Apes love being tickled, rats giggle: Hannah Fry on the science of laughter

Laughing appears to be widespread in the animal kingdom, but humour is harder to define and is culturally specific

While the British sense of humour is something every Brit holds dear, it’s fair to assume many British jokes would leave other cultures mystified. I think there is something quite interesting in that: it means that humour is not universal. The things we find funny are not innate, they’re cultural.

That makes humour very different from laughter, which every human (even the grumpy ones) will have experienced at some point or another. Unlike humour, laughter is much easier to understand and study scientifically.

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