The converger and assimilator are like our book-smart person; the diverger, like our art-smart; and the accommodator, like our street-smart and people-smart.
It sounds brutal, but the people-pleaser is lying for poignant reasons: not in order to gain advantage, but because they are terrified of the displeasure of others.
They are noting that the Victorians suddenly seem to become more human as the hundred-or-so years that separate us fade away through our common experience of laughter.
Something we do when we like to sound friendly and also emotional and like we're feeling something, like we sound a bit more human when we do this in British intonation, is called an up-down tone.