Gelotophobia

Gelotophobia is a fear of being laughed at, a type of social phobia. German psychotherapist and psychoanalyst Michael Titze coined the concept from clinical observations in 1996 after finding that some of his patients were primarily worried about being laughed at, scanning their environment for signs of laughter and ridicule and reporting the impression that they themselves seemed ridiculous. Titze also observed a specific movement pattern among them when they believed they were being laughed at, awkward, wooden movements resembling those of a puppet, a state he described as Pinocchio syndrome.