Evil Laughter

In the reading, it was said that people laugh while doing an evil act out of sadism – taking pleasure in harm. During the discussion in class it was pointed out that people may laugh while doing something evil for other reasons such as laughing as a coping mechanism.

This stood out to me because many people do laugh out of nervousness or at inappropriate times such as a funeral. From this perspective it is important to not think that someone laughing at evil is automatically taking pleasure in the act. It could be that the person is fighting against their morals, knowing deep down that what they are doing is wrong. But for whatever reason, they find themselves doing this act anyways and have to cope with the evil they are acting out.

It is possible though, that laughing as a coping mechanism while doing something evil could go against what some people consider to be evil. For example, one of the books we read looked at having zero empathy in order to do an evil act. If someone had zero empathy, I would argue that the person would not have to cope with the evil act they are doing. The person does the evil act because they do not see how they are emotionally affecting the other person, so they may not understand at all that what they are doing is wrong and have nothing to cope with. For these people (psychopaths, narcissists, and borderline) it would be safe to assume that sadism would be the reason for laughing during an evil act. The other group with zero empathy talked about in this group might be the people who would laugh out of coping while doing an evil act.

https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/justyn-pennell-elderly-man-ran-over-veteran-evil-florida

In this article, it is assumed that sadism is the reason for the person laughing while doing an evil act, murdering someone. It seems very well possible given the other facts provided, such as smiling and reporting the incident himself saying it was in fact his intent to murder. It was also explicitly said that his actions showed that he got pleasure out of doing this act. This article shows that sadism can be perceived to occur through acts of laughter plus other concurrent acts. It is possible that this article suggests that other actions other than laughter need to also be considered. Maybe it is the smiling/facial expression that takes place that makes the difference with the laughter.

It is possible that sadism was the cause here. This is very convincing in this case. But coping should be considered if the person is not clearly narcissistic, psychopathic, or borderline (but even then, I think it should still be considered as zero empathy might not be an absolute zero all of the time).

It was predicted in the study by Ziegler-Hill, McCabe, and Vrabel (2016) that self-enhancing humour would negatively associate with negative affectivity, detachment, and antagonism, and that aggressive humour would be positively associated with negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism. It was found that self-enhancing humour had negative effects for negative affectivity and detachment, which meant that having less of these personalities would mean more of this humour. Aggressive humour had positive effects for antagonism and disinhibition, which meant that having more of these personalities would mean more of this humour.

Self-enhancing humour would arguably be used when coping because coping is enhancing the self – making yourself feel better – at negative times. Aggressive humour would arguably be used when laughing because of sadism in acts of evil because sadism gives pleasure, which enhances the self and injures the victim. This academic article is showing that in people with these personalities and therefore problems in interpersonal relationships (which by past readings would mean they are more susceptible to evil acts) are going to have no, or less humour out of coping, and no or more laughter out of sadism.

From both this academic article and the news article it can be inferred that sadism is a reason for laughter when it comes to evil acts. Interestingly enough, people with interpersonal problems are not going to respond with self-enhancing humour. What can be inferred from this is that people with interpersonal problems are not going to cope with laughter while doing an evil act – as talked about in my reflection.

Ziegler-Hill, V., McCabe, G. A., & Vrabel, J. K. (2016). The dark side of humour: DSM-5 pathological personality traits and humor styles. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 12(3), 363-376.