Laughter regulation in solitary and social contexts varies across emotion regulation strategies

Regulating amusement is crucial in social contexts where expressing amusement may be inappropriate or disruptive. Yet little research has directly compared the effectiveness of different strategies for laughter regulation. Across three experiments, we examined how distraction, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression affect laughter-related facial expressions and amusement ratings during exposure to jokes. Laughter regulation was operationalized by means of facial electromyography (fEMG) and subjective ratings of funniness as proxies for the expression and experience of amusement. In Experiments 1 and 2 (n = 40 each), distraction and expressive suppression most strongly reduced facial activity, whereas reappraisal produced smaller but consistent effects. However, only reappraisal reliably decreased funniness ratings, suggesting selective effects on the cognitive evaluation of humor. Experiment 3 (n = 41) introduced social laughter feedback and revealed that the presence of another's laughter impaired expression control and increased funniness ratings, indicating that social cues shape both emotional expression and experience. Together, these findings show how distinct emotion-regulation strategies modulate amusement and laughter expressions in response to humorous stimuli and highlight the contextual sensitivity of laughter regulation in socially dynamic settings.