Babies and children don’t always laugh because they are happy – 04/13/2024 – Science

Although it may seem like a paradox, children do not laugh for joy. Scientific studies, including my own, show that there is something much deeper than happiness or pleasure in a child’s laughter.

Adult laughter is equally complex. In a previous study of the meaning of laughter in adults, I concluded that it is an evolutionary response to something confusing or unexpected. It’s a powerful “all’s well” signal to ourselves and others that a possible threat is, in fact, harmless.

Building on this research, my most recent study focuses on laughter in children and infants. I discovered that it is closely linked to brain and personality development: Children laugh for very different reasons at different stages of development, long before they can understand abstract concepts like wordplay, jokes, or even language.

Laughter stems from our ability to subconsciously understand and judge the incongruities of a joke or action: it is our response to an instantaneous transition between astonishment and resolution.

Therefore, laughter in adults signals the passing of threat or fear, both to ourselves and to those around us. This is also why children — and many adults — laugh on roller coasters or in similar situations: instead of crying in fear, they move from perplexity and terror to resolution. Laughter is the sign of this passage.

Several studies show that this process is the mechanism behind successful comedy, especially physical comedy. French philosopher Henri Bergson first proposed and explained this mechanism in 1900 in relation to “slapstick” (physical comedy): “The laughable element (…) consists of a certain mechanical inelasticity, exactly where one would expect to find waking adaptability and living flexibility of a human being.”

Babies learn to laugh

Laughter begins soon after birth. Babies learn to laugh because they want to imitate their parents and receive their approval. This is how babies learn everything in the beginning: through imitation and receiving approval from the adults around them.

But, as they grow, babies leave the symbiosis with their parents that characterizes the first months of life. They learn to distinguish their own person from their parents and the world around them. When they begin to behave autonomously — from 2 to 5 years of age — they begin to have a sensation for the first time: certain things may seem cold, strange or out of place, and this shocks, confuses and surprises them.

That’s where laughter comes in: after a moment of hesitation, they understand that what seemed scary or unexpected is actually harmless.

For example, a child laughs when he sees his father with a fake clown nose. Why? Because, for a split second, she felt embarrassed: that nose is not a “live” nose. When she understands that it was just her father’s joke, she calms down and laughs. They can also laugh when their older brother makes a silly face, and the process is the same: astonishment, security, laughter.

From the age of 5 or 6, children learn to deal with abstract concepts, which means they can understand and “get” jokes. This happens when they overcome the previous stage of egocentrism, which makes it difficult to understand other people’s reasoning.

At this stage, laughter arises with the same criteria as adults, that is, to disapprove of what they consider cold and false, not only in other people, but also in their reasoning processes. This mental process forms the basis of a good joke: incongruity, astonishment, and resolution.

These three stages of laughter development — imitation and approval, astonishment, disapproval — are good indicators of a child’s mental growth and development.

Parents’ laughter helps babies’ development

Parents’ laughter, like babies’ laughter, is important for development, but why do parents instinctively laugh at their babies? We can easily understand that a mother or father smiles happily at their baby, but laughter is more complex.

When looking at their child, parents cannot help but have a moment of perplexity: babies are strange by nature, as they look like adults, but they do not speak or behave like them. This momentary astonishment lasts for a split second before it is immediately overcome: it is just your beloved baby.

This should encourage all parents to laugh with their babies, not to feel self-conscious or scared, and to be their “laughing buddies.” These interactions can improve babies’ behavior and well-being — laughter is a proven ally of our immune system — and help them develop a natural and healthy relationship with this complex human response.