The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle

My son was 14 weeks old when he made his first unmistakable whole-body belly laugh. In the months that followed, his laughter was accompanied by playful provocations — grabbing my hair and shrieking with delight, blowing mouthfuls of mashed bananas skyward and squealing when they landed on the floor. These incidents signaled something more than laughter: An early sense of humor was emerging, initiated by him, months before the other milestones that parents await in the first year.

For me as a mother, this was delightful, but as a developmental psychologist, I was perplexed. Despite my Ph.D., I’d never come across research on infant laughter or humor. While psychologists and parenting experts had extensively researched early skills like walking, language and attachment, humor was largely neglected as if too frivolous for scientific attention.

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