A great way to get to know someone better is to say something that makes them laugh.
想要更好地瞭解別人，一個好辦法就是說些能讓他們發笑的事。
Sharing a few good giggles and chuckles makes people more willing to tell others something personal about themselves, without even necessarily being aware that they are doing so, suggests new research.
新研究顯示，分享一些好笑的事會讓人更樂意告訴別人自己的私事，甚至當他們這樣做的時候，也根本不會意識到這一點。
Alan Gray of University College London discovered the tidbit in a new study recently published in the journal Human Nature.
英國倫敦大學學院(University College London)的艾倫格雷(Alan Gray)在研究中發現了這一有趣的現象。最近，他的這項研究成果發表在了《人類天性》(Human Nature)雜誌上。
According to Gray, the act of verbally opening up to someone is a crucial building block that helps to form new relationships and intensify social bonds.
格雷認爲，用言語向他人敞開心扉的行爲是幫助人們建立新關係，增強人與人之間社會聯繫的重要基本要素。
Such self-disclosure can be of a highly sensitive nature — like sharing one’s religious convictions or personal fears — or a superficial tidbit such as one’s favorite type of food.
自我表露的過程具有高度敏感性——好比分享宗教信仰或者害怕之物——或者只是一個流於表面的趣聞，比如最愛的食物類型。
To investigate the role and influence of laughter in this disclosure process, Gray and his colleagues gathered 112 students from Oxford University in England, into groups of four.
爲了調查笑聲在自我表露過程中扮演的角色和產生的影響，格雷和他的同事從英國牛津大學(Oxford University)召集了112個學生，並把他們分爲四組。
The students did not know one another. The groups watched a 10-minute video together, without chatting to one another.
學生們彼此都不認識。每組會坐在一起看一個10分鐘的視頻，期間並無交談。
The videos differed in the amount of laughter they invoked, and the amount of positive feelings or emotions they elicited.
視頻的區別在於，引人發笑的'頻率和傳達積極情緒或情感的效力各有不同。
One featured a stand-up comedy routine by Michael McIntyre, another a straightforward golf instruction video, and the third a pleasant nature excerpt from the “Jungles” episode of the BBC’s Planet Earth series.
一個視頻是邁克爾麥金太爾(Michael McIntyre)的單人喜劇秀，一個是簡短的高爾夫教學片，第三個是從《BBC行星地球系列》(BBC’s Planet Earth series)“叢林”(Jungles)一集裏節選的一個令人愉悅的自然片段。
The levels of laughter and the participants’ emotional state after watching the video was th