How do gelotophobes interpret laughter in ambiguous situations? An experimental validation of the concept
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Willibald Ruch
Abstract
The present study was designed to examine the phenomenon of the fear of being laughed at. Three groups of adults, preselected with respect to: (1) having no fear of being laughed at, (2) being borderline with respect to the fear of being laughed at, and (3) being abnormally afraid of being laughed at (gelotophobic). All the subjects listened to tape recordings of laughter. These recordings of laughter reflected a variety of emotional qualities. The subjects rated these recordings according to several criteria and estimated the emotional-motivational state of the laughing person. The subjects were also shown 20 cartoons depicting social situations that involved laughter or the potential of someone's being laughed at and were asked to stipulate what a target person in the cartoon would think or say. It was shown that gelotophobes experienced positively motivated laughter as more unpleasant than did subjects in the non-gelotophobic groups. The gelotophobic group was also more prone to estimate that the laughing person was in a state of negative affect. Those with no fear of laughter and those on the borderline experienced an increase in mood level after the laughter perception task whereas the gelotophobes remained unaffected. Finally, in the semi-projective cartoon evaluation task, the gelotophobes gave more answers that expressed mockery and fear of being laughed at than the other subjects. The results of these experiments show that anomalies relating to individual subjects' degrees of fear of laughter (gelotophobia) exist and can be predicted by the measures described.
© 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
Articles in the same Issue
- Fearing humor? Gelotophobia: The fear of being laughed at Introduction and overview
- Gelotophobia: The fear of being laughed at
- Humor theory and the fear of being laughed at
- How do gelotophobes interpret laughter in ambiguous situations? An experimental validation of the concept
- The emotions of gelotophobes: Shameful, fearful, and joyless?
- Investigating the humor of gelotophobes: Does feeling ridiculous equal being humorless?
- How virtuous are gelotophobes? Self- and peer-reported character strengths among those who fear being laughed at
- Intelligence and gelotophobia: The relations of self-estimated and Psychometrically measured intelligence to the fear of being laughed at
- Extending the study of gelotophobia: On gelotophiles and katagelasticists
- Were they really laughed at? That much? Gelotophobes and their history of perceived derisibility
- The fear of being laughed at among psychiatric patients
- Breaking ground in cross-cultural research on the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia): A multi-national study involving 73 countries
Articles in the same Issue
- Fearing humor? Gelotophobia: The fear of being laughed at Introduction and overview
- Gelotophobia: The fear of being laughed at
- Humor theory and the fear of being laughed at
- How do gelotophobes interpret laughter in ambiguous situations? An experimental validation of the concept
- The emotions of gelotophobes: Shameful, fearful, and joyless?
- Investigating the humor of gelotophobes: Does feeling ridiculous equal being humorless?
- How virtuous are gelotophobes? Self- and peer-reported character strengths among those who fear being laughed at
- Intelligence and gelotophobia: The relations of self-estimated and Psychometrically measured intelligence to the fear of being laughed at
- Extending the study of gelotophobia: On gelotophiles and katagelasticists
- Were they really laughed at? That much? Gelotophobes and their history of perceived derisibility
- The fear of being laughed at among psychiatric patients
- Breaking ground in cross-cultural research on the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia): A multi-national study involving 73 countries
