The role of creativity and humor in human mate selection (original) (raw)
Related papers
An Evolutionary Perspective on Humor: Sexual Selection or Interest Indication?
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2009
Are people who are funny more attractive? Or does being attractive lead people to be seen as funnier? The answer may depend on the underlying evolutionary function of humor. While humor has been proposed to signal “good genes,” the authors propose that humor also functions to indicate interest in social relationships—in initiating new relationships and in monitoring existing ones. Consistent with this interest indicator model, across three studies both sexes were more likely to initiate humor and to respond more positively and consider the other person to be funny when initially attracted to that person. The findings support that humor dynamics— and not just humor displays—influence romantic chemistry for both men and women, suggesting that humor can ultimately function as a strategy to initiate and monitor social relationships.
Production and appreciation of humor as sexually selected traits
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2006
Both men and women prefer someone with a bgood sense of humorQ as a relationship partner. However, two recent studies have shown that men are not attracted to funny women, suggesting the sexes use the phrase good sense of humor differently. To investigate this question, we measured the importance participants placed on a partner's production of humor vs. receptivity to their own humor. Men emphasized the importance of their partners' receptivity to their own humor, whereas women valued humor production and receptivity equally. In a second task, participants chose whether they preferred a person who only produced humor or a person who only appreciated their own humor for several types of relationships. Women preferred those who produced humor for all types of relationships, whereas men preferred those who were receptive to their own humor, particularly for sexual relationships. Our results suggest that sexual selection may have operated on men's and women's preferences during humorous interaction in dramatically different ways.
Miller has suggested that people seek humorousness in a mate because humor connotes intelligence, which would be valuable in a spouse. Since males tend to be the competing sex, men have been more strongly selected to be humorous. To test this notion, we explored the role of humor in marriage cross-culturally, in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Turkey, and Russia. In the first four societies, husbands were perceived to make wives laugh more than the reverse, but wives were funnier in Russia. Spousal humorousness was a ssociated with marital satisfaction in all cultures, especially the wife's satisfaction. Spousal humorousness was less consistently related to spousal intelligence than to some alternative possibilities: spousal kindness, dependability, and understanding. Furthermore, the relationship between these four v ariables and marital satisfaction was mediated by spousal humorousness. Humor is gratifying in other social contexts as well. Humorists may gain social credit by providing amusement, and may also use humor to gauge another's mood and to engender liking, perhaps especially in courtship and marriage. Spouses may also take humorousness as a sign of motivation to be amusing, kind, understanding, dependable -as a sign of commitment.
The influence of humor on desirability
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2006
Humorous interaction is a ubiquitous aspect of human social behavior, yet the function of humor has rarely been studied from a Darwinian perspective. One exception is Miller's theory that one's ability to produce high-quality humor functioned as a fitness indicator, and hence, humor production and appreciation have evolved as a result of sexual selection. In this study, we examined whether there are sex differences in attraction to humorous individuals, and whether using humor influences perceptions of humorists' personality traits. We experimentally manipulated how humorous two-stimulus persons were perceived to be by presenting them with autobiographical statements that were either funny or not. Participants chose which person was a more desirable partner for a romantic relationship, and which individual was more likely to have several personality traits. Only women evaluating men chose humorous people as preferred relationship partners. For both sexes, humorous individuals were seen as less intelligent and trustworthy than their nonhumorous counterparts, but as more socially adept. These results are discussed in light of sexual selection theory.
Sex differences in preferences for humor: a replication, modification, and extension
Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior, 2015
Evolutionary-minded scientists have proposed that humor is a sexually selected trait in men that signals mate quality. Indeed, women tend to prefer men who make them laugh and men tend to prefer women who laugh at their jokes. However, it is unclear how robust this pattern is. Here we report a replication of one of the first studies (Bressler, Martin, and Balshine, 2006) to examine the sex differences in preferences for humor receptivity versus humor production. We replicate Bressler et al.'s (2006) findings that men prefer women who are receptive to their humor whereas women prefer men who produce humor. These findings held even after we modified Bressler et al.'s questionnaire for better conceptual validity. Furthermore, using a separate measure designed to assess trade-offs, we found that men viewed humor receptivity as a necessity and humor production as a luxury when they were asked to create an ideal long-term partner. For women, it was just the opposite. These results...
