Distract, Suppress, and Avoid Others! Exploring Strategies and Social Context for Suppressing Laughter in Humorous Situations

Laughter inhibition is crucial in social contexts where expressing amusement may be inappropriate or undesirable. Despite their significance, there is a paucity of research directly comparing the effectiveness of different laughter inhibition techniques. This study addresses this gap by comparing overt laughter with techniques of cognitive reappraisal, smile suppression, and distraction used by participants to suppress laughter during humoristic experiences induced by jokes. In experiments 1 and 2 (n=40 each), instructed distraction from the jokes proved most efficient for decreasing both the perceived funniness of the jokes and smiling muscle activity, measured through EMG. Instructed muscle suppression outperformed cognitive reappraisal in laughter inhibition, although not in the assessed funniness. Experiment 3 (n=41) demonstrated the amplified difficulty in laughter suppression when the laughter of another person is present. Our findings highlight the social aspect of shared laughter, providing insights into emotional expression management in funny contexts and human interaction dynamics.