Laugh the Problem Away? Outcomes of Group-Level Laughter within Black Women’s Homeplace

Abstract

This study examined the role that laughter plays when Black women convey support to a target of racism. Fifty-two friendship groups were sampled. In each group one woman sought support from two friends after she experienced racial microaggression. Videotapes of the discussion were coded to determine the frequency and duration of each group’s laughter. Women who received support were able to cognitively reappraise the incident and their affect was improved. Neither laughter frequency nor laughter duration improved upon the benefits of support, but in some cases an increase in laughter directly corresponded to negative support outcomes. Implications of laughter are discussed.

Keywords:

• Black women
• friendship groups
• laughter
• supportive communication
• support outcomes

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This paper is a break out from a large-scale project studying the communication of support about racist encounters among three Black women friends. The present study and two other previously published studies (Davis, 2019a; Davis, 2019b) have the same methods; however, each study analyzes a different set of data and, in turn, makes a unique argument that advances communication research.

2. Support seekers reported that the microaggressive events were stressful (M = 4.5, SD = 1.9, range = 1–7), bothersome (M = 4.9, SD = 1.9, range = 1–7), and very important (M = 5.7, SD = 1.5, range = 1–7).

3. All participants reported on the typicality of the group discussion using three items from a realism scale that ranged from 1 to 7. Higher numbers indicate that the discussion was characteristic for the friend group (M = 6.1, SD = 1.28, α = .87).

4. Support seekers reported that the messages were very supportive (range = 1–7; SD = .85; M = 6.5) and effective (range = 1–7; SD = .77; M = 6.5).

5. The coefficients predicting reappraisal and affect improvement from support are from the models that include the number of times laughter occurred. Substantive conclusions were unchanged for models that included total minutes of laughter; however, the association of emotional support with reappraisal became marginally significant, p = .065.

6. This coefficient is from the model that included emotional support. Results were replicated across models that included each type of support

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Harvey Fellows Program, Organization for the Research of Women and Communication, University of Iowa