Gelotophobia in romantic life: Replicating associations with attachment styles and their mediating role for relationship status

Abstract

The fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia) plays a detrimental role in courtship (e.g., predicting a lower likelihood of entering a relationship) and romantic relationships (e.g., low relationship satisfaction). Gelotophobia correlates positively with anxious and avoidant romantic attachment. This study aims to replicate (a) the associations between gelotophobia and romantic attachment and (b) the mediating role of attachment in the association between gelotophobia and relationship experience using a sample of N = 531 participants (M = 32.1 years; 63.7% singles). Previous findings replicated well, as gelotophobia positively relates to avoidant and anxious attachment and lower likelihood of entering a romantic relationship. Contrary to earlier research, only anxiety mediated the association between gelotophobia and relationship status. We discuss the findings regarding the attachment framework of long-term singlehood.

Keywords

Attachment styles gelotophobia laughter romantic relationships

Although common wisdom assumes that “laughter is the best medicine,” there are those who do not experience laughter as expression of joyful or positive emotions. Gelotophobia (Greek: gelos = laughter) describes interindividual differences in fear of being laughed at on a dimension from no to extreme fear (Ruch & Proyer, 2008a, 2008b). Those high in gelotophobia experience laughter as malicious ridicule and a means to put them down. They show an almost paranoid sensitivity to signs of laughter and smiling and feel that it is directed at them (e.g., when laughing strangers pass by). The localization of gelotophobia in broad personality systems such as the Eysenckian PEN-model has shown that gelotophobes show inclinations to introversion, neuroticism, and higher expressions in older, more clinically oriented, psychoticism scales (Ruch & Proyer, 2009). To date, there are around 100 studies using numerous methodological approaches to examine the antecedents and consequences of gelotophobia (for an overview see e.g., Ruch et al., 2014). There is increasing interest in the study of gelotophobia in romantic life. Our study contributes to the knowledge in the field by replicating initial findings on attachment styles and their mediating role for entering romantic relationships.

There are two main findings on gelotophobia in romantic life: First, gelotophobia relates to a lower likelihood of entering romantic relationships cross-sectionally and over the life span (e.g., Brauer et al., 2020; Platt & Forabosco, 2012). An explanation that has been put forward is that gelotophobes misinterpret potential partners’ expressions of positive emotions (e.g., smiling and laughter on the first date) and then lose interest, because they feel ridiculed. However, they do desire a long-term romantic relationship (Platt & Forabosco, 2012). Secondly, some gelotophobes do enter relationships. Brauer and Proyer (2018) studied 154 romantic couples and found that their relationships are characterized by assortative mating preferences (which potentially helps in initiating the relationship because both partners are less inclined to engage in smiling and laughter) and lower relationship satisfaction. To extend the knowledge on potential mechanisms behind the aforementioned findings, Brauer and colleagues (2020) studied romantic attachment styles in relation to gelotophobia.

Attachment styles describe individual differences in how people experience and engage in their relationships with significant others (e.g., parents, romantic partner, or friends; Fraley, 2019). Romantic attachment is described along two orthogonal dimensions: anxiety describes worrying about the relationship and the partner (e.g., regarding their reliability) and avoidance describes the (dis)engagement in close relationships (e.g., being distant to potential partners). Previous experiences shape the internal working models that represent expectations toward close relationships, and it has been found that attachment styles can differ depending on the type of relationship (e.g., romantic partner vs. parents) and are malleable by new experiences (e.g., being betrayed by the partner might increase attachment avoidance for incipient relationships; Fraley & Roisman, 2019). Numerous studies show the contribution of attachment styles to romantic life, as it robustly relates to important outcomes such as relationship satisfaction/status (e.g., Fraley, 2019; Fraley & Roisman, 2019; Neumann et al., 2007).

