BIO

Madeleine Stults is from Tallahassee, Florida, and has been a research assistant for Dr. March's social psychology lab since Fall 2022. She is also a research assistant for the Anxiety and Behavioral Health Clinic, a facilitator for NAMI Tallahassee's mental health support groups, and an NAMI Next Gen Youth Advisor for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Maddie's research interests include those in social psychology such as the impact of existing biases against police on memory retention in stressful situations, as well as topics in clinical psychology such as the mental health implications of wealth disparity and class stratification and the dopaminergic consequences of short-form social media sites.

Pain-Induced Laughter: An Evolutionary Explanation & Proposed Mechanism

Abstract

The present study explores a proposed mechanism for how the association between laughter and pain may have evolved. In highlighting this mechanism, we link research on the evolution of laughter with endogenous pain reduction to propose a model that argues that laughter became a conditioned response to pain.

Keywords: laughter, social, psychology, evolution, embarrassment, injury