White-coat laughter. (Indications).

Imagine someone watching videotapes of your visits with patients and counting the laughs and smiles. Markku Haakana, Ph.D., of the University of Helsinki (Finland), did just that, reporting that during 60 visits there were 251 occurrences of laughter by patients and 59 by doctors (J. Sociolinguistics 6[2]:207-35, 2002). Also, 70% of patients' laughter was not reciprocated by doctors; 44% of doctors' laughter was not reciprocated by patients. Still unresolved was whether smiling responses should be considered nonreciprocation. "If so, the ...