Fear of Being Laughed At

The observation that gave the condition its memorable name was physical. When these patients believed they were being laughed at, they moved awkwardly and stiffly, in a way Titze described as resembling a wooden puppet. He named the state Pinocchio syndrome.

How the observation became an instrument

What happened next is unusual in this catalogue. The clinical observation was converted into a model with stated causes and consequences, and the model was made testable.

The proposed causes are staged by age:

• in infancy, the development of primary shame and a failure to build an interpersonal bridge through unsupportive interactions with a caregiver
• in childhood and youth, repeated experiences of not being taken seriously or being ridiculed, with bullying and cyberbullying named
• in adulthood, a single intense experience of mockery

The consequences listed include social withdrawal, an appearance of coldness or humourlessness, psychosomatic disturbance including blushing, tension headache, trembling and sleep disturbance, and an inability to experience laughter as relaxing. The last item is the most serious and the least expected: anger at being laughed at, which in some cases has resulted in violent attacks on the people laughing.

Where the GELOPH has been used

The GELOPH with fifteen items assesses gelotophobia by self-report, and it has been used to show that the condition exists across a normal population rather than only among people who seek therapy. Samples have been taken in seventy-two countries on every continent, and the instrument has been translated into more than forty-two languages.

Rates differ between countries, and the sociologist Christie Davies predicted the pattern: higher prevalence in hierarchically organised societies where shame is the main instrument of social control.

The measure also does the work a measure should. Gelotophobes were distinguished from other people with shame-based problems and from neurotic individuals without a shame component. High scores were also found in people with Asperger's syndrome and with Cluster A personality disorders, which is a limit on the instrument's specificity and is reported rather than hidden.

Why gelotophobes misread playful teasing

The single most useful finding is about discrimination rather than fear. Gelotophobes cannot reliably distinguish playful teasing from cruel ridicule. A friendly and playful interaction is received as mockery, which means the fear generates its own evidence continuously and from ordinary social behaviour.

The emotional profile behind it is specific: low joy, high fear, high shame, and the relationship that matters is between the last two. Where shame in a typical week exceeds joy, gelotophobia is more likely to develop. Gelotophobes describe themselves as poor at regulating emotion, quick to absorb other people's negative moods, and unwilling to share their own feelings.

How gelotophobes misjudge their own abilities

Gelotophobes underestimate their own potential and achievements, and see themselves as less virtuous than the people who know them do. In an intelligence study they underestimated their own intellectual performance by as much as six IQ points.

The finding on humour is the sharpest. Gelotophobes describe their own humour as inept. Tested against other people at making witty remarks, they are no different. What has changed is not the ability but the reading of it, and laughter no longer lifts their mood or makes them more cheerful.

On personality measures they correlate highly with introversion and neuroticism, and on a DSM personality disorder instrument they tend toward social avoidance, submissiveness and identity problems. Social withdrawal and suspiciousness most frequently predicted the condition.

Whether gelotophobia decides elections

Paul Lewis of Boston College raised at a 2009 humour studies conference whether political gelotophobia affects elections, arguing that the twin fears of being effectively mocked and of mocking others badly push candidates toward proactive strategies, going on television to prove they can take a joke.

Christie Davies, who was president of the same society, offered a satirical variation on British election results, observing that losing candidates were frequently bald, and reasoning from there that to be bald is to fear being laughed at, to fear being laughed at is to fear disorder, and to fear disorder is to embrace absolutism. The remark is a joke about a condition defined by fear of jokes, and it is preserved here because the source preserves it.