2023 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Uncovering the suppressed potential in spontaneous self-induced laughter through Deleuze, affect and posthuman philosophy
| Project/Area Number |
20K00003
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| Research Institution | Nagoya University |
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Principal Investigator |
Weeks Mark 名古屋大学, 教養教育院, 特任准教授 (70514222)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | laughter / solitude / becoming / positive / psychology / philosophy |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
While the results of a literature review were somewhat disappointing, they clarified empirically what the dominant views of solitary laughter have been, and the search and analysis demonstrated above all that there is extremely little on the positive benefits of laughing alone and apparently little inclination to pursue the topic within the social sciences. Given that positive references to solitary laughter appear in the works of earlier psychologists, we may reasonably speculate that the orientation toward social contextualization and empirical study militate against a thorough exploration of laughing alone.
Through exploring the history of discourse on solitary laughter with an informal collaborator from the field of psychology it was learned that quantitative research methodology may be limited in its capacity to explore and understand solitary laughter and its effects.
This eventually led to joint publication of an article titled “'You can end up in a happy place'(Voyce): a role for positive autoethnography.” This article, published in 2023, proposed the creation of a formal and systematic academic merging of autoethnographic method with positive psychology, even though the latter has generally been reluctant to endorse qualitative methods.
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