Excluded by Laughter: Laughing Until it Hurts Someone Else

Abstract

Can laughter cause social pain? Given the host of ways exclusion is communicated, we examined if exclusive laughter could produce the aversive consequences accordant with social exclusion. Using a validated recall paradigm, participants recounted a time of exclusive or inclusive laughter or a typical Wednesday (control condition). Participants recalling exclusive laughter felt more ostracized, increased social pain, thwarted basic needs, worsened mood, reduced relational evaluation, and increased temptations to aggress compared to inclusive laughter or a typical Wednesday; there were generally no significant differences between the inclusive laughter and a typical Wednesday. Participants recalling exclusive laughter also felt more verbally and emotionally bullied, demonstrating empirically, for one of the first times, a link between social exclusion and bullying.

Keywords:

• bullying
• exclusive laughter
• laughter
• social exclusion
• social pain

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Brad Okdie and the Social Connections Lab at the University of North Florida for their valuable feedback.

Notes

1. Keyword searches did not identify any participant crosstalk (Edlund, Sagarin, Skowronski, Johnson, & Kutter, 2009). We cannot rule out participants being suspicious regarding the study manipulation or purpose.