'Goodbye then'-style remarks account for 80 to 90 percent of laughter

When you end a phone call by saying, “Well, I’m off now,” and the other person responds with a light laugh, such as “LOL, see you later~,” consider why laughter emerges in that moment. Even though you may not have exchanged particularly funny episodes, why does laughter occur? Regarding this, Professor Robert R. Provine of the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), offered a clear explanation. Eighty to ninety percent of the laughter that occurs in everyday conversations is unrelated to jokes or humor. The essence of laughter, which we often misunderstand, is not ‘amusement’ but rather a signal of ‘connection’ with the other person ¹.

Laughter Research Beyond the Laboratory

However, the laboratory environment was excessively stiff. Participants rarely laughed while watching television clips, and observing natural laughter proved difficult. Professor Provine himself recalled having to engage in “shameless hamming” to elicit laughter ²¹.

Professor Provine observed conversations occurring naturally in public places and recorded approximately 1,200 instances of laughter ²¹. The key was capturing “real conversations,” not “artificial humor.”

Greetings and Closing Signals Used More Than Jokes

The most important aspect of the data collected by the research team was the actual spoken content associated with “what people say when they laugh.” According to the records, most sentences that triggered laughter were ordinary conversations with little connection to humor. Typical examples include the following ¹:

• "I’ll see you guys later!"
• "I think I’m done."

Thus, greetings indicating the end of a conversation or statements declaring the completion of a task were recorded as the primary utterances leading to laughter. This phenomenon does not simply mean that “the conversation partner was funny.” Rather, it suggests that the primary function of laughter is not the interpretation of verbal humor.

Laughter Is a Signal to Confirm Connection

Instead, laughter functions as a signal indicating that the social connection between you and the other person is being maintained ³.

Professor Provine explains that laughter is difficult to control consciously ³. Laughter is an act that emerges instinctively to maintain connection with others according to the rhythm of conversational flow.

The fact that eighty to ninety percent of laughter in everyday conversations follows ordinary remarks means that we are not forcing laughter because we have missed the humor. It is a social signal informing the other person that “we are well-connected on the same wavelength.” However, since other primates, such as chimpanzees, produce similar laughter-like sounds during play, this signal is not unique to humans ².