Dacher Keltner in The New York Times:
The reason teasing is viewed as inherently damaging is that it is too often confused with bullying. But bullying is something different; it’s aggression, pure and simple. Bullies steal, punch, kick, harass and humiliate. Sexual harassers grope, leer and make crude, often threatening passes. They’re pretty ineffectual flirts. By contrast, teasing is a mode of play, no doubt with a sharp edge, in which we provoke to negotiate life’s ambiguities and conflicts. And it is essential to making us fully human…
Placed into groups, children as young as 2 will soon form a hierarchy — it will be clear even among toddlers who is in charge and who is not. Hierarchies have many benefits — the smooth division of labor and resources, protecting weaker members of the group — but they can be deadly to negotiate. Male fig wasps chop their rivals in half with their large mandibles. Narwhal males loll about with tusk tips embedded in their jaws — vestiges of their status contests. Coyotes engage in heavily coded bouts of play; those who don’t live shorter, ostracized lives.
Given the perils of negotiating rank, many species have evolved dramatized status contests, relying on symbolic displays of physical size and force to peacefully sort out who’s on top. Stags roar. Frogs croak. Chimps throw branches around. Hippos open their jaws as wide as possible to impress competitors.
And humans tease. Teasing can be thought of as a status contest with a twist. As humans evolved the ability to form complex alliances, the power of a single individual came increasingly to depend on the ability to build strong bonds. Power became a matter of social intelligence (the good of the group) rather than of survival of the fittest (raw strength). As a status contest, teasing must walk a fine line, designating status while enhancing social connection.
And my mother always told me not to tease my sister! She didn’t realize it was an essential life skill.