We’ve all seen it: playing peek-a-boo and making funny faces at babies, who often laugh (or make noises we interpret as laughter) in apparent delight. What I want to know is, does this reaction really mean they find our actions funny? If so, how do they know what funny is? After all, they don’t have the life experience to compare it to anything normal, or even other funny things. If they’re not laughing because they think it’s funny, how exactly ARE they reacting and why?
Of course they are amused, and are really laughing. As to why, well, because something’s funny. Most of the things that make babies laugh have to do with something that appears and disappears, or changes and then changes back to the way it was before. They are also very attuned to the reactions of those around them and can sense happiness. They recognize and imitate facial expressions at a surprisingly early age. Some of the many great and wonderful things about babies.
I recollect from Psych101 about 20 years ago that the then current theory (for which evidence was thin on the ground at best) was that we find things funny that would be disturbing if not for context that makes them not so. This theory was said to gain credence from the fact that babies cry over things like people pulling faces and sudden surprises, but laugh if it is their mother or father (ie someone safe) doing it.
We don’t really fully understand why we adults find funny the things we do, so babies’ reactions will be even more of a mystery.
My 5 month old has started really laughing, which is great because she needed to round out her repetoire. They seem to learn really quick what “happy” is and are usually rewarded for doing these things called “smiles” I can’t really understand how she has a concept of what her face is doing, but she does.
So far she is a strong mimicker, whether it be hand/face motions. I just think it’s a general sense of happiness reinforced by positive actions.
That or babies are hard-wired to make us like them, and we like folks that smile (well, most folks do, some of my customers don’t).
Don’t forget too, that to a baby, when someone hides their face and then shows it quickly (as in peek-a-boo), the baby seriously thinks the face was gone. So it’s almost as if a face materialized out of thin air (or at least in place of the back of two hands). And comedy is all about the unexpected, right? So as long as the face waiting behind those hands is a smiling, warm face, the baby’s going to enjoy it and think it’s funny.
This is all MHO, of course.
To build on what Princhester said, laughter (at its most abstract level) is thought to be an instinctual response to the successful outcome of dangerous, frightening, or just plain stressful events. This would explain why babies laugh when their parents play with them in ways that would have them screaming in terror were the same actions performed by an unfamiliar person. Or why we look back on events that scared us out of our wits and find them funny in retrospect.
This is my guess too. I suspect the babies aren’t so much amused as simply very happy. Adults usually reserve laughter for things our social conditioning tells us are ‘funny’, but most of us know what it is to smile to ourselves at a happy memory - although we try not to do this in front of others, as sudden, unexplained smiling is looked upon as a bit strange, somewhat like muttering to one’s self. Babies, on the other hand, know no such social constraints, so their response to the happiness of, say, a parent devoting some quality time, will be the logical extension of a smile, and that is a big grin, and possibly an audible laugh. I don’t think it has a terrible lot to do with humour as such, although I think the understanding of humour is definitely starting at around that age.
Is the smile a natural thing, or are babies taught to do it by caregivers? The frown seems like it goes along with the motion of crying, which is clearly not taught! but what about smiling?
It’s natural. Every baby, unless the unfortunate one is handicapped in some way, will present a smile eventually. Nobody has to teach you to smile. Or laugh.
The preceding posts have caused me to imagine something that might be the most frightening thing imaginable.
Suppose you are playing faces or peekaboo with your little tyke and suddenly the sweet little face takes on the appearance of that thing from Alien or that face that jumps out and screams at you on those webpages where you’re supposed to stare at some picture and perhaps notice some small detail in it.
It would be like a wolf or lion biting at you. Can you imagine a more horrifying thing?
Yeah–what if instead it turned into Lyle Lovett’s face?
Daniel
That’s definitely one!
I didn’t mean to disrupt the serious discussion. Some plausible answers thus far. But the notion of how we interpret smiles and how babies mimic and all that just turned my mind down a sidetrack. That’s normal for me, I’m afraid.
I’m sure it mostly has to do with them observing when and why adults and children smile. Sometimes, though, they seem to find the oddest things funny. My mom told me that when I was a baby, I found the sight of my great-grandma taking off her bonnet to reveal her pure white hair absoultely hilarious. I also saw a home video on TV once where a mother was holding up a scrap of paper in front of her baby. She quickly tore the paper in two, and the baby laughed like crazy. She did it again, to the same reaction. She looked into the camera with a bewildered expression and shook her head. 
My friends have this great video of their son (about 7-8 months old at the time) laughing his little head off because his dad had the hiccups. Everytime dad would hiccup, Eli would crack up. It’s the funniest video – goes on for at least 5 minutes!