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Two studies are reported that investigate the relationship between the expressive behaviors of smiling and laughing (mirth) and the evaluations of the funniness of cartoon stimuli. The first study replicates past findings that suggest that feedback from mirth reactions directly influences funniness ratings in female subjects but does not directly influence funniness ratings in male subjects. Thus, for women, artificial intensification of mirth with canned laughter is associated with increased funniness ratings, and there are high correlations between mirth and ratings. Canned laughter also increases mirth in male subjects, but the increase is not consistently associated with increases in rated funniness; males appear to rate the stimulus directly. The second study provides still stronger evidence of a sex difference in the link between mirth and evaluation. It is hypothesized that making subjects aware of their mirth, by asking them to self-observe and rate their own smiling and laughing, isolates the mirth reactions and reduces their influence upon evaluations of funniness. For female subjects, the elimination of the influence of mirth should lower funniness ratings and eliminate any increase in rated funniness produced by canned laughter. No such effects were predicted for males. The data support the hypotheses. A wider range of possible causes for selfobservation effects is given than is mentioned in most recent theories of self-observation. The goal of the studies reported in this
Cupchik et al. (Sun,) studied this question.