Why do we laugh?

I would think we laugh because we perceive something as funny and that something triggers something in your brain that makes you laugh. Am I right?!

To take off the pressure of whats really happening behind our smiles.

Sometimes we laugh out of nervousness.

It’s better than the alternative.

There’s just too much humor in life to waste and us laughing helps us meet the quota for good health and happiness.

It feels good.

I think laughing is involutary when it’s real. Something makes us see the brighter, sacrastic, or self-indulgent side of life, and triggers an involutary reaction that turns a smile into a noise.

Actually, I have no idea. That’s my thought. Oh and stay away from ledges. You’re scaring me with these questions ;-)

Like all adaptations, it helps us survive. It is the reaction to relief or to a stressful situation. Humans take care of other humans that they relate with and care about, and laughter brings us closer. As well as other humans looking out for us, they would be less likely to see these laughing humans as a threat and will not be as likely to kill them. The Laughing trait is passed on because the ‘laughers’ are more likely to survive until reproduction. Secondly, a laughing baby is more adorable and will be taken more care of. This, increases its odds of survival and reproduction. Additionally, laughter makes light of a situation, helping us in tense situations. It is also a quite threatening sound, when a bunch of humanoids are sitting around a fire, communicating, and letting out many loud chuckles. This would ward off predators, which increases odds of survival to reproduction. Lastly, people will pick a partner that they better relate to, and can make laugh. Thus, passing on the trait.

http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/ch/1991/ch910303.gif

I think there is a tiny fairy tickling us from the inside whenever she feels like it… it causes this laughing sound to emit from our mouths….

Good question. I would not be so quick to say that it is an evolutionary adaptation. Not every aspect of behavior is an evolutionary adaptation. A related question would be to ask why we find some things to be funny. What is humor anyway? It is so much easier to understand what makes us sad and might cause us to cry. Come to think of it, why do we cry, and why, if we laugh hard enough, we might start to get tears?

Because some things are funny.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughter

Maybe the only real purpose of laughing was intended to be a stress reliever. Sometimes laughing can help you get by the worst situations in your life.

It is very strange to me how we can sometimes find ourselves in a very uncomfortable situation or conversation and we respond with laughter… like during a class one day while getting my degree in chemical dependency counseling we were going over domestic violence and child abuse due to parents who were under a drug induced psychosis. Some of the most horrible pictures nobody would ever want to see were held up for the class… while some gasped and others looked away, there were those couple people who seemed to respond with laughter… at the time I was appalled that they could dare laugh… Guess it was just thier way of getting past the initial horror of it.. like a coping mechanism for the brain…isnt our brain a very powerful and complex thing!! Makes you appreciate the true wonder we call our body!