The Effect of Gender of Canned Laughter on Television Programme Appreciation

There is, within the growing literature on the psychology of humour, studies on the effects of the topic of this paper (Chapman, 1973; Provine, 1992, 2000) Laughter is socially mediated in the sense that we are more inclined to laugh and smile when others do so (Platow et al., 2005). Canned laughter is used to increase audience appreciation. It exploits the persuasive powers of proof. This study examines this thesis as well as investigating whether male or female laughter has more effect on reactions to programs. There is much evidence that both laughter and humour ratings are socially influenced (Freud, 1960; Giles & Oxford, 1970; Provine, 1996; Ruch, 1997, 2001; 2007; Ruch & Ekman, 2001). Various papers have shown that when we hear others laughing or smiling, especially friends, we are more prone to do so ourselves (Smoski & Bachorowski, 2003). Fridlund (1991) demonstrated that we tend to smile more if we think that our friends are watching the same funny material. This illustrates the concept of the mediation of laughter. Indeed there is increasing evidence that males are the best laughter-getters, that males are attracted to females who laugh in their presence, and that females are attracted to males who make them laugh (Provine, 2000) Such compelling evidence became the foundation for the use of canned laughter, using it to try and capitalize on the nature of laughter to entice the audience to laugh (Cialdini, 1993). Canned laughter is a separate soundtrack with the sound of usually genuine audience but which is often inserted into comedies and sitcoms on television primarily screened in the United States. In this sense, the laughter in the programme may be real, but it occurred in some other situation with different stimulus material. The first series to ever use this technique was 'The Hank McCune Show' in the 1950's. Cialdini (1993) argued that people laugh in response to laughter due to an automatic, non-thinking conformity. The laughter of others in the audience, in a sense, provides social proof that the material being presented actually is humorous. Research supports the idea that laughter is an effective method to increase laughter and positive responses, yet the reason as to why it works and the reliability of its effects are still unclear (Platow, et al., 2005). One of the reasons for this ambiguity may be due to the fact that the correlation between laughter and the audience's response is affected by several variables. As can be seen in the example by Lawson, Downing and Cetola (1998) perceivers' evaluations were less influenced by audience laughter that was artificial, since it lost the effect of offering proof, compared to laughter that was obviously live. Thus knowing whether the laughter is or live/genuine alters the perception of the humour and therefore, the humour ratings amongst participants. Experimental approaches have found that there are higher levels of open laughter and an increase in the humour ratings of the stimulus if there is evidence that others laugh as well (Martin & Gray, 1996). However, there is some controversy over these findings as certain studies have only shown that there is an increase in overt laughter (Chapman, 1973), whereas others have discovered that there are only higher humour ratings (Porterfield et al., 1988). One of the earlier experiments, conducted by Cupchik and Leventhal (1974), showed a positive correlation between both the overt laughter and humour ratings and the presence of pre-recorded laughter. Another trial showed that whilst there was still an increase in explicit laughter there were several factors (participants' gender, cartoon quality), which influenced the humour ratings. One test demonstrated that there was actually no change in the explicit laughter or humour ratings when laughter was presented to isolated participants, yet, the pre-recorded when used in the presence of a laughing confederate, did increase overt laughter (Donoghue, McCarrey & Clement, 1983). …