emotional responses to ridicule and teasing

Emotional responses to ridicule and teasing:Should gelotophobes react differently?*

TRACEY PLATT

Abstract

The present study examined the hypothesis that gelotophobia blurs the

emotional responses between ridicule and good-natured teasing. Ridicule

should induce negative feelings and teasing happiness and surprise in indi-

viduals not su¤ering gelotophobia. Gelotophobes will discriminate less be-

tween the two. Their responses to teasing will be similar to ridicule. A sam-

ple of adults (N ¼ 105) specified which emotions they would experience in

nine scenarios of social interactions pre-selected to represent bullying ridi-

cule or good-natured teasing. Ridicule elicited strong responses of shame,

fear and anger, and other negative emotions but low happiness and surprise.

Responses of gelotophobes and non-gelotophobes were highly parallel,

with the exception that among extreme gelotophobes stronger shame and

fear were displayed than among non-gelotophobes. Good-natured teasing

seemed to elicit happiness and surprise and low levels of negative emotions

among the non-gelotophobes. Among the gelotophobes, however, it was

the negative emotions; primarily shame, fear, and anger that were exhibited

as the emotional response pattern. In fact, the emotion profile to good-

humored teasing was highly similar to the profile in response to the

bullying-ridiculing situations. Gelotophobes’ perceptions do not discrimi-

nate between playful teasing and good-natured teasing. They do not identify

the safe and non-threatening quality of the teasing situations. Treatment of

gelotophobes should, therefore, involve helping them to identify the play-

signals, i.e., the meta-message that the interaction is playful, for fun and

that no harm is intended.

Keywords: Bullying; gelotophobia; laughter; ridicule; teasing.

Humor 21–2 (2008), 105–128 0933–1719/08/0021–0105

DOI 10.1515/HUMOR.2008.005 6 Walter de Gruyter

1. Introduction

It is hard to dispute the feel-good factor of laughter. Everyone who has

ever laughed long and heartily will recognize the natural high that

comes with a hearty bout of eye-watering, side-gripping, belly laugher

or a fit of the giggles. Why else do people pay to see comedians who

tell jokes, poke fun, and whip the audience into peels of laughter? Even

if certain jokes do not suit everyone’s taste, it would be hard for them

not to be caught up in the moment and the infectiousness of group

laughter and feel their spirits lifted by the joyful episode (Smyth and

Fuller 1972).

There is, however, a converse side of humor, a negative side. Dispar-

agement humor (Zillman 1983) relates to mockery and ridicule, which is

directed deliberately at a specific target and is an aggressive form of

humor. Negative laughter is a powerful method of controlling behavior

in others. It would seem that, in general, people find being singled out of

the group by being laughed at is a shameful, humiliating, and disagree-

able experience. As a result, they will consider modifying or changing

their behavior (Ford and Ferguson 2004; Holmes 2005; Janes and Olsen

2000; Panksepp 2000). This form of humor is most definitely not pleasant

and is far removed from the beneficial aspects of humor supposed by the

applied humor therapists. Arguably, if positive laughter has a positive

psychological e¤ect (McGhee 1999), are there also negative psychological

consequences of being laughed at by others?

Social anxiety disorder is a condition where social interaction or

public activities are avoided due to an extreme, persistent fear of em-

barrassment, humiliation, and shame (APA 1994). In social events,

social phobics believe they are inferior to others and assume they are

being evaluated negatively. This belief elicits a shameful emotion, and

su¤erers of this broad spectrum phobia will avoid social situations to

prevent shame. Similarly, within a clinical setting, Titze (1996) related

the observed behavior of Shame-Anxiety (Titze 1995) to what he de-

scribed as the symptomatology of the Pinocchio Complex, which ap-

plies to the fear of being laughed at, namely, gelotophobia. Here the

shame felt by the su¤erers is brought on by the conviction that they

are an object of ridicule and will evoke disparagement laughter in

others.

As mentioned above, disparagement humor is a technique of con-

trolling and causing conformity in others. This, Titze (1996: 1) claims, is

106 T. Platt

‘‘mental abuse; [ . . . ] being put-down, being humiliated, laughed at or not

taken seriously.’’ When this method of control is applied to an individual

by a significant other a situation of inner conflict arises between the desire

to behave naturally and the response expected by others. This conflict

elicits shame.

Bergson’s (1924) essay, ‘‘Laughter: An essay on the meaning of comic,’’

recounts that ‘‘marionettes’’ were thought to be unable to develop a sense

of belonging in childhood. Due to not feeling loved by their parents, they

were unable to fit into a group in a relaxed way. Titze (1995, 1996), fol-

lowing Bergson (1924), formulated a model of the putative causes and

consequences of gelotophobia (Ruch 2004). One facet of the model pro-

poses that humor and laughter are not relaxing and joyful positive social

events for gelotophobes who have an ‘‘agelotic’’ (unable to appreciate

laughter) attitude. Gelotophobes also allude to being bullied by ridicule

in childhood or as adults.

If this model is, indeed, a true representation of gelotophobic causes

and consequences, a method is needed to shift from a philosophical do-

main to a scientific paradigm. The question becomes whether geloto-

phobes are unable to see playful forms of humor for what they are and

cannot perceive playful social interactions as positive. Therefore, in the

present study, participants will be confronted with good-humored playful

teasing and malicious ridicule type bullying. If the model is correct, they

will react to good-humored teasing as if it were bullying-ridicule. As prior

studies have shown that gelotophobia can be validly assessed by self-

reports (Ruch and Proyer 2008a, 2008b; Ruch et al. 2008) both among

clinical groups and the normal population, this hypothesis can be exam-

ined empirically.

1.1. Bullying-ridicule or good-humored teasing

It is clear from preliminary investigations by Ruch (2002) into a universal

taxonomy of the term ‘‘humor’’ that it has both positive and negative

meanings. Thus, it is imperative to distinguish between hostile laughter

and friendly laughter. Unfortunately, even in research, the terms of teas-

ing and ridicule are interchangeable.

Even the type or the field of study influences how a word will be used.

Bullying research defines verbal victimization as something that is done

by teasing and name-calling (Hawker and Boulton 2001). This behavior

Emotional responses 107

relates to verbal attacks by a protagonist with power and dominance.

