Latest / A Capture Deep Vibs A Positive Space For Inspiration And Embracing Of Heart / The Language of Love: How Communication Creates Connection

Transcript

The Language of Love: How Communication Creates Connection · A Capture Deep Vibs A Positive Space For Inspiration And Embracing Of Heart

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're not as funny as you think you are.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Picture this. You're watching TV alone, and you see a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: celebrity you don't like make a joke. You don't laugh.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Your best friend, however, tells you the exact same joke
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: to your friend group years later, and now it's the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: funniest joke in the world. Why is this? Contrary to
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: what you may believe, laughter is not solely dependent on
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: how objectively funny a joke is. Neuroscientist Sophie Scott says
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that most laughter is due to social circumstances. She believes
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: that we don't laugh at jokes, but we laugh to
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: show others we understand them, agree with them, and that
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: we like them. This explains why we are more likely
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to laugh at a friend than a stranger. Research suggests
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: that the younger you are, the more contagious laughter is.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: As you get older, laughter becomes less contagious. This could
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: be because older people understand laughter better. Older people are
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: more likely to tell the difference between posed and real
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: laughter because of past experience. Therefore, they don't feel the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: need to respond with laughter when they see it. Looking
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to science, in 2007, an FMRI scanner measured how volunteers'
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: brains responded to a range of sounds. These sounds were
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: either positive, like laughter, or negative, like screaming. The sounds
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: encouraged a reaction in the premotor cortical region of their brains,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: which is the area that encourages facial muscles to move.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: The highest response was for positive sounds, giving us insight
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: into why we laugh when we hear someone tell a joke.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Certain research suggests that laughter was used as a forerunner
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to language by our ancestors to show that they meant
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: no harm. In other words, laughter was not used to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: benefit us, but rather as a means of being accepted
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: by potential threats. In 1974... A study showed that people
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: were more likely to find jokes funny when in a group.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: This could explain why we find pleasure when watching movies.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: The characters are relatable, and we feel like we know them.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: The question then arises, can contagious laughter benefit us? Robert
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Wellington conducted a longitudinal study on stressful conversations with couples.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: He found that couples who laughed during their stress made
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: each other feel better. This shows how laughing together can
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: be relaxing and can bring couples together. Studies have also
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: shown that embarrassing situations can be lessened by laughter. If
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: your friend falls over and you respond by laughing, provided
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: that they are not seriously hurt, then they might start
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: laughing too. Laughing at yourself can help reduce your humiliation
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and prevent an entire loss of dignity. A laughter epidemic
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: happened on the 30th of January 1962 in a boarding
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: school in Tanganyika, where three young girls began giggling at
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a joke. Their laughter spread throughout 95 of the 159 students,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: who spread it to their parents once they left. One
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: child laughed for 16 days straight. The school was closed temporarily,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: as it spread to home villages, affecting hundreds of people.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: The cause of this was theorized to be mass hysteria
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: or mass psychogenetic illness. The incident was stress-induced, supposedly due
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to the fact that Tanganyika had just won independence, and
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: students were suffering from high expectations from teachers and parents.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: How's that for laughter getting out of hand? So, the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: next time you laugh in a social situation, think about
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: why you're laughing. Did you really think that joke was funny,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: or were you just trying to please who you were with?
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Have you ever laughed at a joke for a long time,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: only to realize it wasn't actually that funny? Comment below.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: We'd love to hear your laughing stories.