What is the correlation between laughter and social status?

Naïve participants were highly accurate at judging an individual's social rank just by listening to their laughter. read more

Smiles and laughter become means somewhere along the social ladder, methinks. You smile not because you are happy, but because you want to show the other person that you are friendly. Or that you are on speaking terms at least. read more

Laughter is a reflex-like non-verbal social signal that is pervasive in human social interactions, especially amongst friends and close associates [5], [15]. It commonly occurs at differing levels of intensity, and it seems that the intensity of a laugh most strongly distinguishes the function to which laughter is oriented [14]. read more

Rather than simply signaling innocent pleasure, laughter can often be more complicated—conveying everything from anxiety to civility to spite. In fact, laughter can communicate to others sentiments we’d prefer remained secret. According to new research, the way we laugh is an unexpectedly effective indicator of social power. read more