For gelotophobia, Brauer and colleagues (2020) expected higher expressions of anxious and avoidant attachment, based on previous findings of adolescents’ attachment to their parents (e.g., Wu et al., 2015) and their localization in theoretically near variables (e.g., mistrusting partners). In line with expectations, gelotophobia was positively related to anxiety and avoidance (rs = .43/.24; 18/5% shared variance beyond age and gender; N = 247). Moreover, attachment styles mediated the negative association between gelotophobia and the likelihood of entering a romantic relationship throughout the life span, yielding an indirect effect of d = −.24/−.21 for anxiety/avoidance; thus, gelotophobia positively relates to anxious/avoidant attachment, which contributes to having never entered a relationship throughout life. Further, they reanalyzed the couple data and found that attachment mediates relationship satisfaction for actors and partners (partner-effects limited to avoidance). Thus, attachment styles contribute to understanding why gelotophobia is related to negative outcomes in romantic life.

We aim to replicate Brauer and colleagues’ (2020) findings to evaluate their robustness, as that study’s sample size and percentage of those who had never entered a relationship (11.3%) were comparatively small. Hence, we expected that gelotophobia would relate positively to attachment anxiety and avoidance, and would predict relationship experience (RE; i.e., having ever been in a romantic relationship throughout their life) negatively. Also, we expected to replicate that attachment styles mediate the association between gelotophobia and RE.

Method

Participants and procedure

Our sample consisted of 531 adults (18–80 years; M = 32.1, SD = 13.3, median = 26.0; 34.5% males, 65.5% females) who were recruited via leaflets on campus of the University of Zurich and completed the questionnaires in the paper–pencil version and returned them upon completion to the principal investigator. Half of the participants (50.5%) were employed, 38.0% students, 4.7% stay-at-home husbands/wives, 3.0% retirees, 1.3% in vocational training, and one participant was unemployed (six did not indicate their professional status). The educational status was high: 48.0% held a university degree, 30.1% had completed vocational training, 17.5% held the high school diploma qualifying them to attend university, 2.3% held a regular high school diploma, and 1 participant did not hold a degree (10 participants did not indicate their highest academic degree).

Our sample size allowed us to find correlation effects of ρ ≥ .12/.14 with 80/90% power (α = .05, two-tailed tests; G*Power 3.1; Faul et al., 2009) and small-to-medium mediation effect sizes (Fritz & MacKinnon, 2007).

Instruments

The GELOPH-<15> (Ruch & Proyer, 2008b) is the standard instrument to assess gelotophobia. It consists of 15 items (e.g., “I get suspicious when others laugh in my presence”) and utilizes a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree). There is robust evidence for the instrument’s reliability (e.g., α ≥ .90; retest stability r_tt ≥ .80 for up to 6 months) and its factorial, convergent, and nomological validity (Ruch & Proyer, 2008a, 2009).

The Experiences in Close Relationships–Revised instrument (ECR-R; Fraley et al., 2000; German: Neumann et al., 2007) assesses the dimensions anxiety (e.g., “I’m afraid that I will lose my partner’s love”) and avoidance (e.g., “I prefer not to be too close to romantic partners”) with 18 items, each on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strong disagreement, 7 = strong agreement). The reliability of the German-language ECR-R is high (α ≥ .85), and there is robust evidence for the two-factorial structure and the expected correlations with external variables (Neumann et al., 2007).

Data analysis

We computed bivariate correlations and a regression analysis (method = ENTER) to examine the association between the GELOPH-<15> and the ECR-R. In line with Brauer et al. (2020), we predicted the dichotomous variable RE in two logistic regression models, namely, the baseline model (gelotophobia as single predictor) and the mediation model, to examine the mediating effects of attachment styles (anxiety and avoidance as parallel mediators; see Online Supplemental Material). RE was coded as 0 = never been in a long-term, serious, and steady romantic relationship (excluding short-term dating and casual relationships) (63.7%) or 1 = been in a long-term, steady, and serious relationship at least once during lifetime (36.0%) (two participants did not indicate their RE¹). The analyses were computed in Mplus 8.3 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2017) using maximum-likelihood estimation. We examined odds ratios and computed effect sizes d (Borenstein et al., 2009). Statistical significance of the indirect effects was tested by examining bootstrapped (k = 5,000) 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

