Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

When we tease, linguist Herb Clark observes, we frame the interaction as one that occurs in a playful, nonserious realm of social exchange: Herbert H. Clark, Using Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Clark has been exploring how language offers the capacity to represent different layers of social reality, and he suggests that in teasing we take on different identities.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell argued: Bertrand Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis (London: Allen and Unwin, 1938), 10.

Male fig wasps: Krebs and Davies, An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology, 157.

Given the enormous costs of negotiating rank, many species have shifted to ritualized battles: Ibid., chap. 7.

frogs and toads use the depth of their croaks to negotiate rank: ibid.

boys who were rising to the top of the hierarchy: R. C. Savin-Williams, “Dominance in a Human Adolescent Group,” Animal Behavior 25 (1977): 400–406.

Our nickname paradigm: Keltner et al., “Teasing in Hierarchical and Intimate Relations.”

The great satirist Rabelais described nicknames: F. Rabelais, Garantua and Pantagruel, trans. J. Cohen (Baltimore: Penguin/Everyman’s Library, 1955).

Monica Moore surreptitiously observed: M. M. Moore, “Nonverbal Courtship Patterns in Women: Context and Consequences,” Ethology and Sociobiology 6 (1985): 237–47.

partners with a richer vocabulary of teasing insults are happier: R. A. Bell, N. L. Buerkel-Rothfuss, and K. E. Gore, “‘Did You Bring the Yarmulke for the Cabbage Patch Kid?’ The Idiomatic Communication of Young Lovers,” Human Communication Research 14, no. 1 (1985): 47–67; L. A. Baxter, “An Investigation of Compliance-Gaining as Politeness,” Human Communication Research 10 (1984): 427–56; L. A. Baxter, “Forms and Functions of Intimate Play in Personal Relationships,” Human Communication Research 18 (1984): 336–63.

couples who had been together for several years tease each other: Keltner et al., “Teasing in Hierarchical and Intimate Relations.”

thanks to research by Craig Anderson and Brad Bushman: C. A. Anderson and B. J. Bushman, “Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature,” Psychological Science 12 (2001): 353–59.

It emerges early: V. Reddy, “Playing with Others’ Expectations: Teasing and Mucking About in the First Year,” in Natural Theories of Mind: Evolution, Development, and Simulation of Everyday Mindreading, ed. A. Whiten (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 143–58.

The teasing of children with obesity problems: J. K. Thompson, J. Cattarin, B. Fowler, and E. Fisher, “The Perception of Teasing Scale (POTS): A Revision and Extension of the Physical Appearance Related Teasing Scale (PARTS),” Journal of Personality Assessment 65 (1995): 146–57; Thompson et al., “Development and Validation of the Physical Appearance Related Teasing Scale,” Journal of Personality Assessment 56 (1991): 513–21.

The literature on bullies bears this out: D. Olweus, Aggression in Schools: Bullies and Whipping Boys (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1978); Olweus, Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1993).

elevated love, amusement, and mirth: Keltner et al., “Teasing in Hierarchical and Intimate Relations.”

consistent with the tendency for low power to trigger a threat system: D. Keltner, D. H. Gruenfeld, and C. Anderson, “Power, Approach, and Inhibition,” Psychological Review 110, no. 2 (2003): 265–84.

teasing in romantic bonds defined by power asymmetries: ibid.

they add irony and sarcasm to their social repertoire: E. Winner, The Point of Words: Children’s Understanding of Metaphor and Irony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), Winner and S. Leekam, “Distinguishing Irony from Deception: Understanding the Speaker’s Second-Order Intention,” British Journal of Developmental Psychology 9 (1991): 257–70.

a precipitous twofold drop in the reported incidences of bullying: P. K. Smith and P. Brain, “Bullying in Schools: Lessons from Two Decades of Research,” Aggressive Behavior 26, no. 1 (2000): 1–9.

we created an opportunity for boys at two different developmental stages to taunt one another at a basketball camp: M. A. Logli et al., “Teasing, Taunting, and Gossip,” unpublished manuscript.