The Lagerspetz et al. (1982: 46) review of group aggression suggests

that within the victimization spectrum group mobbing is benevolent

ridicule.

By taking into account context and language, Whitney and Smith

(1993) define bullying to include being teased in a nasty way. Specific

studies into teasing, however, acknowledging the limitations of the re-

search, do indicate that teasing can be playful and a fun form of social

interaction that serves the dual purpose of maintaining relationships

positively and negotiating group status positively (Bollmer et al. 2003;

Heerey et al. 2005).

Zillman and Stocking (1976) illustrate that put down humor is a way

of gaining status. Those who ridiculed others were seen as witty and intel-

ligent compared to those who self-disparaged, especially among males.

Superiority or disparagement humor relies on the interplay of power be-

tween the lead characters, the target and the observers. This relation has

obvious similarities to the social interaction context of a bully, the victim

and bystanders. Therefore, the boundaries between the di¤erent social en-

counters often get blurred.

Keltner et al. (1998) reported that there was some relationship be-

tween agreeableness and pro-social teasing. In a further study, they de-

fined teasing as ‘‘an intentional provocation accompanied by playful

o¤-record markers that together comment on something relevant to

the target’’ (Keltner et al. 2001: 234). These findings emphasize the

good natured, playful side of teasing. There is, then, a theoretical dif-

ference between the positive and negative perceptions of this form of

social interaction. These forms and their di¤erence need to be clearly

defined.

1.2. Present study

The aim of the present study is to explore the nature of the emotions in-

duced by ridicule and teasing and to verify the proposed role of geloto-

phobia as a moderator. More specifically, individuals will be exposed to a

pre-selected set of prototypical ridicule and teasing situations, and the in-

tensity of di¤erent emotions will be examined. Due to ethical constraints,

participants cannot be confronted with real life bullying or ridicule; there-

fore, scenarios were used.

108 T. Platt

The scenarios were designed so that each depicted a situation where

laughter occurs (without the nature of the laughter being specified) and

the intensity of the induced emotions recorded. The emotions considered

were those defined as basic emotions by Ekman (1999), happiness, sur-

prise, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. Since shame is an emotion very

relevant to gelotophobia, it was added. The same number of ridicule and

teasing scenarios were used plus one scenario judged ambiguous (neither

ridicule nor teasing) and they were chosen from a larger set of scenarios

gathered in a pilot study, which used experts familiar with the concept.

It was expected that ridicule would induce negative emotions (in partic-

ular shame, fear, and anger) to a higher extent, while the degree of happi-

ness would be low. Conversely, good-natured teasing would induce hap-

piness and surprise to a higher extent and negative emotions to a lower

extent. It was expected that individuals not su¤ering from gelotophobia

would discriminate between ridicule and teasing, while individuals with

a pronounced gelotophobia would not distinguish between them. The

emotions expressed during teasing would be comparable to those in re-

sponse to ridicule.

Ruch and Proyer (2008b) suggested distinguishing between slight,

marked (or pronounced), and extreme gelotophobia on the basis of sev-

eral criteria. Operationally, individuals are grouped into these categories

when their scores on a set of items exceed the cut o¤-point of 2.5, 3.0, and

3.5 out of a possible 4.0. For the present study, it was assumed that for

people with extreme gelotophobia the proposed e¤ect would be more

pronounced than for those with slight or marked gelotophobia. This re-

quirement posed some problems, as gelotophobia is not very prominent

in the United Kingdom (U.K.). A recent study showed that about 13.5

percent of the U.K. population has gelotophobia. These gelotophobes

can be found in random samples of adults (Proyer et al. 2007; see

also Proyer et al. forthcoming), with about 10.42 percent slight,

(score < 2.5); 2.08 percent marked (cut-o¤ point ¼ 3.0); and 1.04 percent

extreme (cut-o¤ point ¼ 3.5).

In order to have a substantial number of individuals with slight and

marked gelotophobia, either one of two strategies may be pursued. Either

one tests a high number of individuals (e.g., 225 to get about 30 above the

cut o¤ point of 2.5) or one solicits research participants from groups

where a higher number of gelotophobes may be assumed (e.g., self help

groups of bullying; social anxiety forums; workplace bullying groups).

The latter strategy was pursued.


2. Method

2.1. Participants

A sample of 102 adults, 38 male and 64 female, whose ages ranged from

18 years to 76 years (M ¼ 39.72; SD ¼ 14.51) were recruited by means

of personal contact, Internet contact, or via publicity through an in-

ternational anti-bullying support network group. The sample consisted

of 45 single, 9 cohabiting, 37 married, 6 divorced, and 5 widowed

individuals.

2.2. Instruments

The Geloph 3154 (Ruch and Proyer 2008b; Ruch and Titze 1998) is a

questionnaire designed for the subjective assessment of gelotophobia. It

consists of fifteen items relating to gelotophobic symptomatology with a

four-point answer scale (1 ¼ strongly disagree; 2 ¼ moderately disagree;

3 ¼ moderately agree; 4 ¼ strongly agree).

2.2.1. The Emotion Anchor Question Form. The Emotion Anchor Ques-

tion Form (Ekman 1989) assesses individual di¤erences in several basic

parameters (e.g., latency, intensity, duration, frequency) of his basic emo-

tions. When the instrument is first administered, the participant is asked

to describe an example of the most intense experience of each of the listed

emotions one can imagine that any human being has ever felt, and this

example serves as an anchor for subsequent ratings of those emotions. Af-

ter each experience, the intensity of personal feeling for each emotion is

measured on an eight-point Likert Scale (0 ¼ least; 8 ¼ most), a measure

of how quickly it took for the feeling to begin (0 ¼ immediately; 8 ¼ a

long time), how long it took to recover from the feeling (0 ¼ minutes;

8 ¼ months), and how much these emotions are expressed vocally or fa-

cially (0 ¼ not at all; 8 ¼ very much). Finally, the intensity of that emo-

tion during a typical week is assessed. While the original Anchor Que as-

sesses the six basic emotions of sadness, fear, anger, happiness, disgust,

and surprise, for the purpose of the present study sadness, happiness,

and shame were also selected. The latter are not among Ekman’s basic

emotions, but their assessment was considered essential in the present

study.

