A great way to get to know someone better is to say something that makes them laugh.

想要更好地了解别人，一个好办法就是说些能让他们发笑的事。

Sharing a few good giggles¹ and chuckles² makes people more willing to tell others something personal about themselves, without even necessarily being aware that they are doing so, suggests new research.

新研究显示，分享一些好笑的事会让人更乐意告诉别人自己的私事，甚至当他们这样做的时候，也根本不会意识到这一点。

Alan Gray of University College London discovered the tidbit in a new study recently published in the journal Human Nature.

英国伦敦大学学院（University College London）的艾伦•格雷（Alan Gray）在研究中发现了这一有趣的现象。最近，他的这项研究成果发表在了《人类天性》（Human Nature）杂志上。

According to Gray, the act of verbally opening up to someone is a crucial building block that helps to form new relationships and intensify³ social bonds.

格雷认为，用言语向他人敞开心扉的行为是帮助人们建立新关系，增强人与人之间社会联系的重要基本要素。

Such self-disclosure can be of a highly sensitive nature — like sharing one’s religious convictions or personal fears — or a superficial tidbit such as one’s favorite type of food.

自我表露的过程具有高度敏感性——好比分享宗教信仰或者害怕之物——或者只是一个流于表面的趣闻，比如最爱的食物类型。

To investigate the role and influence of laughter in this disclosure process, Gray and his colleagues gathered 112 students from Oxford⁴ University in England, into groups of four.

为了调查笑声在自我表露过程中扮演的角色和产生的影响，格雷和他的同事从英国牛津大学（Oxford University）召集了112个学生，并把他们分为四组。

The students did not know one another. The groups watched a 10-minute video together, without chatting to one another.

学生们彼此都不认识。每组会坐在一起看一个10分钟的视频，期间并无交谈。

The videos differed in the amount of laughter they invoked⁵, and the amount of positive feelings or emotions they elicited⁶.

视频的区别在于，引人发笑的频率和传达积极情绪或情感的效力各有不同。

One featured a stand-up comedy routine by Michael McIntyre, another a straightforward⁷ golf instruction video, and the third a pleasant nature excerpt⁸ from the “Jungles” episode of the BBC’s Planet Earth series.

一个视频是迈克尔•麦金太尔（Michael McIntyre）的单人喜剧秀，一个是简短的高尔夫教学片，第三个是从《BBC行星地球系列》（BBC’s Planet Earth series）“丛林”（Jungles）一集里节选的一个令人愉悦的自然片段。

The levels of laughter and the participants’ emotional state after watching the video was then measured. Each group member also had to write a message to another participant to help them get to know each other better.

在看完视频之后，研究人员会测算参与者的情绪状态和笑声等级。每个小组成员还需给另一名参与者写下一条消息，以便更好地相互了解。

The participants who had a good laugh together shared significantly more intimate information than the groups who did not watch the comedy routine.

比起那些没有观看喜剧的组别，一起欢笑过的参与者们向彼此分享了更多的亲密信息。

Gray suggests this is not merely because it is a positive experience, but because of the physiology⁹ behind a good laugh. It actually triggers the release of the so-called “happy hormone¹⁰” endorphin.

格雷认为，究其原因，不仅在于欢笑是一种积极的体验，还因为欢笑的背后隐藏着的心理学。实际上，正是这种心理学的作用引发了所谓的“快乐荷尔蒙”——内啡肽（endorphin）的释放。

The findings support the idea that laughter encourages people to make more intimate disclosures to strangers. Furthermore, researchers discovered the sharing of the information occurred so spontaneously, the person who disclosed information was seldom aware that he or she had done so.

这项研究证实，笑声能促使人们对陌生人透露更多隐私。此外，研究人员还发现，信息的分享就这样自然而然地发生了。那些透露信息的人很少会意识到自己正在这么做。

It was only the listener who realized that it had happened.

只有倾听者才会发现这一行为。