Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

Chimpanzees dangle their tails: O. Adang, “Harassment of Mature Female Chimpanzees by Young Males in the Mahale Mountains,” International Journal of Primatology 24 (2003): 503–14.

Adults will play hide the face: Bambi B. Schieffelin, The Give and Take of Everyday Life: Language Socialization of Kaluli Children (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Teenage girls and boys resort to hostile nicknames and outlandishly gendered imitations: Barrie Thorne, Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993); D. Eder, “The Role of Teasing in Adolescent Peer Group Culture,” Sociological Studies of Child Development 4 (1991): 181–97, and “‘Go Get Ya a French!’: Romantic and Sexual Teasing Among Adolescent Girls,” Gender and Conversational Interaction: Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics, ed. Deborah Tannen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 17–31.

Teasing has long occupied a problematic place in Western culture: For such an analysis, see Keltner et al., “Just Teasing: A Conceptual Analysis and Empirical Review,” Psychological Bulletin 127 (2001): 229–48. The same ambivalence is evident in Western culture’s stances toward two close relatives of teasing, satire and irony. For excellent cultural, historical analyses of satire and irony and their shifting prominence in Western culture, see Duncan Griffin, Satire: A Critical Reintroduction (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1994), and Linda Hutcheon, Irony’s Edge (London: Routledge, 1995).

the most sterling of reputations: Hutcheon, Irony’s Edge, 7.

issued a clarion call: Jedidiah Purdy, For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today (New York: Random House, 2000).

On January, 19, 1449, the Scots passed: For an outstanding history of the fool, and the surprising power that fools have enjoyed until recently, see Bernice K. Otto, Fools Are Everywhere (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

The prominence of the jester and fool: For an excellent anthropological history of the fool, see Apte, Humor and Laughter.

The scientific study of teasing was hampered by poorly specified definitions: Keltner et al., “Just Teasing.”

In terms more felicitous to scientific inquiry: Ibid.

philosopher Paul Grice outlined four principles of communication: H. P. Grice, Logic and Conversation (New York: Academic Press, 1975).

The relevance of Grice’s maxims to teasing, ironically enough: Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson, Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

that act is fraught with potential conflict: Brown and Levinson drew heavily upon the brilliant insights of Erving Goffman. Goffman offered a strategic or dramaturgic account of human social life, arguing that many of the rituals and practices of social life are organized to protect our sense of social esteem, or what he called “face.” Goffman is required reading to understand the universal tendencies toward politeness, modesty, and deference. He reveals the profound degree of cooperation in our public life. See The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City: Doubleday, 1959), Behavior in Public Places (New York: Free Press, 1966), and Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior (New York: Doubleday, 1967).

the mother referred to a young son as “horse mouth”: E Ochs, introduction to Language Socialization across Cultures: Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language, vol. 3, ed. B. B. Schieffelin and E. Ochs (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 1–16.

Exaggeration is core to understanding “playing the dozens”: R. D. Abrahams, “Playing the Dozens,” Journal of American Folklore 75 (1962): 209–20.

“here’s your dog food”: C. A. Straehle, “‘Samuel?’ ‘Yes, dear?’ Teasing and Conversational Rapport,” Gender and Conversational Interaction: Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 210–30.