110 T. Platt

2.2.2. The Ridicule Teasing Scenario questionnaire. The Ridicule Teas-

ing Scenario questionnaire (RTSq; Platt 2006) is an instrument for assess-

ing the emotions participants experience when involved in ridicule and

teasing social interactions. The RTSq includes nine items: four pertain to

ridicule, four pertain to teasing, and one is an ambiguous scenario with no

clear definition of either teasing or ridicule as determined by a pre-test

study.

A series of scenarios were generated in a pre-test investigation by ask-

ing people to give examples of times when they had been or had seen

someone being ridiculed and times they had been or seen someone being

teased. From this extensive collection, a set of thirteen unique situations

became apparent and were developed into scenarios, which were then sent

to experts in the field of bullying or teasing for rating.

The raters (5 female, 5 male lay persons, and 5 experts) were asked to

rate each scenario for both ridicule and teasing on a scale of 0 ¼ not at all

typical to 8 ¼ very typical. A clear definition between being ridiculed and

being teased emerged for some of the scenarios. The Cronbach alphas for

the fifteen raters were .93 and .94 for ridicule and teasing, respectively.

The correlation between the total scores was �.98; i.e., a scenario was

high in ridicule and low in teasing, or vice versa, low in ridicule and high

in teasing. Of all scenarios rated, two were scored the same for both ridi-

cule and teasing behavior; one of these was included in the RTSq as a

filler. The top four ridicule, top four teasing, and the filler were included

in the final questionnaire (see Appendix).

These nine scenarios were selected for the RTSq. Each scenario lists the

basic emotions: happy, sad, angry, disgust, surprise, shame, and fear to

which the participant is asked to assign a score of 0 (lowest) to 8 (highest)

to indicate the amount of that emotion they would expect to experience if

placed in the same situation as given in the scenario.

A test booklet was produced, which included all three instruments and

uploaded onto a website dedicated to the study. A word document, a rich

text format document (RTF), a PDF document, and a printed-paper copy

(see Appendix) were developed also as other options for participation.

3. Procedure

Participants were contacted via electronic mail, in person or by the tele-

phone. Those contacted via electronic mail or in person had expressed


an interest in volunteering to participate in a study and had given contact

details for future use. After an extensive mail shot sent to bullying groups

and forums, Just Fight On (an international self help and advice group)

agreed to ask members if they wished to participate. A cover letter and

introduction explaining the study and guaranteeing confidentiality, or an

equivalent conversation in person or over the telephone, outlining briefly

the questionnaire and what was expected from any volunteers was the

first communication with all participants. After the initial contact, all

participants were asked to complete the test booklet. Each participant

completed all three instruments within the test booklet.

4. Results

The answers to the fifteen items of the gelotophobia scale were aver-

aged. The total scores ranged from 1.00 to 3.67 (maximum possible

score ¼ 4.00) with a mean of 2.15 and a standard deviation of SD ¼ .65.

This shows that the mean (but not SD) is di¤erent from the preliminary

UK norm data (M ¼ 1.87; SD ¼ .58). Cronbach alpha is .89, and cor-

rected item total correlations ranged from .36 to .71.

The recruitment strategy was successful as it generated a fairly high

percentage of gelotophobes (34.6 percent, i.e., 36 out of 104 yielded a to-

tal mean score exceeding 2.5) and 65.4 percent (68 out of 104) with incon-

spicuous gelotophobic values. A closer inspection of the gelotophobes

showed that 26 (25 percent), 8 (7.7 percent), and 2 (1.9 percent) exceeded

the cut-o¤ point for slight, pronounced, and extreme fear of being

laughed at, respectively. The latter two groups were combined for the

analyses to form a group of pronounced gelotophobia.

Who is gelotophobic? Product moment correlations were computed to

examine the relationships between gender, age and gelotophobia. Like in

prior studies, there were no di¤erences due to gender (r ¼ .05; df ¼ 102;

ns) nor age (r ¼ �.16, df ¼ 102; ns). Also the ANOVA assessing marital

status did not yield a significant e¤ect (F ½4; 99� ¼ 1:48, ns).

As the sample was selected from di¤erent sources, it might be instruc-

tive to see whether there are any di¤erences within the group. Participants

who were ‘‘familiar,’’ i.e. known to the data collectors in some way

(n ¼ 16; M ¼ 1.81) had a significantly lower score than those who were

‘‘unfamiliar,’’ i.e. recruited online with no personal contact (n ¼ 88,

M ¼ 2.21), Fð1; 102Þ ¼ 15.24, p ¼ .024. This either means that the data

112 T. Platt

collectors knew more individuals that did not su¤er from gelotophobia or

that being tested with a lack of total anonymity leads to lower scores.

Participants from the USA seemed to have slightly higher scores than

the ones in the UK, but this di¤erence was marginally significant and

may reflect the recruitment pursued (F ½1; 76� ¼ 4:16; p ¼ .045).

Individuals recruited randomly (n ¼ 30; M ¼ 1.71) had lower scores

than the ones recruited with the purpose of finding gelotophobes (via in-

ternet, discussion groups, website) (n ¼ 61; M ¼ 2.28), Fð1; 89Þ ¼ 18.75,

p < .0001. Of more importance was the aspect of bullying. Those

who reported having been a victim of bullying (n ¼ 58) scored higher

(M ¼ 2.37) than those (n ¼ 35) who did not disclose previous experiences

of being bullied (M ¼ 1.73), F ð2; 101Þ ¼ 13.44, p < .0001. Interestingly

those who did not select any alternative choices scored similarly to the

ones who indicated they were bullied before (n ¼ 11, M ¼ 2.32). This

requires further analysis. Among those who indicated they were never a

victim of bullying, most of them (91.43 percent) did not indicate a fear

of being laughed at. While 8.57 percent had slight gelotophobia, none

of them had pronounced (or extreme) gelotophobia. Among those who

indicated they were bullied, 50.00 percent were not afraid of being

laughed at, but 34.48 percent had a slight fear, and 15.52 percent a pro-

nounced fear of being laughed at by others. The two participants who ex-

ceeded the 3.5 cut o¤ point for extreme gelotophobia were among those

who admitted to being bullied. Among the 36 participants with scores

higher than 2.5, only three (2.53, 2.60, 2.67) indicated they were not bullied.

The others either reported being a bully victim or did not answer at all.

