Laughter and the laws of attraction: investigating laughter and attraction during initial interaction

Title from first page of PDF file (viewed November 19, 2010)Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-36)Researchers claim that laughter is a commonplace behavior that people engage in many times a day. In fact, people laugh so often that occurrences of laughter are commonly underreported due to a general lack of awareness of its frequency in conversations. Though this behavior occupies much of our daily interactions, not very much research has focused on laughter's effects in interactions. This research investigates the effects of laughter in initial interaction, primarily focusing on laughter's effects in attraction in initial interactions. The main focus examines participants perceived types of laughter, and its frequency in initial interactions to determine its effects on the perception of physical, social, and task attractiveness in interactional partners of the opposite sex