If you don't possess Piers Morgan's interrogation skills, making someone laugh may encourage them to spill their secrets. Researchers claim that sharing a few chuckles makes people more willing to tell others something personal about themselves, without necessarily being aware that they are doing so. The act of verbally opening up to someone is a crucial building block that helps to form new relationships and intensify social bonds. Laughing with a stranger (illustrated with a stock image) makes us more likely to open up and tell others something personal about ourselves, which encourages bonds of friendship, a new study claims . Such self-disclosure can be of a highly sensitive nature - like sharing one's religious convictions or personal fears - or a superficial scrap of information such as a favourite type of food. Alan Gray of University College London (UCL) set out to investigate the role and influence of laughter in this disclosure process. Together with his colleagues, he observed the behaviour of 112 students from Oxford University, who did not known each other and were divided into groups of four. They watched a 10-minute video together, without chatting to one another. The videos were designed to invoke different amounts of laughter as well as the amount of positive feelings or emotions they elicited. Participants watched different videos including a clip of comedian Michael MacIntyre (pictured) to encourage them to laugh . One, for example, featured a stand-up comedy routine by Michael McIntyre, while another was a golf instruction video and a third, an excerpt from a nature documentary. After the volunteers watched the chosen video, the levels of laughter and their emotional state was measured. Each group member also had to write a message to another participant to help them get to know each other better. The researchers found that participants who had a good laugh together shared significantly more intimate information than the groups who did not watch the comedy routine. Mr Gray suggests this is not merely because it is a positive experience, but because of the physiology behind laughter, which triggers the release of the so-called ‘happy hormone’ endorphin. The findings, published in Springer's journal Human Nature, support the idea that laughter encourages people to make more intimate disclosures to strangers. Scientists believe that the person who disclosed information, was seldom aware of what they had done, and it was only the listener who realised it had happened. ‘This seems to be in line with the notion that laughter is linked specifically to fostering behaviors that encourage relationship development, since observer ratings of disclosure may be more important for relationship development than how much one feels one is disclosing,’ Mr Gray said. ‘These results suggest that laughter should be a serious topic for those interested in the development of social relationships.’ A recent study has revealed that playfulness comes high on the list of desirable attributes in a long-term partner. Experts say that a sense of fun is more important to many people than whether someone has a degree or is religious. Research by the University of Zurich revealed that playfulness is important to both sexes – just behind friendliness, intelligence and a sense of humour. Play to win hearts: A new study has revealed that playfulness comes high on the list of desirable attributes in a partner (illustrated with a stock image) - just behind friendliness, intelligence and a sense of humour . They also found that naturally playful people deem humour, a laid back attitude and creativity more important in partners than their more serious peers. They described playful adults as those having a love of wordplay who enjoy teasing, people who are spontaneous and will take on a challenge lightheartedly and those who play the fool, for example. Reserachers asked asked 327 young adults from Germany, Switzerland and Austria to examine a list of 16 characteristics and indicate whether or not they found them desirable in a potential long-term partner. The results showed that men and women largely agreed in their orders of preference, although there were differences in individual ratings. For example, women found a sense of humour more important than men and men found an exciting personality more important than women. Friendliness, intelligence, humour and a fun tendency came at the top of the list. Playfulness ranked mid-table, although not all that far behind the favourites. ‘Therefore, this personality trait also seems important for the choice of partner – at least more so that the partner having a degree, good genes or being religious,’ said Dr René Proyer.
Act of verbally opening up to someone helps form friendships . University College London explored the effect using video clips . Found the comedy clip promoted more sharing than a less funny video .