Introduction
Different cultures use different types of non-verbal communication in their day to day interaction. This form of communication is used to complement the verbal communication while at times it is used in a situation where one wishes to ensure that the other party effectively understands what is being said. Some of the non-verbal cues are universally understood while others are not. One of the interesting things about non-verbal communication is that some of them are contagious. For instance, laughter, coughing and yawning are some of the contagious non-verbal communication. It has been identified that it is a issue to do with brains that leads to laughter and other positive non-verbal cues being contagious. This paper aims at giving a brief explanation of why laughter as one of the non-verbal communications is contagious.
Reasons why laughter is contagious
Generally, when a person comes across two people laughing due to a joke they have shared, one tends to smile or eventually laugh even without knowing what they were laughing at. There is a common believe that one only require to laugh and the entire world will laugh with him or her. When one comes across a funny situation, he or she finds him or herself laughing without knowing. One may be recalling a situation that happened in the past or encountering the situation at the moment. The fact that the situation is funny triggers a response in ones mind leading to one smiling or laughing. According to a research conducted by Sophie Scott (neuroscientist), it has been identified that when one laughs, the other party’s brain reacts to the laughter sound triggering the facial muscles to respond by laughing too. According to Scott, when two people are in conversation, they tend to copy they tend to copy one another with respect to words as well as facial and other non-verbal communications (Anitei para. 2-5). This is to show the other party that one is concentrating on whet is being aid or understands the conversation. The same applies to laughter. When one party laughs, the other party tends to reflect his or her behavior by laughing too.
To ascertain their argument, Scott and other scholars conducted an experiment where they observed the reaction of different people participating in an interaction with different sounds. It was identified that most of those induced to positive sounds such as laughter, the sound triggered a response in their brain leading to them smiling and others eventually laughing back. This gave a clear indication that laughter and other positive sounds are contagious. In the same experiment, people were induced into negative sounds such as screaming (Anitei para. 6). On scanning their brain, the team realized that the sound did not trigger a response in their mind. As a result, they did not respond in any way to the sounds.
Basically, when people are engaging in a communication, there is different positive non-verbal communication that helps in strengthening the bond between the communicating parties (Anitei para. 7). The same sounds are encountered in other environments such as when watching football, movies and even comedies. In this environment all parties tend to ensure that they rhyme with one another so as to effectively interact. This can only be attained by mimicking what others are doing. Consequently, when one party laughs we end up also laughing unconsciously.
Works Cited
Anitei, Stefan. ”Why is laughter contagious?” 2007. Web.