The scores of each individual were averaged for each emotion sepa-

rately across the ridicule scenarios and for the four teasing scenarios in

the Ridicule Teasing Scenario questionnaire. The ambiguous scenario

was omitted. The alphas for the fourteen scales (two types of scenarios,

seven emotions) ranged from .62 to .88 with a median of .77. These coef-

ficients are very high, especially as there are only four items per scale.

A 3 (no, slight, pronounced gelotophobia) � 2 (ridicule vs. teasing

scenario) � 7 (type of emotion) ANOVA was computed with gelotopho-

bia as a classification variable and type of scenario and Emotions as

repeated measures factors. Virtually all main e¤ects and interactions

were significant ( p < .05), but attention is only given to the two of theo-

retical relevance. First, the two-way interaction between type of scenario

and emotions was significant (F ½6; 600� ¼ 34:02, p < .0001) confirming

that ridicule and teasing yielded di¤erent emotion profiles. Second, the


three-way interaction between gelotophobia, scenario and emotions was

significant (F ½12; 600� ¼ 4:35, p < .0001). This interaction suggests that

the emotional response pattern for the two scenarios is di¤erent depend-

ing on the level of gelotophobia.

To explore the nature of these interactions further, two types of analy-

ses were computed. First, t-tests for dependent samples were computed

comparing the two scenarios for each of the seven emotions. Secondly,

two univariate ANOVAS were computed for the two scenarios separately

with the emotions on the repeated measurements factors. Post hoc tests

(Fisher’s PSDL) were used to test which of the means were di¤erent.

The means and standard deviations and the results of the statistical tests

are given in Table 1.

Table 1 shows that the ridicule scenario compared to the teasing sce-

nario led to more anger followed by (in descending order of magnitude of

di¤erence) sadness, fear, disgust, shame, and surprise. The teasing scenario

led to more happiness than the ridicule scenarios. The mean level of happi-

ness, however, was still below the scale’s midpoint, suggesting that overall

teasing does not make people happy. As the standard deviation is consid-

erable, one can see that it might be more fun for some and less for others.

More importantly, the profile of emotions is di¤erent. Ridicule primar-

ily led to anger and sadness followed by disgust, shame, and fear. There

was significantly less surprise, and obviously happiness was lowest. Con-

trarily, teasing led to happiness, surprise and shame, with happiness being

numerically higher but not statistically di¤erent from the latter two.

Table 1. Mean intensity of emotions in response to the two scenarios

Emotion Ridicule scenario Teasing scenario

M SD Alpha M SD Alpha F p

Happiness 1.23a 1.30 .62 3.29a 2.38 .87 95.000 .0001

Sadness 4.78d 1.77 .70 2.32c 1.81 .76 156.036 .0001

Anger 5.05d 1.76 .68 2.51b 1.75 .72 208.778 .0001

Disgust 4.22c 2.10 .74 2.34c 1.82 .74 84.443 .0001

Surprise 3.59b 1.94 .77 2.90ab 1.98 .78 13.405 .0004

Shame 4.23c 2.34 .86 2.90ab 2.33 .88 43.632 .0001

Fear 4.32c 2.32 .82 2.29c 2.22 .85 124.770 .0001

F 64.735 — — 5.214 — — — —

p .0001 — — .0001 — — — —

Key: * p < .05

Means sharing a common subscript are not significantly di¤erent from each other.

114 T. Platt

Sadness, disgust, and fear are significantly lower than all previously men-

tioned emotions. Anger is numerically between these two blocks but actu-

ally only significantly di¤erent from happiness. Thus, as predicted, the

scenarios did have quite distinct emotion profiles. While teasing is usually

surprising and leads to happiness, it was not expected that teasing would

also lead to shame. Shame, happiness, and fear had larger standard devia-

tions indicating that there are individual di¤erences in the intensity of

those emotions. Obviously, some individuals experience little shame, hap-

piness, and fear in response to teasing while others feel very much.

As mentioned above, the three-way interaction was highly significant,

suggesting that gelotophobia does moderate the emotion profiles elicited

by the two types of scenarios. Two types of post hoc analyses were

performed separately for each of the three levels of gelotophobia. First,

teasing and ridicule were examined for di¤erences in each of the seven

emotions. Second, the profile of emotions was examined for teasing and

ridicule separately. The results of the analyses are presented in Table 2

and Figure 1. The emotion profile for teasing and ridicule are presented

separately for individuals with no, slight, and pronounced gelotophobia.

Figure 1 shows how the emotion profile of the two types of scenarios

is moderated by level of gelotophobia. While teasing and ridicule led to

almost mirroring emotions for the non-gelotophobes, by and large the

emotion profiles of gelotophobes for ridicule and teasing are highly

Figure 1. Stipulated intensity of emotions presumably shown in response to teasing and

ridicule scenarios separately for individuals with (a) low (n ¼ 67), (b) slight (n ¼ 26), and

(c) marked (n ¼ 10) gelotophobia


Table 2. Mean intensity of emotions in response to the two scenarios for individuals with no, slight, and marked gelotophobia

Emotion No gelotophobia Slight gelotophobia Marked gelotophobia

Ridicule Teasing Ridicule Teasing Ridicule Teasing

M M F p M M F p M M F p

Happiness 1.545d 4.131a 84.132 .0001 .625c 1.846d 17.105 .0003 .650c 1.400c 5.870 .0384

Sadness 4.683a 1.944cd 121.588 .0001 4.856ab 2.740ac 26.346 .0001 5.200a 3.700b 28.421 .0005

Anger 4.899ab 2.075c 184.113 .0001 5.231ab 3.500a 25.168 .0001 5.625a 2.825b 20.692 .0014

Disgust 4.216ab 1.970c 96.303 .0001 4.740a 3.010a 21.195 .0001 2.900b 3.075b .042 .8413

Surprise 3.653c 2.843b 11.264 .0013 3.981a 3.144a 5.432 .0281 2.125bc 2.600bc 1.080 .3259

Shame 3.746c 2.063c 41.337 .0001 4.644a 3.885ab 5.306 .0298 6.400a 5.925a .681 .4305

Fear 3.802c 1.451d 100.042 .0001 4.913ab 3.394a 23.960 .0001 6.225a 5.050a 6.901 .0275

F 37.321 24.302 — — 28.130 4.339 — — 15.772 10.782 — —

p .0001 .0001 — — .0001 .0005 — — .0001 .0001 — —

Key: a,b Means with di¤erent superscripts di¤er at p < 0.05 (Fisher’s PSLD).

