Is there a word for laughing when faced with a hopeless situation? [duplicate]

A word for the unexpected reaction of laughing in a situation of complete hopelessness or laughing with sad undertones

Solution 1:

Gallows humor is "humor that treats serious, frightening, or painful subject matter in a light or satirical way." It has the connotation of someone laughing at their own execution.

Urban Dictionary actually has a good summary:

gallows humor
Sense of humor that arises from stressful, traumatic or life-threatening situations where death seems to be an inevitability. Different from black humor in that comments of this sort are made by the person/persons affected (i.e. about to die).

It is not always used to mean that the person is facing literal death, but the idea is the same. They are expressing amusement or using humor in the face of their own inevitable fate.

Solution 2:

I think that generally the kind of laughter you're talking about could be called nervous laughter or a nervous chuckle. It looks like "nervous laughter" is an actual term that psychiatrists use to describe the kind of laugh people give when they're put in a stressful situation. There is even an entire article on Wikipedia dedicated specifically to this expression:

Unhealthy or "nervous" laughter comes from the throat. This nervous laughter is not true laughter, but an expression of tension and anxiety. Instead of relaxing a person, nervous laughter tightens them up even further. Much of this nervous laughter is produced in times of high emotional stress, especially during times where an individual is afraid they might harm another person in various ways, such as a person's feelings or even physically.