Sophie Scott

I think because it's probably one of the more important emotional expressions that we use socially.

If you ask people about what makes them laugh, they'll talk about comedy and jokes and humor.

But if you actually look at people, what they do is they laugh when they're in company.

Laughter is a social behavior.

You are 30, three zero times more likely to laugh if there's somebody else with you than if you're on your own.

And you'll laugh more if you know those people and you'll laugh more if you like those people.

And that's why you shouldn't think of it as an expression of amusement, actually, because most of the time laughter has got nothing whatsoever to do with jokes.

It's a social joy.

It's a joy that you experience when you're with other people.

So I think you can think of laughter as being an expression of a sort of playful, socially delightful joy.

It's something you experience when you're with other people.

Now, that might be on a screen or it might be in real life, but there has to be that sense of a social connection for it to start happening.

It's possible to laugh on your own.

It's just much less likely.

So I think from that perspective, it's really worth valuing laughter and taking laughter seriously because it's an emotional expression, but it's one that lives in social interactions.

And that makes it very, very interesting because unlike emotions like, say, fear and disgust or surprise,

I was once walking down the street and slipped on some ice.

I didn't completely fall over, but I slipped enough.

I completely produced an involuntary vocalization of surprise.

Oh, like that.