Why we laugh together and why we can't get enough of TV.

[adriaan]

I wrote something on why we laugh together and why we spend so much time watching TV. My idea is that it stems from the brain's evolved mechanism to calibrate our social do's and don'ts to those of the group that we live in.

 

http://adriaanb.blogspot.com/

 

Living in a group, our social emotions like pride and shame guide us to overcome the many prisoner's dilemmas that we encounter, they make us choose the neighbour friendly options in life. But because there are so many kinds and levels of social rules possible, we need to constantly stay in tune with the rules followed by our group.

 

The brain's way to calibrate our sensitivities with those of our group is to make us enjoy listening to social narratives, while constantly taking into account the reactions of the people surrounding us. It is these vocal reactions like laughing, booing, cheering etc. that adjust our own attitudes and get our social behaviour in tune with that of our group.

 

Now that we've automated the tribal storyteller into a TV set, we still enjoy the stories but it has become a 'waste' of time because it lacks the vocal reactions of our group. (Unless of course there is the poor substitute of canned laughter like in the Seinfeld episodes for example..)

 

Please look at the blog for a better explanation. I was hoping you might think this is an interesting idea. I am trying to get some comments from experts in the field.

http://adriaanb.blogspot.com/

 

Present research points at the social function of laughter, but it doesn't explain the actual mechanism behind it, see this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13tier.html?ex=1331438400&en=d38e64fbaa7b19f3&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

 

Thanks,

Adriaan

[YT2095]

it would certainly seem to be a logical hypothesis.

[adriaan]

Glad you liked it.

 

It seems to fill in some of the gaps in present thinking nicely:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13tier.html?ex=1331438400&en=d38e64fbaa7b19f3&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

 

But for some reason it isn't getting much response. Maybe that is a good sign, it sound pretty obvious.

 

I would love to hear some more reactions.

[ecoli]

it doesn't matter so much if it sounds logical, it also has to be testable. How would you test this hypothesis?

[CDarwin]

You would test it by looking at the function of storytelling in different societies, and also by seeing if television has a different effect than oral stories that might make it different as a medium.

 

But, what adriaan is saying isn't completely novel. Stories are already recognized as an important component of socialization in early childhood and social coordination for adults. It's a kind of refresher course on the society's values, beliefs, and traditions.

 

Not to be discouraging. It's a good thought. It's good to see a nice, cogent cultural explanation. These days we tend to run to the biobable too quickly.

Edited July 13, 2008 by CDarwin

[adriaan]

Maybe the idea can tie together some loose ends in existing knowledge. Like the origin and contagiousness of laughing, the fondness of social stories, the differences and flexibility in moral rules between societies, mass psychology tactics and the attraction of television.

Edited July 14, 2008 by adriaan

[alanrocks]

television can only be used to calibrate ones social interactions on the basest levels, simply be cause every humans reactions are different + the fact that no two situations are exactly alike

 

this leaves us to calibrate our social interactions through the normal and time consuming process of trial and error

 

this process must be repeated with every new human that we meet and can be stretched out over 20 years or compressed into a week

 

the attraction of television is not that it calibrates our social interaction protocol(im not saying that it doesn't to some degree). the attraction to television is caused by the trance like state that television can induce as well as its informational uses(the trance allows us to put our brain on auto pilot and forget our worries, if only temporarily. the information stimulates our brain when we are alone with no human companionship to talk with)

Edited July 20, 2008 by alanrocks

[adriaan]

It is the combination of storytelling and laughter that may play a role in calibrating our social morals to those of the group.

 

TV just inherited our love for stories. Whether it works the way storytelling would have is another case. We are missing the vocal reactions of our group so it's effect will be less than that of the original storytelling.

 

In any case, I am not saying that TV is having such an effect on the way we think. But the group can have an effect on our thinking for sure. Because our morals need to be similar to those of the group for us to function well.