27 Aug 2022 12:55 pm
Psychology:
"So we’re essentially reassuring ourselves that whatever’s making us uncomfortable isn’t that big a deal when we laugh at an uncomfortable situation.This could be a result of a cognitive defense mechanism for lowering anxiety associated with discomfort or showing the threat itself that we don’t fear it.Ramachandran also suggests that laughter helps us heal from trauma by distracting ourselves from the pain and associating that pain with a positive emotion. This could be why nervous laughter can happen even at funerals or other sad and traumatic events.A 2015 study from a team of Yale researchers also found that people tend to respond with a variety of unexpected emotions to strong outside stimuli.The researchers discovered an association between the strong emotions you feel when you see a cute baby, like wanting to pinch its cheek and speak to it in weird voices, and the urge to laugh when you’re nervous or anxious.So nervous laughter may also just be part of a larger pattern within the brain to react with strong emotions of all sorts to emotionally provocative stimuli, no matter if it seems appropriate."