Why Do We Laugh When Someone Falls?

So the other day my friend tripped and fell while I was watching. And of course I laughed. But why? Why would somebody laugh when someone else has the potential to really hurt themselves. Well according to William F. Fry of Stanford University the fall happens in a "play frame." This is a real life event that happens in a non serious context.





 But say I fell off the Empire State Building, the result of which would be mortally threatening, serious, and all together not very funny (especially not to me). But if I'm just casually walking, and I trip and fall, that creates the play frame, in which I'm not really going to get hurt and spectators are safe to laugh at me.

But why is laughing the response? Laughter is thought to be a way of releasing cognitive energy. Our brains are constantly analyzing, and processing trying to predict what happens next. So if someone tosses you a baseball you can compute where to move your hand to catch it. So laughter may be simply the release of the energy of our thoughts.

Okay but why is laughter such a common and universal response to falling? It is an incongruity to a typical and boring event such as walking. It is a sudden outcome that we didn't expect. And as long as the person is okay, our energy gets burned off and released in the form of laughter instead of say, panic or concern.

And that reaction might not be societal or culturally influenced at all, so someone in China or Iceland or Brazil may all laugh at their friend falling down. Because it might just be in our brains to react that way. Inside our brains some neurologists have observed mirror neurons. Those are neurons that fire in the observers brain that mirror those of someone else preforming an action. So if we see someone falling down those neurons would make you feel like you were the one falling and flailing and feeling silly. Instantaneously recreating the brain activity of the person falling, stimulating you physiologically "tickling" your brain.

Now without a lot of research on mirror neurons, there are some doubts on their roles, even their existence. But the fact remains that laughing is good for you. And not just on obvious ways like reducing your stress but on physical ways like benefiting vascular health. Laughing is in our blood.