The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

by Kevin Simler

Box 11: Kevin Fires a Shotgun The first time I fired a shotgun and felt the recoil, I started laughing—somewhat hysterically, in fact. I realize that makes me sound crazy, but here’s what I think happened. A firearm is a taboo object in my culture. I was raised without any contact with guns, and so when I fired one as an adult at a shooting range, I was already perched at the psychological boundary between safety and danger. Then, given the surprise of the blast and the violent recoil, I was plunged into terror for a fraction of a second—not unlike the initial jump of a skydiver. But I quickly realized that I was perfectly safe, and my brain’s response to all this, evidently, was to laugh—to let my friends know that I felt safe and comfortable, and that I wanted to try it again. The play-signal theory also explains many of the instances when we don’t laugh. When a clown “trips” and falls down the stairs, you might chuckle, knowing that he’s just playing and is actually OK. But when your aging grandmother stumbles and falls, everything is decidedly not OK; her accident represents acute danger. It’s only after you’ve rushed to her side and discovered that she’s perfectly safe that maybe it becomes reasonable to laugh about the situation—especially if she starts laughing first. In fact, the logic of laughter explains why her laughter is likely to trigger yours, rather than the other way around. If she laughs first, it means she feels safe, so you can feel safe too. But if you...