Russell Brand – the new moral arbiter of parenthood – has claimed he would punch anyone who tried to tickle his young daughters. “It is an attempt to subvert the child’s bodily autonomy; to take away their right to their own space and peace,” he said.
It is unclear whether Brand tickles his own children – or indeed whether he has consent from them to do so – but obviously, says Sophie Scott, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, “you can’t just prance up to any child and start tickling them”. According to Scott, who is an expert on what causes laughter, this is not only because “a lot of people don’t really like being tickled at all”. It is usually a behaviour reserved for parents or caregivers and their children and is a way of kicking off preverbal communication. When you study laughter in humans and other mammals, says Scott, the first laughs tend to occur as a result of tickling. “Tickling exists as a mechanism to get laughter going.”
Why do we laugh when we are tickled? “Touch is a complex phenomenon,” she says. Different receptors under the skin will signal pain or irritation, for instance. “Tickling seems to be a signal your brain is getting that the sensation is coming from somebody else, not from you.” Which explains why you can’t tickle yourself.
Another positive aspect of tickling, says Scott, is: “We know from rats that the more they’re tickled as babies, the more they will laugh as an adult when tickled, and the more optimistic they will be – within the constraints of being rats.”
Like play-fighting, tickling games (played sensitively) can also help teach children about boundaries. “Most people do find being tickled quite aversive,” Scott concedes. “But when you’ve got used to being tickled by somebody, quite often you’ll start laughing before any tickling has even occurred. You’ve got your laugh.” In other words, you don’t even need to physically follow through.
When it comes to babies, if you’re keen to bond with them without prodding them (or if Brand is in the vicinity), Scott says there is a simple alternative: good old-fashioned peekaboo.
