Is Laughter the Human Mob Cry?
A look at how Laughter makes people do crazy things.
When people join mobs, they go mad. They do bad things. They ignore the etiquette that’s expected of everybody else. In the 19th century, Gustave Le Bon remarked that when man joins an organised crowd, he descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization.
You have to wonder what it is about the power of a crowd that can convince an otherwise law-abiding citizen feel bold enough to light a car on fire or help flip over a bus after his soccer team wins a victory. A quick internet search pulls up a litany of examples of people doing heinous things while in the midst of a mob.
All too often in these scenarios, somewhere in the background is laughter, an instinct typically associated with safety and benevolence. Laughter, the same cry used to forge bond between mother and child, has been a backdrop to lynchings, gang rapes, and workplace harassment.
It might seem strange that such an amiable signal would be associated with aggressive acts, but there is reason to believe the connection between laughter and mob behavior runs deep.
In the 1980s, an Austrian Ethnologist named Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt pointed out that the way humans act when they harass each other is not all that different from the way animals do when they gather into mobs. In each of these phenomena, members of an in-group assemble together to pester and intimidate a target who is decidedly labelled as an outsider.
He pointed out that there were acoustic similarities between animal mobbing calls and the laughter that tends to accompany group harassment. Both are segmented into rhythmic pants that fluctuate in pitch. These features have the effect of making them especially easy to locate and difficult to ignore. Contrary to alarm signals, which try to be discreet, mob calls tend to call as much attention to themselves as possible.
During a typical animal mobbing event, members of a group act in an especially clamorous manner in an attempt to confuse and fluster an opponent. They intimidate their opponent by making it abundantly clear that they’re not looking for a place to hide in fear. By drawing attention to the area, they thwart a predator’s ability to make a stealth attack. It is a behavior that has an uncommon mixture of social and adversarial elements. Members of the group assemble together, but they assemble against a common foe. The effort must somehow pull in and rally peers while simultaneously also pushing away and antagonizing enemies.
Contrary to most alarm signals, which tend to be long in duration, the way a human scream is, mobbing calls tend to be segmented into short repeated chunks.
At first glance it might seem altruistic for an individual to risk his own safety by so boldly exposing his position to the enemy, but there is evidence to suggest that this might be at least partially motivated by rational self interest. Evolutionary biologist W.D. Hamilton noted that an individual’s likelihood of survival would increase the more peers he was surrounded by; that the safest place to be during an attack was the middle of the herd. Thus, by being especially good at taunting an enemy, an individual would better be able to convince his peers to draw towards him, which would in effect build an additional line of defense around him. Although he might initially take on some risk by increasing his exposure to a threat, he might ultimately reduce his overall risk if he is able to build strength in numbers.
Just like with animal mobbing calls, the laughter associated with group harassment seems to serve a mixture of social and aggressive functions. It can bring people together and foster a sense of belonging and camaraderie in the same way that laughter traditionally does. At the same time, it is an instrument for mockery and humiliation; wielded like a weapon against its target. When a person laughs to show he isn’t intimidated, he makes the case that his opponent isn’t a legitimate threat. In doing so, he confirms to his peers that there isn’t much risk to be had by continuing with their harassment.
Furthermore, there are a lot of things we know about laughter’s effect on the psyche that might help explain some of the atypical behavior that occurs when people succumb to mob mentality.
Laughter has a reputation for increasing people’s appetite for risk, and it has a history of persuading people to overlook the consequences of certain activities, which means it runs the risk of convincing people to believe that it’s appropriate to do things that would be considered unacceptable to do during ordinary circumstances.
In 1921, Max Eastman observed that laughter had the power to convince people to do things they would ordinarily avoid. It could convince people to think things like violence and aggression and personal confrontation are fun. Eastman believed that by giving a sense of thrill to certain aggressive activities like chasing and pretend fighting, laughter would entice children into developing their defensive skills.