11

6T

.P

latt

parallel and in part, virtually indistinguishable for the individuals with

pronounced gelotophobia. For individuals with slight gelotophobia, how-

ever, the emotions induced by teasing are more similar to the ones in-

duced by ridicule (albeit at a lower level) than, for example, the teasing

emotion profile of the normal sample.

Table 2 shows that for individuals without a fear of being laughed at,

all the emotions (with the possible exception of surprise) are very di¤erent

for teasing and ridicule. Also the emotion profiles for the two are most

pronounced. Ridicule leads to anger, sadness, and disgust. Surprise,

shame, and fear are significantly lower, and happiness is lowest. As

expected, teasing leads to happiness and to a lower extent to surprise.

Sadness, anger, disgust, and shame are low, but fear is even lower.

For the group with pronounced gelotophobia, the picture is quite dif-

ferent. Ridicule induces more sadness and anger than does teasing. While

there are slight di¤erences in fear and happiness, the ridicule and teasing

scenarios do not di¤er in the amount of disgust, surprise, and shame. For

the ridicule scenario shame, fear, anger, and sadness are highest, followed

by surprise and disgust, and happiness is lowest. Happiness is lowest for

teasing too, lower than any negative emotion, but not lower than sur-

prise. Anger, sadness, and disgust generated scores in the midpoints of

the scales, and shame and fear are the two emotions yielding the highest

intensity scores.

For individuals with a slight gelotophobia overall teasing and ridicule

led to di¤erent emotions. However, the amount of di¤erence is smaller

than for non-gelotophobes, and the emotions surprise and shame were

only slightly di¤erent. Teasing led to mild negative emotions (with higher

shame than sadness) and low happiness. Ridicule led to anger, fear, sad-

ness, and disgust. Surprise was somewhat lower, and happiness was lowest.

4.1. Do the di¤erences between ridicule and teasing diminish with

increasing gelotophobia?

For more direct tests of the hypothesis that the ridicule and teasing pro-

files are more similar for high gelotophobia individuals (compared to the

lows), two indices of similarity were derived. First, the mean absolute dif-

ference between ridicule and teasing was computed by averaging the mag-

nitude of the di¤erences across the seven emotions. This profile proximity

index correlated significantly negatively (r ¼ �.307; p ¼ .002) with the


gelotophobia total score, confirming that there was a lower mean

di¤erence for individuals high in gelotophobia. Likewise, an ANOVA

with degree of gelotophobia as a classification variable and this index

as dependent variable yielded a significant e¤ect, (Fð2; 100Þ ¼ 4.565,

p ¼ .013). However, the Post hoc tests (Fisher’s PLSD) showed that the

individuals with no fear (M ¼ 2.43) had a significantly ( p ¼ .012 and

.043) larger di¤erence than the ones with a slight (M ¼ 1.71) or marked

(M ¼ 1.59) fear of gelotophobia (which did not di¤er from each other).

The more pronounced gelotophobia was, the less ridicule and teasing eli-

cited di¤erent emotions.

Second, for each individual, a coe‰cient was computed by correlating

the scores for ridicule and teasing across the seven emotions. More pre-

cisely, the emotion profile the individual showed in response to ridicule

and the emotion profile the individual showed in response to teasing

were correlated. The median of these 103 coe‰cients was .20. However,

while the median for the people not su¤ering from gelotophobia was

only .01, the ones for the individuals with slight or marked gelotophobia

were .51 and .63, respectively. A Kruskal-Wallis Test showed that indeed

those medians of correlations were di¤erent depending on level of

gelotophobia (df ¼ 2, H corrected for ties ¼ 19.07, p < .0001). Mann-

Whitney U Tests showed that no fear was lower than both slight

( p ¼ .0002) and pronounced ( p ¼ .003) fear of being laughed at by

others, while the latter two did not di¤erent significantly from each other

( p > .05). The Rank order correlation between these coe‰cients and the

gelotophobia scores was .40, ( p < .0001). Thus, the higher the level of

gelotophobia, the more similar the shape of the emotion profiles.

Taken together those findings highlight that for the gelotophobes, the

emotions elicited by ridicule and teasing are similar (both in terms of a

small distance between and parallel shape of the profiles). There is no

marked di¤erence between those individuals slightly or those strongly

a¤ected by gelotophobia. Among the non-gelotophobes, the di¤erence is

more pronounced, and the profile may be both parallel and antagonistic.

4.2. Correlations of gelotophobia with the di¤erent emotions in response

to the two types of scenarios?

Product-moment correlations were computed between the gelotophobia

total score and the mean intensity of the emotions in response to ridicule

118 T. Platt

and teasing. This determined the emotions in which individuals high and

low in gelotophobia di¤er. Furthermore, the di¤erence between scores

for ridicule and teasing were computed to see if gelotophobia accounts

for individual di¤erences in response to the two types of scenarios. The

correlations are given in Table 3.

Table 3 shows that gelotophobia correlates positively with shame and

fear in response to ridicule and negatively with the amount of happiness.

However, gelotophobia is more relevant for the a¤ective responses to the

teasing scenario. All negative emotions are correlated positively with ge-

lotophobia with the correlations particularly high for shame and fear.

Happiness is negatively correlated, and there is no correlation with sur-

prise. Gelotophobia is not only related to the mean levels of emotions

but also to reacting di¤erently to the two scenarios. Lower scores in ge-

lotophobia go along with greater di¤erences between teasing and ridicule

(more sadness, disgust, and fear in response to ridicule than teasing, and

less happiness), and higher scores are aligned with lower di¤erence scores

(i.e., less di¤erence between the two types of scenarios).