Results

Preliminary analyses

The internal consistencies of all measures were high (α ≥ .87; see Table 1), and the distribution of the GELOPH-<15> scores was comparable to previous findings (e.g., Ruch & Proyer, 2008b, 2009) but lower than in Brauer et al. (2020; Hedges’ g = 0.51). While our sample showed expressions of avoidance comparable with previous studies (e.g., Brauer et al., 2020; Neumann et al., 2007), our participants showed lower attachment anxiety. Correlations with age and gender were negligible (all rs ≤ .13).

Table 1.

Internal consistencies, descriptive statistics, and associations between gelotophobia and attachment styles.

	α	M	SD	r _gelotophobia	β_gelotophobia
Gelotophobia	.87	1.73	0.47	—	—
Anxiety	.90	2.60	0.97	.40***	.34***
Avoidance	.90	2.78	0.89	.28***	.13**

Note. N = 525–531. SD = standard deviation.

**p < .01. ***p < .001. Two-tailed.

Attachment styles

We found positive correlations between gelotophobia and both attachment dimensions (see Table 1). The differences in the size of coefficients compared with Brauer et al.’s (2020) findings were negligible (Δr_max = .04; z ≤ 0.554, p ≥ .580). Attachment anxiety and avoidance explained 17.1% variance in gelotophobia with a medium regression effect size (f² = 0.21, F_2,522 = 53.9, p < .001; β-weights in Table 1). Combining the findings with Brauer et al. (N_total = 772; for the aggregation method see Goh et al., 2016) shows that gelotophobia is robustly related to anxious (r_meta = .41) and avoidant (r_meta = .27) attachment.

Relationship experience

As expected, anxiety (r = −.20) and gelotophobia (r = −.14, ps ≤ .001) showed negative associations with RE, whereas avoidance was unrelated to RE (r = −.04, p = .362). The regression analysis of the baseline model showed that gelotophobia predicted a lower likelihood of having been in a relationship (d = −0.37, p < .001; see Table 2). When including attachment styles as mediators, the direct effect of gelotophobia on RE decreased (Δd = −0.16; see Table 2) and only anxiety was predictive of lower RE (d = −0.25, p < .001). Again, avoidance showed a negligible effect (d = −0.10, p = .142). The examination of indirect effects showed that anxiety mediated the association between gelotophobia and RE (b = −0.38, 95% CI = [−0.64, −0.24]; d = −0.21) with a small effect, whereas the contribution of avoidance was near zero (b = 0.09, 95% CI = [−0.03, 0.24]; d = 0.05). The total indirect effect of attachment was statistically significant but of small size (b = −0.29, 95% CI = [0.52, 0.09]; d = −0.16). Overall, the total effect of gelotophobia and attachment styles on RE was of medium effect size (b = −0.68, 95% CI = [−1.14, −0.27]; d = −0.37).

Table 2.

Parallel mediation analysis predicting RE by gelotophobia mediated by romantic attachment (anxiety/avoidance).

	Direction of effect	b	OR	d
Baseline model
C	Gelotophobia → Status	−0.67***	0.51	−0.37
Mediation model
Direct effects
a1	Gelotophobia → Anxiety	0.82***
a2	Gelotophobia → Avoidance	0.53***
b1	Anxiety → Status	−0.46***	0.63	−0.25
b2	Avoidance → Status	0.18	1.19	0.10
c’	Gelotophobia → Status	−0.39	0.68	−0.21
Indirect effects
a1b1	Gelotophobia → Anxiety → Status	−0.38***	0.68	−0.21
a2b2	Gelotophobia → Avoidance → Status	0.09	1.10	0.05
Indirect total		−0.29*	0.75	−0.16
Total effect		−0.68**	0.51	−0.37

Note. N = 525. The outcome is coded 0/1 = no RE; currently/having been in a relationship. d = effect size; RE = relationship experience; OR = odds ratio.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion

The present study provided three main findings: (a) the positive associations between gelotophobia and anxious and avoidant romantic attachment replicated well in a substantially larger sample containing more long-term singles; (b) gelotophobia robustly related to low likelihood of having entered a romantic relationship; and (c) attachment styles contribute to our understanding of why gelotophobia relates to single status.

