Sssttt ... Afraid you laughed at?

Certainly no one wants to be a joke. However, if you're always afraid to be laughed at when people often avoid others were joking, you may suffer gelotophobia.

Excessive afraid to be laughed at someone else, including the disorder called gelotophobia. The word derives from the Greek, gelos, which means laughter, and Phobos, meaning fear.

Phobia was first discussed in Spain in the International Summer School and Symposium on Humor and Laughter: Theory, Research and Applicationss.

Recently, researchers sought to evaluate the fear of ridicule are the various cultures. Researchers from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in collaboration with researchers from 73 countries to disseminate questionnaires to 22,620 people translated in 42 languages to find out what kind gelotophobia disorders.

According to experts, in the sense of fear of ridicule, there are two classes of reasons. First, they are afraid to be laughed at as a "reaction to feelings of insecurity" that tried to hide her lack of confident it from others or believes that there is nothing funny to laugh about.

Second, "avoidance reaction", which always avoid a similar situation where he had laughed at. Fear of people in this group could be the low-to high-scale. They also always haunted by the suspicion that others are laughing at him.

Although gelotophobia can be found in all cultures, there are some differences appear. For example, people from countries Turkmenistan and Cambodia signed the average in the first group or the "reaction of discomfort". Meanwhile, the people in Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan tend to avoid situations that make them will be laughed at.

Meanwhile, people in Finland believe, when others are laughing, they laugh at him. As many as 80 percent of people in Thailand also have the same suspicions.

"People laugh at others for various reasons. This can cause a fear response to someone that he always avoid situations that lead to the expense. This certainly will impact on social life," said Victor Rubio, a psychologist from the Autonomous University, Madrid, Spain.


This article is taken from:
www.kompas.com