When we care for someone, we want to see them smile; and what better way is there to make them smile than humor? Whether it’s an anecdote, a funny story about something that happened to you recently, or a hilarious meme, sharing it with others can arguably put not only them but you yourself in a good mood, too.

That’s the power of shared laughter, which tends to have a significant positive effect on people’s relationships. A study carried out by researchers at the University of North Carolina found that shared laughter can strengthen people’s relationships and the extent to which they like each other.

“For people who are laughing together, shared laughter signals that they see the world in the same way, and it momentarily boosts their sense of connection,” social psychologist and the co-author of the study, Sara Algoe, told the Greater Good Magazine. “Perceived similarity ends up being an important part of the story of relationships.”

Bearing in mind that laughter can strengthen any interpersonal relationship, it’s no surprise that it plays an important role when it comes to romantic relationships as well. The British Psychological Society reports that studies have found clear links between humor production and its perception and perceptions of the strength of a romantic relationship.

The findings of the study held for both men and women, regardless of the length of their relationship, and suggested that humor can function as a “tool for relationship maintenance.” The researchers noted that the results “were consistent with conceptualisations of humour as an indicator of continued compatibility or a lack of conflict.”

Delving deeper into humor and what happens in our brain when someone tells us a joke, BBC Science Focus pointed out that “humour, jokes, and laughter, have a vital role to play in human behaviour and interaction.”

In addition to being a powerful social glue, humor can help send a message or have stress-relieving properties, which is why it has been studied by quite a number of researchers. And by doing that, they found that humor engages the entirety of our brain.

“This is because jokes, and other humorous stimuli, typically include a great many sensory elements, as well as language, memory, emotion, analysis, extrapolation, and so on. These are all processed by disparate neurological regions and networks,” the BBC Science Focus article read in part.

According to the aforementioned source, because of the complex systems in our brains, humor can be derived from things being surprising, unexpected, or wrong in some form; the important thing is that they are eventually resolved, and without negative consequences. That is what the incongruity theory of humor is based on. But if the incongruity is not resolved, the humor in the pun, joke, or meme can fly right over our heads.

While some jokes can end up hurting us—if we laugh so hard we fall off our chair, for instance—which would make them not that funny anymore, memes are unlikely to; it’s a safe and time-tested way to put a smile on your own or someone else’s face.

So, if these memes did exactly that, make sure to share them with your loved ones and browse our meme category for more similarly funny content.