Our findings corroborate the notion that gelotophobia goes along with insecure attachment. It must be noted that we oversampled long-term singles, and findings should be interpreted in conjunction with Brauer and colleagues’ (2020) prior findings. The correlations between gelotophobia and attachment dimensions replicated well in our sample, with comparable effect sizes and anxiety being the best predictor of gelotophobia. In this study, only anxiety mediated the gelotophobia-RE association. Considering that the previously found effect for avoidance was of small size and did not replicate in our sample containing more long-term singles, avoidant attachment might be subsidiary to understand gelotophobes’ low inclinations to enter relationships.

Pepping and MacDonald’s (2019) attachment framework of long-term singlehood suggests that singlehood can mainly be driven by anxiety or avoidance. Anxiety-based singlehood goes along with overactivation of the attachment system, while avoidance-related singlehood is characterized by deactivation. Anxious singles desire to enter relationships while being oversensitive to signs of rejection, unconfident of successfully initiating an intimate relationship, and showing maladaptive behaviors (e.g., jealousy) that hinder establishing close relationships. Gelotophobes’ desire for a romantic relationship and their inclinations to loneliness (e.g., Führ et al., 2015; Platt & Forabosco, 2012) fit well into the pattern of anxiety-based long-term singlehood (Pepping & MacDonald, 2019). In contrast, predictions for avoidance-related singlehood (e.g., downplaying the desire for relationships, engagement, and satisfaction in nonromantic life domains) are not supported. Hence, the gelotophobia-RE association might be well described by the anxiety-based long-term singlehood paradigm. Attachment trainings (Hudson et al., 2020) could aim to reduce anxiety in gelotophobes to increase their romantic well-being.

The generalization of findings is limited, as we collected only self-ratings; thus, common method variance might overestimate correlations. Also, we only tested romantic attachment, further studies are needed to clarify attachment to friends or parents (Fraley & Roisman, 2019). Further, cross-cultural validation should be tested; previous studies have shown that there is cultural variation in both attachment styles and gelotophobia (Agishtein & Brumbaugh, 2013; Ruch et al., 2014). Finally, future research could examine the dynamic interplay between gelotophobia and attachment styles over time. There is evidence that attachment styles are malleable (see e.g., Fraley & Roisman, 2019), and changes in attachment might also contribute to understanding why a portion of gelotophobes eventually enter relationships, beyond the assumption and contribution of assortative mating preferences in courtship (Brauer & Proyer, 2018).

In conclusion, our replication study corroborated findings on the localization of gelotophobia into dimensions of romantic attachment and extended our understanding of gelotophobia in romantic life. We encourage future research to expand our findings methodologically (e.g., implementing alternative data sources such as peer ratings; see Brauer & Proyer, 2020) and contextually (e.g., attachment toward parents or peers).

Supplemental material

Supplemental Material, ESM - Gelotophobia in romantic life: Replicating associations with attachment styles and their mediating role for relationship status

Supplemental Material, ESM for Gelotophobia in romantic life: Replicating associations with attachment styles and their mediating role for relationship status by Kay Brauer and René T. Proyer in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Kay Brauer

Open research statement

As part of IARR’s encouragement of open research practices, the authors have provided the following information: This research was not pre-registered. The data used in the research are available. The data can be obtained at or by emailing kay.brauer@psych.uni-halle.de. The materials used in the research are available. The materials can be obtained at doi:10.23668/psycharchives.377 (Experiences in Close Relationships–Revised) and doi:10.23668/psycharchives.439 (gelotophobia scale) or by emailing kay.brauer@psych.uni-halle.de.

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Note

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