While trust, communication and compromise are all key to building a strong, lasting relationship, there's one quality you might be overlooking.

Laughter.

According to new research, chuckling in tandem with your partner can bring you closer together and make you a happier couple overall.

Fascinated by the idea of shared laughter in romantic relationships, social psychologist Laura Kurtz from the University of North Carolina decided to put it to the test by observing 77 heterosexual couples who had been in a relationship for an average of four years.

Her team recorded each couple telling the story of how they first met and then counted the number of times the couple laughed together and how long it lasted. They also asked each couple to complete a survey about their closeness.

“Participants who laughed more with their partners during a recorded conversation in the lab tended to (also) report feeling closer to and more supported by their partners,” Kurtz tells Time. In contrast, “awkward chuckles, stunted grins and fake guffaws all are flags that there may be something amiss”.

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