in having a good sense of humor.  Being funny requires outside-the-box thinking.  If you look at things from a different angle under a different light, clever and creative thinking will start to flow naturally.  Humor put your mind into a calmer mood, allowing you to better focus and be creative.

Which leads into the next tip.  Relax!  Being calm allows you to think clearly and focus, leading to better storytelling and witty jokes.  Besides, even comedians bomb jokes sometimes.  So stop worrying about impressing people and just try to be your naturally funny self.  Of course, there are things that can be improved upon.

Your delivery and timing, for example.  Being funny isn't only about telling great jokes.  Your mannerism, attitude, how you project yourself, and your delivery all play key parts when determining your sense of humor.  Be animated and alive, make eye contact, and speak with confidence.  Or, if you're a Dark or Dry-humored kind of person, talk in a monotonous voice but still keep your voice strong and your facial expression even.  Your delivery has to go with your humor, and if your timing if off then it can ruin the entire joke.  Also remember that smiling is contagious, so smile away!  People will be urged to smile when they see you laughing.

Lastly, be yourself!  Find your inner sense of humor and go from there.  If you just mimic other people, you'll start to be thought of as a copycat or someone who doesn't have their own jokes.  So be your own, unique self and you'll go a lot farther.

Summary: don't try too hard, be spontaneous, unlock and develop your inner sense of humor, become detail-oriented, be pop culture savvy, be creative, relax, get your delivery and timing right, and just be yourself!

Next time you're out with friends, add your own punchlines or thoughts.  Try not to worry about their judgement or what will happen if the joke falls flat.  Who cares?  Also remember that there is no recipe for funniness, it's just something that comes from the top of your head when no one least expects it.  Use your wit and reply to the situation.  Follow these Tips of Humor to make yourself a funnier person!