how did having the ability to laugh at ourselves guide our evolution?

Answer 1

I researched this for an answer a couple of days ago: (Normally I would just post the link, but the link is dead, so this is the cached text of an article from 'Science Daily'.) To summarize: laughter is as much a natural development as language ... in fact it is part of language.

The First Laugh: New Study Posits Evolutionary Origins Of Two Distinct Types Of Laughter

In an important new study from the forthcoming Quarterly Review of Biology, biologists from Binghamton University explore the evolution of two distinct types of laughter -- laughter which is stimulus-driven and laughter which is self-generated and strategic.

"Laughter that occurs during everyday social interaction in response to banal comments and humorless conversation is now being studied," write Matthew Gervais and David Sloan Wilson. "The unstated issue is whether such laughter is similar in kind to laughter following from humor."

Using empirical evidence from across disciplines, including theory and data from work on mirror neurons, evolutionary psychology, and multilevel selection theory, the researchers detail the evolutionary trajectory of laughter over the last 7 million years. Evolutionarily elaborated from ape play-panting sometime between 4 million years ago and 2 million years ago, laughter arising from non-serious social incongruity promoted community play during fleeting periods of safety. Such non-serious social incongruity, it is argued, is the evolutionary precursor to humor as we know it.

However, neuropsychological and behavioral studies have shown that laughter can be more than just a spontaneous response to such stimuli. Around 2 million years ago, human ancestors evolved the capacity for willful control over facial motor systems. As a result, laughter was co-opted for a number of novel functions, including strategically punctuating conversation, and conveying feelings or ideas such as embarrassment and derision.

"Humans can now voluntarily access the laughter program and utilize it for their own ends, including smoothing conversational interaction, appeasing others, inducing favorable stances in them, or downright laughing at people that are not liked," write Gervais and Wilson.
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Gervais, Matthew and David Sloan Wilson "The Evolutions and Functions of Laughter and Humor: A Synthetic Approach." Quarterly Review of Biology, Dec. 2005.

Answer 2

I'd love to say that it helps in learning, lowering blood pressure & social cohesion by better mental health, but quite honestly although those things may all be true, I don't really think so.

Many people I have met either cannot or will not laugh at themselves, to their own greatest psychological harm and to the detriment of their relationships. Yet they do not seem to learn to do this through entire lifetimes & die with exageratedly serious self-portrayals which only they hold of themselves.

At the risk of unintentionally slighting some of our younger participants; younger people's brains haven't finished developing yet & this accounts for the teenage self-serious over-preoccupation with themselve & inability to laugh at themselves, in general. Grown ups (mid-twenties on up) have no such excuse but nonetheless are often just as lacking in this quality.

I enjoy sociobiological questions & the evolutionary effects of human behaviors, but if this were a critical quality, I believe we would have died out a very long time ago given how uncommonly it can be found.

Peace,

;-)

Answer 3

Researchers here recently discovered a special gene that allows us to laugh at ourselves while we evolve. These researchers worked on this problem for 14 years and after receiving 36 million dollars from the Canadian Government Sponsorship Program made this startling discovery.

Answer 4

It certainly would have helped when we started try to walk on two legs, especially when the other australopithecines in the playground were calling you "clean knuckles".

Our ability to laugh at ourselves lets us face the fear of trying new things and failing.

Answer 5

i thought that "modern" humans basically evolved to our present state half a million years ago. I don't think there were many things to laugh at back then, when there were saber toothed cats and leopards busy killing and eating us.
Cave women were not attracted to mates who were funny and laughed at themselves. The species were perpetuated by the caveman who could throw a spear and skin a buffalo.

Answer 6

Maybe because we get through our emotional problems by laughing and i guess makes you feel better... well this is just a guess but i don't know if laughing has any correlation to evolution

Answer 7

kelley,

it has nothing to do with evolution...

evolution is more concerned on the physical aspect of a human/ animal than on the emotional/ psychological aspect..

blessings,
kandila

Answer 8

Maybe by helping us keep a positive attitude, therefore, helping us survive to reproductive age instead of jumping off of bridges when things get hard.

Answer 9

Sorry, I don't see any connection between the two.