Abstract
People who have an excessive fear of being laughed at are referred to as 'gelotophobics.' Whereas most of us experience mirth upon hearing hostile jokes, gelotophobics are often unable to appreciate the humor. The neural networks associated with social motivation consist of distinct ventral and dorsal systems. The ventral system is associated with the recognition of emotionally salient stimuli and the generation of emotional states, whereas the dorsal system is involved in voluntary regulation of these states (Phillips et al., 2003, 2008). The present study aimed to investigate the activation of the ventral MCL dopamine reward system in response to hostile and non-hostile jokes in gelotophobics compared to matched controls (non-gelotophobics).