Tiara Fernandes-Boyce

Psychology of Humor//Final Paper

Professor McCoy
December 13, 2017

We all learned humor helps build relationships, but we did not explore in depth the

personal level of humor and romantic partners. Research has discovered that humor is important

in romantic attraction and I fully agree with this because humor helps start relationships.

I found an article that briefly summarized a series of studies conducted by Jefferey A.

Hall and a team of psychologist whose research demonstrated a strong link between humor and

romantic attraction/relationships. These studies were intended to link humor and intelligence, but

instead he discovered new things that supported dating interest. The article lists explanations to

why humor is important for finding partners.

Here are the four explanations stated by Hall:

 Humor points to having a sociable and agreeable personality.

 Men use humor to gauge if women are interested in them.

 When men make jokes and women laugh, they may be performing a script in courtship.

Men acting like jokers and women laughing along may be a part of it.

 Humor is valuable for humor’s sake. “Shared laughter might be a pathway toward

developing a more long-lasting relationship.”

While reading I had noted that this article was not enough to fully grasp the idea of Hall’s

experiments, but knew it connected with everything we have learned thus far. Wanting to

understand more on this study by Jeffrey Hall I found his research on this topic. His research
consisted of three studies that were intended to find the link between humor and intelligence, and

with the utilization of three ways to measure humor; lens model (possibility to measure humor

production, intelligence and personality), self-report, and observed. The team used three separate

tactics to measure humor and these are; Facebook usage, self-reported courtship behavior, and

first-time interactions. His hypothesis’ were crafted to test humor and intelligence, but later

conducted different expectations. Hypothesis 1a: Humor production will be associated with

intelligence, particularly verbal intelligence. Hypothesis 1b: Humor production will be

perceived to be associated with intelligence. Hypothesis 2a: Males will produce humor more

than females. Hypothesis 2b: Females will be more interested in humor producing males

compared to males’ interest in humor producing females. Hypothesis 3: Females should possess

greater humor comprehension than males. Hypothesis 4a: Females will show more humor

appreciation than males. Hypothesis 4b: Females who show more humor appreciation will have

lower mate value than females who show less humor appreciation. He wanted his findings to

support the idea of sexual selection which is natural selection through the preference of one sex

for specific characteristics in individuals of the opposite sex (Hall, 2015)

Study one uses data retrieved from Facebook users at a university that consisted of eight

recent pictures, an about page, and recent wall posts of 100 participants. They had to complete an

online survey regarding their humor and take a test to determine which of the Five personality’s

they fall under. A group of fifteen people were trained to watch for humor attempts by the

participants they were called, coders. The results showed no correlation to intelligence or sex

differences.
 Study two had nearly 300 participants fill out survey’s about humor in courtship, humor,

personality, mate value, scholastic achievement and demographics. Hypothesis 1a, 2a, 3, 4a, and

4b were not supported with the results.

Study three consisted of 51 pairs of straight single students to study the impressions of

first time interactions. One male and one female sat face to face for ten to twelve minutes talking

and interacting with each other. Results showed males used more humor than females, and

females laughed at more of males’ humor attempts than males laughed at females’ humor

attempts.

Overall study three demonstrated that there is a strong link between humor and attraction.

Two hypotheses were supported during this final study: females appreciated males’ humor more

than males appreciated females humor, and females who appreciated males’ attempts at humor

were more interested in dating than males’ who appreciated females’ attempts at humor,

hypothesis’ 2b and 4a (Hall, 2015). Results showed the more times women laughed at a male’s

jokes, then the more likely she was romantically interested.

After reading this research study, it had connected with the reading on Personality

Approaches to the Sense of Humor. This talked about people naturally associating themselves

with those of humorous characteristics, and explained the differences in humor appreciation.

Humor is like a personality, and individuals search for those whose personalities stick out to

them. Naturally an individual prefers someone of the same personality that they can connect

with. The reading states, “Subjects’ positive and negative responses…. were thought to reveal

their unconscious needs…” (page 6) I think this shows that if a woman laughs more and more at

a man’s joke then she may like him more on a romantic level, and if she did not laugh as much

then it shows she is not interested. Chapter 2 of Laughing Together: Interpersonal Humor states
on page 50, “A crafty experiment revealed that people who laugh a lot when they first meet feel

closer than those who have an equally enjoyable time but dont actually laugh.” (Earleywine,

2010) Also, on page 55 the author writes, “Darwin (1871) emphasized that many behaviors are

designed to attract mates even if they don’t lead directly to creating more viable offspring.”

(Earleywine, 2010) These two quotes connect with Hall’s research, providing in the study

women who laughed more at a man’s joke felt more comfortable when first interacting. Humor

attracts the attention of many individuals.

I agree with the outcome of this study because what I have watched and experienced

throughout the lecture has taught me humor sets the precedent for relationships from the

beginning whether it is friendship or partnership. On the other hand, I disagree with the results of

women appreciating the humor in men more than men appreciating humor in women. The results

and study were indicating that women should appreciate the humor more because of

reproduction and the natural selection. In society women are perceived as the more picky species

because of reproduction and how hard it is to conceive children, so naturally they want a mate

whose genes show intelligence and survival. Humor increases creativity and creativity enhances

wit and wit is like sarcasm and sarcasm connects to intelligence, so scientist say. Intelligence is

important in survival.

Men want women to appreciate their jokes rather than tell the jokes. I strongly believe

this is because of the past perceptions of women and humor. For decades women were told they

could not be funnier than men because they had no sense of humor. Connecting this to the

articles of why women are not funny, for decades men were the face of the comedy industry. In

an article titled Why Women Aren’t Funny Hitchens states, “Precisely because humor is a sign of

intelligence (and many women believe, or were taught by their mothers, that they become
threatening to men if they appear too bright), it could be that in some way men do not want

women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals” (Hitchens, 2007). I think this

proves that to this day, how society views humor is sexist especially when it comes to humor

appreciation in relationships. As previously mentioned the third study of Hall’s research

demonstrated the gap in humor appreciation and how it varied between the genders, but I still

feel there is not enough study to prove this.

Because in every lecture, assigned readings, videos, and articles we have studied, it all

ended with how individuals found humor attractive, from the workplace, to group cohesion, and

romantic relationships humor has always been a top characteristic people were naturally attracted

to. Humor signals creativity and intelligence and because of natural selection individuals favor

this because it demonstrates strong genes. Connecting the topic with The Social Psychology of

Humor and many more readings I learned humor is essential for all types of interaction.

Therefore, I think an in-depth study on how humor appreciation differs between the two genders.

Because overall, I felt as if the three studies and readings were slightly sexist because of the past

notion with women and humor.

I feel like I started off wanting to find an article that would help me connect humor with

sex and aggression but went down a different route and discovered more on humor and

appreciation. I loved searching and learning about these studies because it brought more

knowledge about how we can measure humor and attraction along with how humor and

appreciation connect with the social psychology of humor and the different theories on humor. I

wish I could have gone more in-depth with my findings and do more research on this topic

because it was fun to learn and question psychology.

 Works Cited:

University of Kansas. (2015, September 3). Laughter, then love: Study explores why humor is

important in romantic attraction. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 14, 2017 from

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150903131553.htm

Nicholson, C. (2012, October 01). The Humor Gap. Retrieved December 14, 2017, from

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-humor-gap-2012-10-23/

C. (2014, February 18). Retrieved December 14, 2017, from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-

05jpK98Vg&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=TheCharismaMatrix

*I tried to cite the pdf’s but had serious trouble*