Humor as a Mental Fitness Indicator
Evolutionary Psychology, 2008
To explain the pervasive role of humor in human social interaction and among mating partner preferences, proposed that intentional humor evolved as an indicator of intelligence. To test this, we looked at the relationships among rater-judged humor, general intelligence, and the Big Five personality traits in a sample of 185 collegeage students (115 women, 70 men). General intelligence positively predicted rater-judged humor, independent of the Big Five personality traits. Extraversion also predicted raterjudged humor, although to a lesser extent than general intelligence. General intelligence did not interact with the sex of the participant in predicting rating scores on the humor production tasks. The current study lends support to the prediction that effective humor production acts as an honest indicator of intelligence in humans. In addition, extraversion, and to a lesser extent, openness, may reflect motivational traits that encourage humor production.
Humor in Romantic Contexts: Do Men Participate and Women Evaluate?
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2011
Several lines of research illustrate that humor plays a pivotal role in relationship initiation. The current article applies sexual selection theory to argue that humor production is a fitness indicator, allowing men to transmit information tacitly about their underlying qualities. And whereas prior research has emphasized women's appreciation of humor as a signal of interest, the focus here is on how women evaluate prospective suitors' humorous offerings. Two studies, including an ecologically valid study of online dating advertisements, provided evidence for men's production and women's evaluation of humor in romantic contexts. A third study revealed that women's evaluations of potential mates' humor are predictive of their romantic interest. Moreover, this article shows that preferences for and perceptions of humor are associated with preferences for and perceptions of intelligence and warmth, consistent with the argument that one function of humor is as a fitness indicator that provides information about underlying mate quality.
Sense of Humor in Romantic Relationships and Friendships
2018
This present investigation examined the degree to which humor, among various characteristics, is desired in two types of relational partners. We expected to find that humor would be perceived asmore desirable (or necessary) for a romantic relationship than friendship. We also tested whether there were significant gender differences in assessing humor in these two types of relational partners. Additionally, we attempted to assess whether a lower discrepancy between the scores of the ideal and actual partner regarding sense of humor in romantic relationships, indicates a higher dyadic adjustment. The participants (n=120) indicated their preferences for various attributes (among which was sense of humor), in either an ideal partner, actual partner or best friend on a Five-point Likert-type scale. In order to assess dyadic adjustment, the participants filled in the revised Dyadic Adjustment Form [1]. Sense of humor was rated as a significantly more important (necessary) characteristic i...
Sex differences in humor appreciation
2009
Whilst humor has always captured scientific interest, few researchers have investigated humor through observational studies so far. Empirical works employing questionnaire instruments only, are most vulnerable to generate results based on social desirability. Therefore I carried out a study on humor appreciation based on behavior observation. According to Weisfeld (1993) laughter could serve as a useful measure of the amount of humor appreciation. Possible reasons for sex differences in humor appreciation could be sought in different selection pressures for our male and female ancestors. Asymmetric investment leads to female choice and male competition. One consequence of intrasexual competition is the so-called young male syndrome, i.e. men tend to seek risky situations to a higher extent than women, thus creating a setting in which they can prove that they are the better choice. Due to patrilocality women must seek for social integration into a foreign group. The most important to...
2020
Abstract: Objective: The provision of information appears to be an important feature of humor. The present studies examined whether humor serves as an interpersonal signal such that an individual"s style of humor is associated with how the individual is perceived by others. Method: We examined this issue across two studies. In Study 1, undergraduate participants (257 targets) were rated more positively by their friends and family members (1194 perceivers) when they possessed more benign humor styles. In Study 2, 1190 community participants rated the romantic desirability of targets ostensibly possessing different humor styles. Results: Across both studies, our results were consistent with the possibility that humor serves as a signal. More specifically, individuals with benign humor styles (affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles) were evaluated more positively than those targets with injurious humor styles (aggressive and self-defeating humor styles). Conclusion: These fin...