Watch any America’s Funniest Home Videos—it’s always the guy taking a hard and awkward spill that gets the biggest laugh.
But does it make you a jerk if you can’t stop chuckling when you see it happen in person?
Guffawing at someone who slips and falls may be in poor taste, but it’s actually a real-life variation of watching a circus clown act.
“We often laugh at unexpected antics,” explains psychologist Robert Provine, Ph.D., the author of Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond.
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Chuckling could also be an involuntary way to express relief or satisfaction that it wasn’t you who took the tumble, adds Jyotsna Vaid, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Texas A&M.;
Bottom line: It’s okay if you’re just laughing at the absurdity of the person’s fall, not the hard landing.
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On that note, what’s not normal is if you grow gleeful because you find humor in another person’s suffering—say, the embarrassment they feel after a public wipeout.
And you don’t want to be that kind of guy: Along with making you a jerk, it could hurt you socially as well as professionally, says Provine.
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So watch your step. While there are no official studies documenting this, we can say pretty confidently that karma’s a bitch.
