title: Detecting affiliation in colaughter across 24 societies.
abstract: Laughter is a nonverbal vocal expression that often communicates positive affect and cooperative intent in humans. Temporally coincident laughter occurring within groups is a potentially rich cue of affiliation to overhearers. We examined listeners' judgments of affiliation based on brief, decontextualized instances of colaughter between either established friends or recently acquainted strangers. In a sample of 966 participants from 24 societies, people reliably distinguished friends from strangers with an accuracy of 53-67%. Acoustic analyses of the individual laughter segments revealed that, across cultures, listeners' judgments were consistently predicted by voicing dynamics, suggesting perceptual sensitivity to emotionally triggered spontaneous production. Colaughter affords rapid and accurate appraisals of affiliation that transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries, and may constitute a universal means of signaling cooperative relationships.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095; UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095; gabryant@ucla.edu.
authors.forename: Gregory A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Bryant
authors.affiliation: UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095; Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095;
authors.forename: Daniel M T
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Fessler
authors.affiliation: Interacting Minds Center, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark; Center for Semiotics, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark;
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4775-5219
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fusaroli
authors.affiliation: UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095; Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095;
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Clint
authors.affiliation: Department of Political Science and Government, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark;
authors.forename: Lene
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Aarøe
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104;
authors.forename: Coren L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Apicella
authors.affiliation: Department of Political Science and Government, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark;
authors.forename: Michael Bang
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Petersen
authors.affiliation: Independent Scholar;
authors.forename: Shaneikiah T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Bickham
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137;
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bolyanatz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, San Miguel Lima, Lima 32, Peru;
authors.forename: Brenda
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chavez
authors.affiliation: Department of Interdisciplinary Study of Law, Private Law and Business Law, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium;
authors.forename: Delphine
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: De Smet
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, San Miguel Lima, Lima 32, Peru;
authors.forename: Cinthya
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Díaz
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Trnava, 918 43 Trnava, Slovakia;
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fančovičová
authors.affiliation: Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, University of South Africa, Pretoria 0002, South Africa;
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fux
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Auckland, Aukland 1142, New Zealand;
authors.forename: Paulina
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Giraldo-Perez
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China;
authors.forename: Anning
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Karnatak University Dharwad, Karnataka 580003, India;
authors.forename: Shanmukh V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Kamble
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Psychology, University of Tokyo, 7 Chome-3-1 Hongo, Tokyo, Japan;
authors.forename: Tatsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kameda
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Singapore Management University, 188065 Singapore;
authors.forename: Norman P
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095; Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095;
authors.forename: Francesca R
authors.initials: FR
authors.lastname: Luberti
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Trnava, 918 43 Trnava, Slovakia; Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 845 06 Bratislava, Slovakia;
authors.forename: Pavol
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Prokop
authors.affiliation: International Strategy & Marketing Section, University of Amsterdam, 1012 Amsterdam, The Netherlands;
authors.forename: Katinka
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Quintelier
authors.affiliation: UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095; Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095;
authors.forename: Brooke A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Scelza
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Pusan National University, Pusan 609-735, Korea;
authors.forename: Hyun Jung
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043;
authors.forename: Montserrat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Soler
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany; Department of Psychology, University of Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria;
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stieger
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido Prefecture, 5 Chome-8 Kita Jonshi, Japan;
authors.forename: Wataru
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8558-8568
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Toyokawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Product Innovation and Management, Delft University of Technology, 2628 Delft, The Netherlands;
authors.forename: Ellis A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: van den Hende
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 75005 Paris, France;
authors.forename: Hugo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Viciana-Asensio
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul 34440, Turkey;
authors.forename: Saliha Elif
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Yildizhan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Singapore Management University, 188065 Singapore;
authors.forename: Jose C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Yong
authors.affiliation: Jakarta Field Station, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Jakarta 12930, Indonesia.
authors.forename: Tessa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yuditha
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China;
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D007845:Laughter / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: cooperation; cross-cultural; laughter; signaling; vocalization