Why Do We Laugh?

First of all, I think laughter is a very ancient response. I say this because I once heard Jane Goodall describe how Koko the gorilla (who is trained to communicate with humans in sign language) shared a joke with a human, and then laughed.

So if laughter and humour are traits in common to humans and gorillas, they must have been a response developed long ago, by primate ancestors held in common by humans and gorillas. To work out what it is about, it is probably necessary to imagine what kind of social-bonding role it served for our primate ancestors.

I would imagine that it served as a signal of, "I trust you" (enough to close my eyes and roll about helplessly), "I am relaxed in your company and I want you to be relaxed in my company", "We are on the same wavelength".

It is also an important signal of affluence and well being: "I am so well fed, healthy and rested that I have time up my sleeve to be silly and have fun". "I am free of worries". "I am so confident that I can afford to relax instead of staying on guard". This would have been a definite attractant to potential mates: Wow, someone who is so successful a food-gatherer that they have time for a laugh!

Like they say, grinners are winners! The fact that laughing and humour made our ancestors more attractive to each other, means we still have that trait today.

It's a kind of reaction and people do it either sarcastically or naturally.

We laugh because we need to. Laughing keeps us sane and without it, we would all be miserable. Meaning that without laughter, life would be dull and uninteresting. We would all be bored and people would be mad and sad and not happy. Laughter is a sign of happiness. It shows that people are happy. It's like when you hear a Dane Cook joke, It makes you happy, you laugh, you smile, and sometimes you laugh so hard you nearly pee your pants! N.n

Laughter automatically occurs due to the commands the facial muscles received coming from the brain. Our brains has this "list" of what is amusing to us and what is not. But, depending on our mood, sometimes we don't laugh at things that most of the time, makes us laugh because, certainly, it doesn't match our current mood. Hope you got the message....

It is a reaction to something funny

Because we all have a sense of humor

We Laugh when we see or here which is very amusing to us.

We laugh because when there is a situation that is funny it is a way to release our feelings, and even when something isn't funny we may laugh because that is the way a person tries to deny that something bad has happened, they laugh about it...