Seven types of laughter: who laughs well?

A joke, witticism, sarcasm… Humor can be different, and not all of its forms actually carry a positive charge to us. If you (or above you) are being joked, but you are not having fun at all, let’s try to figure out why this is happening.

Doctors have long known that laughter promotes health: it strengthens the immune system and, in many cases, speeds up recovery.

“Back in 1964, editor Norman Cousins ​​learned that he had only a few months to live,” says psychoanalyst Gerald Schönewolf. “But instead of getting his legal and financial affairs in order, he rented a hotel room and started watching comedies. A few months later it turned out that he was healthy.

But laughter is different.

Sigmund Freud identified three types of laughter: comic, comic and imitative.1. Comic allows us to express thoughts that society suppresses or prohibits. Thus, both black humor and “dirty” jokes get here. Comic humor helps you laugh at your vices. Imitative humor is often hostile: we laugh at people we consider inferior to us.

So not all humor can heal. After reflecting on Freud’s system, Dr. Schönewolf decided to build his own on its basis. After all, each type of laughter has its own motivation and meaning.

1. Evil humor

What Freud called “imitative”. We laugh at someone we think is inferior to us. Often such laughter is due to our prejudices, how we relate to a particular group of people. When, for example, we laugh at those who differ from us in race, skin color or political views.

The objects of such jokes are often those whom society does not accept and makes them “scapegoats”. Such humor, of course, has no healing properties. It only contributes to the emergence of prejudices and stereotypes in society.

2. Giggle

This type of laughter is associated with children or adolescents, but is also found among adults. The specificity of such laughter is that it is very contagious. A person may not even understand why and what he is laughing at. He laughs simply because he was “infected” with the laughter of the interlocutor. Such laughter can be a means of relieving tension after a hard day.

3. Jokes

As Freud said, jokes help break the rules, break the barriers of what is permitted. And in such jokes there is always an element of malice. Such humor is connected with our shameful pleasures. When we use dark humor, we subconsciously satisfy ourselves, not only by going beyond what is permitted, but also by challenging the interlocutor, thereby fueling our ego.

4. Self-irony

There are people who always make themselves the butt of their jokes. Most often, they like to make themselves out to be clumsy idiots who are always blurting out something out of place or asking some stupid thing. Usually this is due to a lack of attention.

To attract him to himself, the child may specifically say something stupid at a family dinner so that everyone laughs. This behavior often carries over into adulthood. However, it does not make people happy. Because in fact, such people need respect and attention.

5. Satire

The highest form of humor. It was mastered to perfection by such great minds as Shakespeare or Gogol. It is often used in children’s stories: for example, when the Queen in Alice in Wonderland is shown to be ridiculously narcissistic and selfish with her cries of “Execute!” when someone says or does something they don’t like.

Satire really heals and allows people to rally against the tyrant in the fight for the truth, because it is a way to not directly speak the truth. However, satire can also be considered a consequence of unconscious anger.

6. Flattering laughter

Used to suck up to someone: a subordinate laughs at his superior’s jokes, even if they are stupid and unfunny. If you fall in love, then you will always laugh at the jokes of your lover. Since such humor is associated with deception, we will attribute it more to manipulation: it does not contribute to the release of any emotions.

7. Healing laughter

Freud called it “comic”. In this case, we laugh not at someone, but with him. A striking example is the silent movie with Charlie Chaplin. We laugh at his characters. Because we love them, because we are like them.

We’ve all had failures in our lives, and when we laugh at Charlie Chaplin’s loser getting cake in the face, we’re laughing at ourselves, thereby relieving tension. Sometimes such humor can literally save lives, as in the story of the aforementioned Norman Cousins.


1 Z. Freud “Wit and its relation to the unconscious” (Azbuka, 2011).

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