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Patient's coworker just finished a joke at the water cooler. The joke was not funny. The joke, in fact, was barely identifiable as a joke. Patient laughed anyway — a short, involuntary 'ha!' produced entirely by social autopilot. The coworker is now encouraged and telling a second joke. Patient is trapped. The second joke will also not be funny. Patient will laugh anyway.
Chronic. Polite laughter rate exceeds genuine laughter by approximately 4:1.
None. Not laughing is, socially, a confrontation.
Patients with Chronic Polite-Laugh Reflex Disorder typically present with some or all of the following:
Chronic Polite-Laugh Reflex Disorder was added to the Institute catalog in response to a pattern our clinicians kept seeing. The pattern did not have a real name. This is the real name now. Everything about this entry is made up, except the behavior.
The Institute has assigned this condition the Latin binomial Risus fictus automaticus — fictional nomenclature for a non-fictional pattern.
Think you have it? Find out what else you might be suffering from at the diagnosis generator. Or browse the full index of afflictions.