A STUDY OF LAUGHTER AND DISSOCIATION - DISTINCT CORRELATES OF LAUGHTER AND SMILING DURING BEREAVEMENT

Laughter facilitates the adaptive response to stress by increasing the psychological distance from distress and by enhancing social relation s. To test these hypotheses, the authors related measures of bereaved adults' laughter and smiling 6 months postloss to measures of their (a ) subjective emotion and dissociation from distress, (b) social relati ons, and(c) responses they evoked in others. Duchenne laughter, which involves orbicularis oculi muscle action, related to self-reports of r educed anger and increased enjoyment, the dissociation of distress, be tter social relations, and positive responses from strangers, whereas non-Duchenne laughter did not. Lending credence to speculations in the ethological literature, Duchenne laughter correlated with different i ntrapersonal and interpersonal responses than Duchenne smiles. Discuss ion focuses on the relevance of these findings to theories of positive emotion.