5. Discussion

The present study tested the assumption that gelotophobes cannot enjoy

good-natured forms of laughter and thus will misinterpret the playful

background of teasing. Rather than enjoying teasing, they will respond

emotionally to playful teasing similarly to situations where laughter

occurs in the context of ridicule, mockery, or bullying. This reaction is

presumably because of their past experience with humor and laughter

Table 3. Correlations between gelotophobia and intensity of emotions in response to the two

scenarios as well as a di¤erence score

Emotions Ridicule Teasing Di¤erence

Happiness �.22* �.43*** .35***

Sadness .00 .29** �.27**

Anger .08 .26** �.18

Disgust �.10 .22* �.29**

Surprise �.14 .02 �.16

Shame .35*** .51*** �.18

Fear .37*** .56*** �.21*

Key: *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001

Di¤erence ¼ Ridicule � Teasing.


primarily used as weapons, not shared fun. Therefore, research partici-

pants were asked to indicate those emotions they would feel if they

experienced di¤erent social interactions in which laughter occurred. The

scenarios had been pre-tested to represent playful good-natured teasing

and genuine bullying type ridicule. The situations did remain somewhat

vague in terms of the classifications, however, which were not spelled out

directly. Nevertheless, the cues were there for those who could read it.

Expert raters could easily identify the two types of social interactions.

Therefore, it was expected that most laypeople, at least those not su¤er-

ing from gelotophobia, would be able to see the di¤erence and activate

quite di¤erent emotions.

Indeed, the results show that the ridicule–bullying scenarios were asso-

ciated with a di¤erent emotion profile than the teasing scenarios. Clearly,

ridicule elicits strong responses of shame, fear, anger, and other negative

emotions but little happiness and surprise. Good natured-teasing seems to

elicit happiness and surprise and low levels of negative emotions, at least

among the non-gelotophobes.

More importantly, as predicted, gelotophobia is a potent moderator

for this relationship. Only among the non-gelotophobes is teasing con-

ducive primarily to happiness. With increasing gelotophobia, levels of

happiness in response to teasing decreases, and levels of shame and fear

increase. Thus, gelotophobes respond to teasing primarily with negative

emotions. For ridicule, levels of shame and fear intensify with increas-

ing gelotophobia, and levels of happiness decrease slightly. For non-

gelotophobes, the emotion profiles of ridicule and teasing are almost

complementary (with intensity mirroring each other). For marked gelo-

tophobes, the profiles are almost parallel and the absolute di¤erences are

largely reduced. In fact, gelotophobes react to teasing as they respond to

ridicule. There is no di¤erence in terms of shame, surprise, and disgust,

and only level of sadness and anger are higher for ridicule than for teas-

ing. Most importantly, it seems that playful teasing leads primarily to

shame and fear (higher than any other negative emotion), and the level

of shame is as high as during ridicule.

In fact, the emotion profile of individuals with marked gelotophobia

to good-humored teasing is highly similar to their profile in response to

the bullying-ridiculing situations and strongly di¤erent from the teasing

emotion profile of individuals lacking that fear. Responses of geloto-

phobes and non-gelotophobes are highly parallel, with the exception

that among extreme gelotophobes stronger shame and fear is displayed

120 T. Platt

than among the non-gelotophobes. Good-natured teasing seems to elicit

happiness and surprise and low levels of negative emotions among the

non-gelotophobes. However, among the gelotophobes it is again the neg-

ative emotions, primarily shame, fear, and anger that are exhibited as the

emotional response pattern.

The two highest emotions elicited by ridicule are sadness and anger for

non-gelotophobes and low gelotophobes, but fear and shame for indi-

viduals with a marked gelotophobia. For ridicule, the two leading emo-

tions are happiness and surprise for the non-gelotophobes (note that

shame is inconspicuous here), while it is shame and fear for the individu-

als with slight and marked gelotophobia. Thus, it seems that the experien-

ces to laughter situations for gelotophobes are overlaid by shame and

fear. All in all, one can say that the assumption tested by the present

study is valid.

There are, however, several limitations to the study. The most serious is

that the research participants were not really showing their spontaneous

emotional responses during real life ridicule, bullying, or teasing scenar-

ios. Rather they had to stipulate what they would feel if they were in

such a situation. This procedure did expose all participants to the same

ridicule and teasing situations. Using real life bullying for the experiment

would not only be unethical, using more than one ridicule situation would

have carry over or cumulative e¤ects. An alternative would be to ask

each participant to remember four ridicule–bullying situations they en-

countered in their life and asked for their emotions. However, it would

be di‰cult to keep them comparable across participants. Most important,

it is the participants’ perception that is important, as this determines

whether subtle cues for friendly, innocent fun are detected or not.

A further problem is that the study had to be limited to a smaller list of

responses that may not cover the breadth of feelings that people experi-

ence in these situations. It does seem that the emotions presented to the

participants were su‰cient, however, as only three individuals used the

option to list ‘‘other’’ feelings. One person (with the lowest possible gelo-

tophobia score) reported to have felt ‘‘bewilderment’’ to most scenarios,

and one person each added ‘‘loneliness’’ to the game of tag and ‘‘stupid’’

to the hair scenario. Both were very low in terms of gelotophobia. In

none of these cases were the other emotions rated as low or lower in in-

tensity as the one added.

Another shortcoming is that the study was conducted on the Internet

and composed of a rather heterogeneous sample. This procedure did


assure that a higher percentage of gelotophobes were involved. Further-

more, there were more individuals with slight and marked gelotophobia,

and the separation between these two groups was essential for the

findings.

Thus, all in all, the study confirmed the assumption that gelotophobes

fail to see the shared fun quality of playful teasing and rather perceive it

to be like ridicule. This poses consequences to the counseling of geloto-

phobes. Overall, we do not know enough, as yet, on where in the social

encounter gelotophobes react di¤erently to positive forms of humor. Do

they not see the cue for playfulness? The failure to discriminate between

playful and good-natured teasing might be based on not identifying the

safe and non-threatening quality of the teasing situations. Rather, gelo-

tophobes seem to misread those cues and think the presence of laughter

signals hostility. Maybe they are not oblivious to the play-signals, but

they do not trust them. It could be they misrepresent the intentions of

others by assuming it has to be mean-spirited as it is always malicious.

Maybe they misunderstand single acts, if so which ones and why those

specifically? Could it be that they have not learned the strategies that are

needed in certain playful situations and are therefore reluctant to engage

in a positive way? Do they experience shame and fear instead? If the latter

is correct, could it be possible to get them to understand the subtle di¤er-

ences and to help them see the alternative, harmless interpretation?

