The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of public self consciousness on forced laughter. Participants (N=409) were asked to imagine a group of either friends or acquaintances, and then to indicate how often he or she exhibited forced laughter toward the group members. They also completed Self Consciousness Scale (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975). Results indicated that persons with high public self consciousness reported more frequent expressions of all types of forced laughter-expression control, intimacy maintenance, action control, and affect manipulation-than those who were low, regardless of interpersonal intimacy level. Besides public self-consciousness, both gender and intimate feeling toward group members influenced frequency of forced laughter. Implications for the nature of public self-consciousness and forced laughter were discussed.
