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Humor ability reveals intelligence, predicts mating success, and is higher in males

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Humor ability reveals intelligence, predicts mating success, and is higher in males
Gil Greengross
1
*, Geoffrey Miller
2
* Corresponding author
1. Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico
2. Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico
Key words: Humor, Intelligence, Evolutionary Psychology, Sex Differences, Mental Fitness
Indicators
2
Abstract
A good sense of humor is sexually attractive, perhaps because it reveals intelligence, creativity,
and other ‘good genes’ or ‘good parent’ traits. If so, intelligence should predict humor
production ability, which in turn should predict mating success. In this study, 400 university
students (200 men, 200 women) completed measures of abstract reasoning (Raven’s Advanced
Progressive Matrices), verbal intelligence (the vocabulary subtest of the Multidimensional
Aptitude Battery), humor production ability (rated funniness of captions written for three
cartoons), and mating success (from the Sexual Behaviors and Beliefs Questionnaire).
Structural equation models showed that general and verbal intelligence both predict humor
production ability, which in turn predicts mating success, such as lifetime number of sexual
partners. Also, males showed higher average humor production ability. These results suggest
that the human sense of humor evolved at least partly through sexual selection as an
intelligence-indicator.
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1. Introduction
Humor is an evolutionary enigma: people across cultures enjoy it with smiling, laughing,
and mirth, and socially value those who produce it (Apte, 1985), yet humor’s ancestral origins
and adaptive functions have been hotly debated since Darwin (Gervais & Wilson, 2005).
Sexual selection offers one possible explanation for humor’s origins, functions,
correlates, and social attractiveness (Bressler, Martin, & Balshine, 2006). According to the
theory of mental fitness indicators (Miller, 2000; 2007), some human capacities such as
language, creativity, art, music, altruism, and humor evolved at least partly through mutual mate
choice for ‘good genes’ and ‘good parent’ traits. In this view, a good sense of humor is sexually
attractive because it is a hard-to-fake signal of intelligence, creativity, mental health, and other
traits desired by both sexes, consciously or not. Also, sex differences in reproductive strategies
may explain why females value humor production ability more in mates (Lundy, Tan, &
Cunningham, 1998), why females laugh and smile more during conversations, especially in
response to humor produced by the opposite sex (Provine, 2000), and why women tend to like a
man who will make them laugh, while men want a woman who will laugh at their humor
(Bressler, et al., 2006). Further, since mental fitness indicators such as humor ability may reveal
deleterious mutation load, such cognitive abilities should remain at least moderately heritable
despite generations of selection in favor of maximum values (Miller, 2007), and this may explain
the observed heritability of humor styles and humor production ability (Vernon, Martin,
Schermer, & Mackie, 2008).
Humor, intelligence, and mating success may have especially important relationships,
which this paper investigates. Intelligence has been much better studied than humor as a
mental fitness indicator: general intelligence is one of the most sexually desirable traits for both
sexes (Buss, 1989), is highly heritable (Plomin & Spinath, 2004), and is correlated with many
fitness-related traits such as physical health and longevity (Gottfredson & Deary, 2004), body
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symmetry (Banks, Batchelor, & McDaniel, 2010), physical attractiveness (Langlois, et al., 2000)
and semen quality (Arden, Gottfredson, Miller, & Pierce, 2008).
If humor production ability is an honest indicator of intelligence, humor production ability
should positively correlate with intelligence. There is some evidence that a good sense of
humor is associated with verbal creativity (Kaufman, Kozbelt, Bromley, Geher, & Miller, 2008;
O'Quin & Derks, 1997) and intelligence (Feingold & Mazzella, 1993; Howrigan & MacDonald,
2008). Such studies reveal moderate correlations between various humor production tasks and
measures of intelligence. Howrigan & MacDonald (2008) found correlations of 0.12 - 0.23
between general intelligence, as measured by the Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices, and
judge-rated humor production tasks that included humor responses to funny emails, mock
descriptions of stereotyped characters and funny drawings, in a sample of college students.