Answering these questions will lead to some form of help or treatment

for gelotophobes. It is suggested that training units should involve im-

proving their skill to identify the play-signal in teasing situations; i.e., the

meta-message signal that the interaction is playful and for fun, and no

harm is intended. In any case, given the high prevalence of gelotophobes

in di¤erent countries (see Proyer et al. forthcoming) and the various

ways in which they su¤er (or misread the perhaps innocent intentions

of others) it seems advisable to develop programs for the counseling of

gelotophobes.

University of Hull

Appendix. Ridicule Teasing Scenario questionnaire

INSTRUCTION: Now you have thought about your intense emotional states,

will you read the following statements and pick an emotion, which would

122 T. Platt

represent your feelings most closely. Again on a scale of 0 being least intense to 8

being most intense, rate how strongly you would feel in the described scenario.

Rate every emotion. Do not omit any.

1) You are included in a game of tag but are always chosen to be the chaser be-

cause the others tell you that you are too fat to catch them and they will have

more chance to get away. When they are proven correct they laugh at you.

Please rate how strongly you would expect to feel the following emotions 0 least

to 8 most intense

Happiness (e.g., feel included in the group fun and join in with the teasing)

Sadness (e.g., that they make fun of your mistake)

Anger (e.g., how dare they make fun of you)

Disgust (e.g., you expected better of people)

Surprise (e.g., how surprising that got the lines wrong)

Shame (e.g., how could you have been so stupid to do such a thing and cause

everyone to laugh at you)

Fear (e.g. What if I forget my lines again and I get laughed at)

Other (please state) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2) When you were in school a teacher picked up a piece of your work and showed

it to the class as an example of how NOT to do the work, and the other kids all

laughed at it.


to 8 most intense




Disgust (e.g., you expected better of your friends)

Surprise (e.g., how surprising that your teacher said those things)



Fear (e.g. What if I my work is really bad and I do it again and I get laughed

at)

Other (please state). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3) You are sat on a park bench waiting for someone when a group of youths

walking past burst out laughing and point at the hat you are wearing.


to 8 most intense





Surprise (e.g., how surprising that people would laugh at your hat)




Fear (e.g. What if I wear the hat again and I will get laughed at)


4) You di¤er from the people in your peer group. They always laugh and

prefix your name with something that emphasizes this, e.g. mini (small) tank

(large) etc.


to 8 most intense




Disgust (e.g., you expected better of your peers)

Surprise (e.g., how surprising that people would say such things)



Fear (e.g. What if when I am with people laugh at my di¤erences)


5) After lunch with a group of friends, one tells you that you have your jumper on

inside out. All of the group laugh and make joking comments to you.


to 8 most intense





Surprise (e.g., how surprising that you put your jumper on incorrectly and

didn’t notice)



Fear (e.g. What if I wear the jumper inside out again and I get laughed at)


6) You decide to change your hair color to blonde at a visit to the hairdressers.

When you return, your friends laugh and call you a ‘‘dumb blonde’’.


to 8 most intense


Sadness (e.g., that they make fun of your hair)

Anger (e.g., how dare they make fun of your hair)


Surprise (e.g., your hair is great! How can they laugh?)



Fear (e.g. Everyone is going to laugh until my hair goes back to normal)


124 T. Platt

7) Your peer group sends you on a fool’s errand into the local shop for some

elbow grease. The shopkeeper tells you o¤ for wasting his time and on your return

to your friends they think it is very funny. Every time your friends see you in the

next few weeks they ask if you found any elbow grease.


to 8 most intense





Surprise (e.g., how surprising that I was caught out)



Fear (e.g. What if I get fooled again and I get laughed at)


8) You are invited to the wedding of someone you just met. At the evening cele-

brations, the bride grabs your hand and pulls you on the dance floor to join in

a dance that everyone else seems to know the steps apart from you. You make

everyone laugh because you get it wrong.


to 8 most intense





Surprise (e.g., how surprising they laugh when you don’t know the steps)



Fear (e.g. What if I get up to dance and I get laughed at again)


9) You have been practicing for a concert for ages. However, on your perfor-

mance you mess up your lines. The audience laugh at your mistake, and after-

wards people will not let you forget it and mimic the error time and again.


to 8 most intense





Surprise (e.g., how surprising that got the lines wrong)



Fear (e.g. What if I forget my lines again and I get laughed at)



You have now completed the questionnaire. Thank you for taking the time to

complete it. Please check that you have answered all the questions fully and accu-

rately before you hand it back.

Thank you once again for your time.

1. Ridicule Scenarios: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Teasing scenarios: 5, 6, 7, and 8. Ambiguous

scenario: 9.

Notes

Correspondence address: [email protected]

* The author wishes to thank Just Say No and other bullying group forums for their help

and support and the participants who were willing to complete questionnaires. Special

thanks to Drs. Simon Hunter, Stephen Joseph, Richard Mallows, Donald Nathanson,

and Willibald Ruch for serving as experts in the pre-test study aimed at selecting the

prototypical ridicule and teasing scenarios. Drs. Martin Crawshaw and Roxane Gervais

for their advice. Finally, thanks to Prof. Willibald Ruch, and the anonymous reviewers

for their valuable comments on the prior version of the manuscript.

References

APA American Psychiatric Association

1994 Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington,

DC: American Psychiatric Association.

Bergson, Henri L.

1924 Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. New York: MacMillan.

Bollmer, Julie M., Monica J. Harris, Richard Milich, and John, C. Georgesen

2003 Taking o¤ense: E¤ects of personality and teasing history on behavioural

and emotional reactions to teasing. Journal of Personality 71, 557–603.

Ekman, Paul

1989 Anchor Que — Emotion Anchor Question Form. Unpublished instrument.

Human Interaction Laboratory, University of California, San Francisco,

USA.

1999 Basic Emotions. In Dalgleish, T. and M. Power (eds.), Handbook of Cogni-

tion and Emotion. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.

Ford, Thomas E., and Mark A. Ferguson

2004 Social consequences of disparagement humour: A prejudiced norm theory.

Personality and Social Psychology Review 8, 79–94.

Hawker, David S. J., and Michael J. Boulton

2001 Subtypes of peer harassment and their correlates: A social dominance

perspective. In Juvonen, Jaana and Sandra Graham (eds.), Peer Harassment

in School: The Plight of the Vulnerable and Victimized. New York: Guilford

Press, 378–397.

126 T. Platt

Heerey, Erin, A., Lisa M. Capps, Dacher Keltner, and Ann M. Kring

2005 Understanding teasing: Lessons from children with autism. Journal of

Abnormal Child Psychology 33, 55–68.

