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No Kidding: Teasing Is Good for Us

More than just goofing, ribbing regulates relationships

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 6, 2008 7:59 PM CST

(Newser) – A little teasing actually helps us all get along, Dacher Keltner argues in the New York Times Magazine. From the schoolyard to the NBA hardwood, America has come to oppose teasing, mostly because we too often confuse good-natured ribbing with bullying. “In rejecting teasing,” Keltner writes, “we may be losing something vital and necessary to our identity.”

That something is the ability “to test bonds and to create them,” because “teasing allows us to send messages in indirect, masked ways—an essential means of navigating our often-fraught social environments.” We can set up social hierarchies, do a little flirting, and blow off steam, all by teasing. "In seeking to protect our children from bullying and aggression, we risk depriving them of a most remarkable form of social exchange," writes Keltner.

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (2)]

"Teasing is not bullying, which is aggression, pure and simple," writes Keltner. "Bullies steal, punch, kick, harass and humiliate. By contrast, teasing can help regulate relationships." (Shutter Stock)

"In teasing, we learn to use our voices, bodies and faces, and to read those of others%u2014the raw materials of emotional intelligence and the moral imagination," writes Keltner. (Shutter Stock)

"Romantic teasing provides a way of negotiating the conflicts that send many couples to the therapist's couch," Keltner writes. (Shutter Stock)

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Bullying is aggression, pure and simple. By contrast, teasing is a mode of play, no doubt with a sharp edge, in which we provoke to negotiate life's ambiguities and conflicts.
- Dacher Keltner, the New York Times magazine

Our rush to banish teasing from social life has its origins in legitimate concerns about bullies on the playground and at work. We must remember, though, that teasing, like so many things, gets better with age. - Dacher Keltner, the New York Times magazine

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No Kidding: Teasing Is Good for Us