Social Network

Humor and the Formation of Social Networks

Ties form within social networks for many reasons, including proximity, similarity, social sharing of knowledge, expertise, or kinship. However, humor might also play an important role in forming social relationships and shaping social networks insofar as it facilitates liking and interpersonal attraction. There is also considerable evidence to suggest that humor appreciation and positive emotions are closely related, even at a neurological level. When we associate another person with positive emotions (i.e., it “feels good” to be around him or her), we want to be around that person more. In addition, there is some evidence that the sound of another person’s laughter tends to attract people to that individual, and even more so over time. That is, over time, we associate the pleasurable experience of positive emotions with individuals with whom we share humor and laughter, and the very sound of our laughter tends to reinforce others' bonds to us.

Cecily Cooper (2008), in her relational process model of humor, expanded upon the impact of positive affect on relationships by noting that humor can be used to facilitate self-disclosure and perceptions of similarity and can decrease perceptions of hierarchy or status differences. For example, people can use humor to reveal things about themselves, which tends to heighten a sense of closeness and intimacy. Similarly, the types of things people joke about tend to reveal something about them, and if one’s humor makes that person seem more similar to us, we like the person even more. Finally, humor has the potential to reduce perceptions of formal status differences between people, which might otherwise represent barriers to the development of relationships. In particular, self-deprecating humor on the part of a higher status person might alleviate concerns that a lower status person might have about developing a relationship with a high-status individual. However, it is important to note that humor can also be used to reinforce status differences and limit the formation of relationships. For example, use of strongly aggressive or sarcastic humor by high-status individuals, or humor that belittles or disparages others, tends to make the high-status person less accessible by others. In social network terms, positive affect, liking, similarity, and hierarchical salience can influence whether a given interpersonal bond exists at all, and if it exists, whether it is strong or weak, or positive or negative.

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