Studies of primates...and other animals...may reveal that the original purpose of laughter is to distinguish between fight and play.
That is to say, animals laugh when playfighting and it may be a distinguishing marker.
And of course humans use laughter to defuse tension which might lead to a fight. So perhaps laughter is a defense mechanism at its core.
Being such complicated creatures, however, we laugh for all kinds of other reasons now.
No comments:
Post a Comment