14 DAY TRIAL // Bangor University School of Psychology researcher Dr Erin Heerey argues in a recent study that teasing and “play fighting” improves children's abilities to tell apart real violence from pretended one, and learn how to use their bodies, face expressions and other non-verbal cues to communicate nuances of meaning to their peers. Teasing shouldn't always be regarded with prejudice, as it can help children or young teens better integrate themselves in groups.
Heerey says that this is also true at older ages, for example when graduates go to college. Being a part of a fraternity always involves “apprentices” being called names, or having lousy nicknames. But, in the long run, they only increase the individual's desire to join in and to erase the differences that set him or her apart from the people he or she wants to join.
"I think it takes a while for kids to gain proficiency. You can watch teenagers queuing up to buy a movie ticket and they banter with one another. They say really horrible things to one but they are all laughing and it's all fun," the researcher says.
Alongside California University researcher Dacher Keltner, Heerey conducted a study on various fraternities in the US and discovered that, in two years, new-comers who were “playfully humiliated” when they entered the group occupied leadership positions and were exerting onto others the same behavior that was exerted onto them. The researchers say that this find points at the fact that individuals in groups are very likely to pass on social norms the same way they learned them.
Talking about teasing in the British society, Heerey concludes that "People will say something outlandish with a totally straight face. But people in Britain poke fun at themselves a little bit more than Americans. As an American, you're expecting to see these non-verbal cues that say 'I'm joking' but you don't see them – but they are there and you just have to look a little closer."