A few days ago I found myself back home in Illinois among a fairly sizey group of friends and family and I decided that among these people that had known me for such a long time and were familiar with my behavior patterns and the way I usually ticked, this would be a fairly decent time to try and take care of a little participant observer experiment that I needed to handle.
I like to laugh. A lot of people know that. I will drop a joke whenever I see an opening and I tend to crack up at the smallest joke, even when it's not well told. Heck, even when the joke has to be explained to me, I still laugh once I finally get it, which is something most people won't or even can't do. There are some forms of really really dark humor that I actually find a little depressing, but that's because I'm also really compassionate... but that's another story entirely.
(Of course, it's also worth mentioning that when I do laugh, I tend to cover my mouth as a do so. Stupid crooked stained teeth *grumblegrumble*)
But that's beside the point!
Laughter. I think it's a fair amount of what keeps me going day to day. Jokes, funny pictures, cartoons, comic strips... they're strewn all about my room. So for this experiment, for one day, I attempted to not be the funny guy. I did my best to be as stoic, stolid, and solemn as possible.
Let me tell you, that's not easy. Like in any way at all. It's so natural for me to laugh that it's really something of a natural schematic trait, and it's really REALLY important to my self concept. I think a fair bit of how I see myself depends upon whether or not I'm capable of seeing something as funny and laughing it off rather than upsetting and getting moody. (Markus, 1977)
So pretty much the whole day was really hard. First of all, it was hard trying to keep myself from laughing in the first place since it's generally a rather automatic response, at least for me. I'm pretty sure that people don't have to force themselves to laugh... at least when the joke is actually funny. When "Full House" is on I guess people might be forcing themselves to laugh but that's not exactly the point, now is it? I very quickly learned that I needed to try and replace the automatic response with something else. The easiest thing to replace the laughter with, I found, was anger. So whenever something humorous came around I ended up forcing myself to get snippy, perhaps even blowing into a full blown rage, wherein I would accuse people of being "silly and foolish" or some such.
And you better believe people noticed. These were people that have known me for a while and I've never been known to act like this before. My mother took particular concern at my behavior, continually asking me what was wrong that day. Other friends of mine acted similarly but didn't show quite the same amount of concern as family members who I ended up spending a lot of time around. Furthermore, when I ended up forced to act in anger to avoid laughing, my mother and sister would act distressed, while my friends generally opted to just leave me alone, as if letting me blow off some steam or something.
I have to admit though, though I engaged in a small amount of affective forecasting in an attempt to figure out how much these actions would affect me, I never could have been able to predict just how drastic the effects would be. (Gilbert, et al., 2004) The fact of the matter is that while I did focus a great deal upon the impact I had upon the people around me, it was only towards the end of the day when I realized how damn crappy I felt.
I remember being told that people who smile are happier, and that people who laugh are healthier. Well I have to admit, at the end of the day I felt miserable and sick. The fact is that by cutting off laughter I had to cut off joking around and taking enjoyment at a large amount of things that tend to give me joy. So as a result I spent the whole day doing things that I honestly didn't enjoy or just sitting around being bored. I was also forced to end up thinking in ways that were not befitting of me: specifically when people tried to cheer me up or ask what was wrong I basically had to tell myself that I was perfectly in the norm and these people were wrong or inferior or silly or stupid in some manner. It was really the only way to avoid being cheered up by my friends and family. The result was I ended up thinking like an elitist or something for a day and honestly, I felt sickened by myself once it was over. I also felt sad that I had made so many people upset or worried or pissed people off by having to blow up at the smallest things.
I've always felt very secure with myself and my self-concept and boy oh boy, did this do nothing but reinforce that once it was all over. During the experiment I simply felt awful.I got absolutely no rewards all day or any real happiness from anything and I caused a lot of people I care about to get upset.
It absolutely baffles me now, how many humorless, stolid and downright grouchy people are out there after this experiment. I do not understand how the "other half" can possibly live like that. It really feels painful. It's boring at best and horribly HORRIBLY upsetting at worst. I think my self concept is pretty damn stable after doing this because if I can help it there is no way that I'm going back to an attitude like this.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go watch a Marx Brothers' movie.
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Gilbert, D.T., Morewedge, C. K., Risen, J. L., & Wilson, T. D. (2004). Looking forward to looking backward: The misprediction of regret. Psychological Science, 15, 346-350.
Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 63-78.
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