Laughter, apparently, really is a universal language.
According to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, emotions that all humans share, such as anger, amusement, grief and others, translate across cultures.
Everybody shares the vast majority of their genetic makeup with each other, meaning that most of our physical characteristics are similar. We all share other attributes, too, such as having complex systems of communication to convey our thoughts, feelings and the intentions of those around us, and we are all able to express a wide range of emotions through language, sounds, facial expressions and posture.
No, the researchers involved in this study didn't cross the globe soliciting responses from every man, woman and child to derive this ecumenical theory of human emotion. However, they did the next best thing.
Led by Professor Sophie Scott from University College London, researchers recorded sounds of non-verbal emotional reactions, such as sighs, laughter or crying, from people in both the United Kingdom and the remote Himba tribe in Namibia.
Experimental participants in both places listened to a story, and were played a recording of two of the sounds from the opposite group that the researchers recorded earlier. The participants were then asked to match the recorded response to the story they just heard.
While both the British participants and the members of the Himba tribe involved in this study were usually able to appropriately match negative emotional reactions to the story, positive responses proved more difficult to identify -- with one exception: laughter.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Tags: Emotions
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