Katagelasticism and laughter - an article I found

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This is the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katagelasticism.

I've been browsing Wikipedia to pass time, and I stumbled upon an interesting article: Katagelasticism. It means "a psychological condition in which a person excessively enjoys laughing at others". Well, I'll be damned! It seems like everyone and their brother has katagelasticism. I'm surprised this actually has a name. I thought laughter at a victim came to people as naturally urination. It's like saying "excessive friend-making disorder" (or its translation into a Greek term).

<on a Sunday night at home when relatives came over>
Me: "Can we order Little Kay-sar [Caeser] pizza?"
Family: "Hahahahahaha!"

<dinner with parents' friends>
Parents (at me): "Sit up straight! Don't embarrass us! And stop being messy while you eat!"
Me: "I'm not..." (gets cut off)
Parents: "Look at yourself! Look at how you're behaving in front of company!"
Guests: "Hahahahahaha!"

<a very nice teacup I really liked breaks during dinner with parents' friends>
Me: "Please fix it. Don't throw it out."
Parents: "Be quiet!" (throwing out the broken teacup)
Me: (crying inconsolably) "No! I really liked that teacup."
Guests: "Hahahahahaha!"

<on a city bus>
Me (in conversation with my sister): "Neptune has winds of up to 1500 miles per hour."
Two old ladies: (after looking behind) "Hahahahahaha!"

So, do people really have an uncanny ability to make themselves laugh at absolutely anything? I found the article very intriguing, even though it was pretty short. Katagelasticism seems like a fancy word for verbal bullying or schadenfreude. And yet, I'm floored at how naturally it comes to most people!

Aspies seem to have natural immunity against katagelasticism, it seems. Or do they?

Last edited by Aspie1 on 01 Oct 2019, 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've been laughed at many times. I know the feeling.

I've never heard of it before, but I think I may have met some people with it. I didn't like them very much

i'm fairly good at keeping a poker face and silence at the right times. sometimes at the wrong times, too. then i have to make up for it with exaggerated amusement.

Isn't situational humour and comedy always at someone's expense? That's kind of the point.

Ok, granted some spoken jokes might not be, but then who walks round telling jokes all the time.

I'd rather have a laugh with (and/or at) someone (knowing I'd expect nothing less if the situation was reversed**), than have someone being critical and vindictive about others or me.


** for instance if someone tripped over a step (without injury of course) then I'd chuckle first and then check if they were alright (if I knew them). After all if I tripped over the step then I'd expect for others to chuckle at my expense.

Now on the other hand deliberately tripping someone up and then laughing at them, that is wrong (bullying).

Have you looked up "Confirmation Bias" yet?

I enjoy a good laugh and a joke from time to time, but I hate being laughed at, especially when I'm being serious. I hate it when I walk past groups of teenagers and I hear them laughing, because I think they're laughing at me for some strange reason.

Sometimes I think of dumb things I said or did when I was a kid and other people laughed, and I just shrivel up inside.

The wikipedia article the OP links to links to some other terms, among them Gelotophilia and Gelotophobia. Gelotophila is a condition where people enjoy being laughed at. Gelotophobia is one where people fear and strongly dislike being laughed at and tend to have negative reactions to laughter in general - and unsurprisingly it can be caused by negative past experiences with being laughed at and by shame.

Not saying that the extent to which you mind being laughed at has to be a disorder, but you'd probably be more on the gelotophobic side.

These days, there’s always a label for something....even for people who don’t like labels.

Pigeonholeism? The strong desire to give everything a label.

I've never heard of it before, there doesn't seem to be a lot of information around and I can't find any prevalence, but the way the wikipedia article describes it seems to mean it only applies to people who enjoy laughing at others unusually much and whose lives or relationships it impacts negatively.
"This condition often makes it difficult for sufferers to gain and maintain acquaintances and romantic partners." That's certainly not true for everyone and their brother.
I'm only surprised it has a name, because it is rather specific and there must be some other term it also fits into.


Who knows. Perhaps there's some other mostly unknown term some psychologist coined for that too - but only if someone's compulsive need to be friends with everyone interferes negatively with their life.


Perhaps they do, but the extent to which most people do it, isn't a psychological disorder and a lot of people don't primarily laugh out of malice or to put others down.


Perhaps many, but certainly not all. Generally, it would be difficult to determine, unless someone did an actual psychological study on it. Most people on this forum probably don't know enough aspies on a personal level to observe this and asking would be unreliable.
It seems a lot more people would answer in the affirmative if they were ask if they have been bullying victims than if they were ask if they have been bullies. Since most bullying victims have been bullied by a lot of people and the number of people one bully can bully excessively is limited, the numbers of bullies and bullying victims should be at least equal if not more bullies. Quite a few people have probably been in both roles.
There has been a psychological study where 93% of a sample of American students rated their driving skills as above average. Seems unlikely.
Self reporting seems to be highly unreliable for a variety of traits, especially if it's about intelligence, skills or virtue.

True, and in the end a lot of these labels are not terribly useful.

Only a few years ago it seemed like every women I knew was watching "the Bachelor" (a "reality show" in which women compete for the attention of men, and make asses of themselves so women viewers can feel superior to said women), and I, and every guy I knew would watch "the Blind Date Show" ( a 'reality' show showing men trying to impress women on dates and making asses of themselves ...so that we male viewers can all feel superior to said men). And everyone of every gender and race creed etc would watched Jerry Springer. Nuff said about that.

So yeah. Instead of calling this "condition" by some jaw breaking German word, why not just call it...."normal".

Please look up "pseudobulbar affect"

Not out of malice? Then what? Those laughter examples were most certainly malicious! They were laughing either at my misery or an honest mistake. Or it was a "WTF!" laughter, like those old ladies who heard me talk about winds on Neptune. And when I told my therapist about those people, she laughed at me too. I wonder if she had katagelasticism.

It all gave me massive trust issues and social anxiety. The latter is resolved. The former, I'm just now getting handled.

Hmmm....

I can understand people laughing at "the winds from Uranus".

But not at "the winds on Nepture".