Is laughter the same across all cultures?

The answer

Research published in Psychological Science confirms that laughter is a universal human behavior recognizable across cultures; people from remote societies can identify laughter from recordings of people they have never encountered. Laughter appears in infants as young as three months, before language develops, suggesting a deep biological basis. However, what triggers laughter varies enormously: humor relies on culturally specific expectations, wordplay, and social norms. British understatement, Japanese manzai comedy, and German Schadenfreude represent fundamentally different comedic traditions. Studies show that people laugh 30 times more frequently in social settings than alone, confirming that laughter primarily serves as a social bonding mechanism rather than merely a response to humor.