Holmes, Janet

2005 Sharing a laugh: Pragmatic aspects of humor and gender in the workplace.

Journal of Pragmatics 38, 26–50.

Janes, Leslie M., and James M. Olsen

2000 ‘‘Jeer pressure:’’ The behavioural e¤ects of observing ridicule of others.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26, 474–485.

Keltner, Dacher, Lisa Capps, Ann M. Kring, Randall C. Young, and Erin A. Heerey

2001 Just teasing: A conceptual analysis and empirical review. Psychological

Bulletin 127, 299–248.

Keltner, Dacher, Randall C. Young, Erin Heerey, Carmen Oemig, and Nathalie D. Monach

1998 Teasing in hierarchical and intimate relations. Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology 75, 1231–1247.

Lagerspetz, Kirsti M. J., Kaj Bjorkqvist, Marianne Berts, and Elisabeth King

1982 Group aggression among school children in three schools. Scandanavian

Journal of Psychology 23, 45–52.

McGhee, Paul E.

1999 Health, Healing and the Amuse System: Humor as Survival Training, 3rd ed.

Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

Panksepp, Jaak

2000 The riddle of laughter. Neural and psychoevolutionary underpinning of joy.

Current Directions in Psychological Science 9, 183.

Platt, Tracey

2006 Ridicule Teasing Scenario questionnaire (RTSq). Unpublished instrument.

Department of Psychology, Hull University, UK.

Proyer, Rene T., Willibald Ruch, Olga Altfreder, Lorene Birden, Margherita Dore, Laura

Chao-chih Liao, Chen Guohai, Belen Jaime, Gerlinde Mugrauer, Ilona Papousek, Tracey

Platt, Tabassum Rashid, Victor J. Rubio, Andrea Samson, Hiroshi Toyota, and Agne

Velickaite

2007 Gelotophobia: A multinational study in 14 countries. Poster presented at the

Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor 20th Anniversary Confer-

ence, Palm City Beach, Florida, USA, 15–18 February 2007.

Proyer, Rene T., Willibald Ruch, Hmoud S. Al-Olimat, Numan S. Ali, Toshihiko Amemiya,

Tamirie Andualem Adal, Spela Arhar, Gigi Asem, Souha Bawab, Doris Bergen, Ingrid

Brdar, Rute Brites Marina Brunner-Sciarra, Amy Carrell, Kay Chang, Liao Chao-chih,

Mehmet Celik, Grazia Ceschi, Alexander Cheryomukhin, Wladyslaw Chlopicki, Maria

P. Y. Chik, Jacquelyn Cranney, Donatien Dahourou, Rolando Dıaz-Loving, Margherita

Dore, Sibe Doosje, Nahwat El-Arousy, Emilia Fickova, Martin Fuhr, Han Geling, Lydia

Germikova, Abe Goh, Rebeca Dıaz Gonzalez, Marija Giedraityte, Chen Guohai, Birgit

Hertzberg Kaare, Belen Jaime, Sai Kin Ho, Martina Hrebıckova, Wang Jun, Shanmukh

V. Kamble, Shahe Kazarian, Paavo Kerkkanen, Mirka Klementova, Irina M. Kobozeva,

Snjezana Kovjanovic, Martin Lampert, Manon Levesque, Eleni Loizou, Jim Lyttle, Vera

C. Machline, Sean McGoldrick, Margaret McRorie, Liu Min, Rene Mottus, Margret M.

Munyae, Carmen Elvira Navia, Mathero Nkhalamba, Pier Paolo Pedrini, Tracey Platt,

Diana-Elena Popa, Mirsolava Petkova, Anna Radomska, Tabassum Rashid, David Raw-

lings, Victor J. Rubio, Andrea C. Samson, Orly Sarid, Soraya Shams, Sek Sisokohm, Jakob

Smari, Irena Snikhovska, Ekaterina, A. Stephanenko, Hugo Stuer, Leva Stokenberga,

Yohana Sherly Rosalina Tanoto, Luis Tapia, Julia Taylor, Ava Thompson, Hanna Thorn,


Hiroshi Toyota, Judit Ujlaky, Vitanya Vanno, Betsie van der Westhuizen, Deepani Wijaya-

thilake, Peter S. O. Wong, Edgar B. Wyco¤, and Eun Ja Yeun

forthc. Breaking the ground in cross-cultural research on the fear of being laughed

at (gelotophobia): A multi-national study involving 70 countries. Manu-

script in preparation.

Ruch, Willibald

2002 Humour research. Keynote speech presented at the International Society of

Humour Studies Conference Italy, 3–7 July.

2004 Gelotophobia: A useful new concept? IPSR Spring 2004 Colloquium Series,

Department of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley,

USA, 10 March 2004.

Ruch, Willibald, and Rene Proyer

2008a The fear of being laughed at: Individual and group di¤erences in gelotopho-

bia. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21 (1), 47–67.

2008b Who is gelotophobic? Assessment criteria for the fear of being laughed at.

Swiss Journal of Psychology 67 (1).

Ruch, Willibald, Rene Proyer, and Larry Ventis

2008 The relationship of teasing in childhood to the expression of gelotophobia in

adults. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Ruch, Willibald, and Michael Titze

1998 GELOPH3464. Unpublished questionnaire. Department of Psychology,

University of Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany.

Smyth, Mary M., and Raymond G. C. Fuller

1972 E¤ects of group laughter in responses to humourous material. Psychological

Reports 30, 132–134.

Titze, Michael

1995 Die heilende Kraft des Lachens [The healing power of laughter]. Munich:

Kosel.

1996 The Pinocchio Complex: Overcoming the fear of laughter. Humor and

Health Journal 5, 1–11.

Whitney, Irene, and Peter J. Smith

1993 A survey of the nature and the extent of bullying in junior/middle and

secondary schools. Educational Research 35, 3–25.

Zillman, Dolf

1983 Disparagement humor. In McGhee, Paul E. and Je¤rey, H. Goldstein (eds.),

Handbook of Humor Research, vol. 1. New York: Springer, 85–107.

Zillman, Dolf, and S. Holly Stocking

1976 Putdown humor. Journal of Communication 26, 154–163.

128 T. Platt

emotional responses to ridicule and teasing

Documents