He built upon a popular 19th century idea held by Darwin and others that laughter was a safety signal that facilitated play. His depiction of laughter was sort of like the opposite of a safe word, in the sense that as long as you heard laughter, you could ignore the indications that would otherwise suggest a situation is troublesome. You could engage in things like wrestling and teasing without getting aggravated. He believed that by allowing peers to confirm to each other that no harm has been done, laughter would promote the establishment of a safe, low-consequence environment in which one could continue with mildly aggressive activities without the fear of escalating anything into actual conflict.
In 1902, Englishman James Sully also built upon Darwin’s theory of laughter and suggested that a communication signal that signified the harmlessness of a certain stimulus could be very useful in social situations. Sully proposed that by tapping into an impulse that helps children get along with each other, laughter would help adults recognize and communicate to each other when they need not fear social conflict.
He believed this is why we laugh when a child mispronounces a word or when a foreigner makes a violation of etiquette. It’s a way of acknowledging the offense while also granting permission for it. In Sully’s words, it is a way of saying that the infraction was “so trifling that we do not feel called upon to judge the shortcoming severely.”
The body language expressed by a laughing person is opposite what you would expect of someone who finds fault with something. An offended person would typically tense up, recoil and prepare to retaliate. Contrary to this, when a person laughs, he relaxes the muscles in his body, conspicuously demonstrating that he’s not prepared to respond to any offense.
What this means is that when a crowd of onlookers laughs at the ridiculousness of a troublemaker’s antics, they might be channelling unconscious signals that a behavior is acceptable and not consequential. They could be feeding faulty information into a mental feedback loop that looks to peers for guidance about the appropriateness of an activity. They might inadvertently be encouraging and granting permission for a behavior they believe they are only passively observing. The laughter of the mob itself could send a confusing signal that its acts of harm are nothing to be alarmed by, but are just the stuff of innocuous horseplay.
In addition, the flamboyance of a troublemaker’s laugh offers an outward suggestion that he’s not concerned about the repercussions of being seen partaking in it. You would expect someone who knows they’re getting into trouble to be as sneaky as possible about it. By calling attention to his involvement in an activity he makes an implication to his peers that it is safe and acceptable.
There is also evidence to suggest that laughter might have the ability to sway a person’s judgment by directly altering the brain chemistry associated with our decision making machinery. The brain treats fear of social repercussion in much the same way it treats the fear of physical harm. It recruits the same fear machinery so that when you’re in a situation that could potentially endanger your social standing, you feel the same nervousness and unease that you’d feel if you were physically threatened, effectively scaring you from committing an ethical infraction.
On the other end of the spectrum, if the brain wants to encourage an individual to continue with a certain activity, it might do so by bribing him with the release of endogenous opioids. Opioids have the power to override fear pathways and are typically released to reward us for forming bonds or taking care of our offspring.
This motivation system is susceptible to interference by narcotic opioids, which are known to short circuit the brain’s reward circuitry and can increase a person’s tolerance for risk. Opioids have been cited as a contributing factor to pathological gambling as well as thefts and other crimes. Laughter releases endogenous opioids into the bloodstream, which suggests a possibility for a similar effect on one’s behavior. It could cause a person to feel apathy or even thrill in a situation where a person would ordinarily feel shame and apprehension. Inappropriate laughter has even been cited as an early sign of psychopathy, a condition that causes people to overlook the harmful consequences of their behavior on others. Upon seeing the horrible things we like to laugh at, Henri Bergson once remarked that laughter caused “a momentary anaesthesia of the heart.”
The extent of laughter’s culpability for the mischief it tends to accompany is unclear, but I do believe its influence is not to be ignored. Laughter’s role as a regulator of behavior begins in the earliest stages of life, which suggests its impact is likely significant. Children laugh well before they learn to engage in other kinds of communication. They laugh the same even if they are blind or deaf, which suggests much of the instinct is hardwired into the brain. Thereafter, laughter’s role as an enforcer of social etiquette is only reinforced by parents and peers. With these facts in mind, it is not unreasonable to believe that a trait which has a long history of regulating acceptable behavior could provide just enough encouragement to convince the most impressionable members of a group to do something irresponsible.