Feingold and Mazzella (1991) found moderate correlations (r = 0.31 - 0.52) between the
Vocabulary scale of the Multi-Aptitude Test and rater-judged humor production tasks, such as
writing funny captions to cartoons stripped of their captions and writing a repartee to an absurd
question. Naturally, we can expect some association between verbal intelligence and verbal
humor production ability, since both are based on language proficiency. However, the fact that
we only find moderate correlations between humor production ability and various verbal
intelligence tests suggests that the ability to produce high quality humor may go beyond being
verbally intelligent. Stronger support for the intelligence-indicator theory of humor would be to
show that non-verbal intelligence tests also predict verbal humor production ability.
This study aims to investigate further the relationship between humor and intelligence in
the light of sexual selection theory. To add to its validity, intelligence was evaluated in two
different ways, a verbal intelligence test and the Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices. This
is also the first examination of how producing humor translates into possible mating outcomes.
We can make several predictions if the human capacity for producing verbal humor evolved at
least partly through mutual mate choice as a mental fitness indicator (a reliable signal of general
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intelligence and general genetic quality), and if male variance in reproductive success was
somewhat higher:
(1) General intelligence should predict humor ability, and verbal intelligence especially should
predict verbal humor ability.
(2) Humor ability should predict mating success, such as lifetime number of sexual partners
(although, given modern contraception, we may do a better job predicting proxies of mating
success such as number of sexual partners).
(3) Humor ability should be higher in males on average.
To test these hypotheses, we administered measures of intelligence, humor ability, and mating
success to a moderately large sample of university students.
2. Methods
2.1 Participants
Participants were 400 students (200 males, 200 females) enrolled in psychology courses
at the University of New Mexico (UNM). Average age was 20.6 years (+/- 4.7, range 18-57).
Participants’ self-reported ethnicity was 58% White, 29% Hispanic, 5% Asian-American, 4%
American Indian, 3% African American, and 2% other. UNM is a large state university with low
entrance requirements, and many minority, nontraditional, mature, and first-generation students.
Thus, UNM students show high variance (and low restriction of range) in intelligence, sexual
attitudes, mating strategies, political values, religiosity, and other demographic, psychometric,
and mating-relevant variables.
2.2 Measures
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2.2.1 Intelligence
We measured abstract reasoning ability with the 12-item version (Winfred & Day, 1994)
of Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM), which asks participants to choose which
of eight sub-patterns best fits into an abstract spatial pattern. It is an excellent measure of non-
verbal abstract reasoning ability and is highly correlated with the g factor in many studies
(Jensen, 1998). We measured verbal intelligence with the 46-item vocabulary subtest of the
Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB), which asks participants to choose which of five words
has the meaning closest to that of a given word (Jackson, 1984). It is a strong measure of
vocabulary size and shows fairly high correlations with the verbal subset of the Wechsler Adult
Intelligence Scale – Revised (WAIS-R) (Wechsler, 1981), and with full-scale IQ (Carless, 2000).
We combined the Raven’s abstract reasoning scores with the MAB vocabulary scores to yield
an estimate of general intelligence.
2.2.2. Humor ability
We measured capacity for producing verbal humor by using blind ratings of participant
ability to produce funny captions for cartoons. Participants were given three cartoons without
captions from the New Yorker magazine’s cartoon caption contest (cartoons were at least one
year old to reduce the possibility of familiarity). They were instructed to write as many funny
captions as they could, for all cartoons, in 10 minutes. This open-ended humor production is a
reasonably valid measure of spontaneous humor ability (Feingold & Mazzella, 1991; 1993).
Later, six judges (four men, two women, all students) rated the funniness of each caption on a
scale from 1 (“not funny at all”) to 7 (“very funny”). Judges saw the captions in a randomized
order, and were blind to any characteristics of the participants.
All scores were standardized to control for judges using the rating scales in different
ways. Participants produced an average of 3.5 captions per cartoon. Funniness ratings were
highly skewed, with most captions rated not funny at all, and even the funniest students
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producing only a few captions per cartoon that were even moderately funny. So, from each
judge’s ratings of each caption for each cartoon, we took the highest-rated caption as most
representative of the participant’s humor ability. Then we averaged these high scores across
the six judges and the three cartoons to yield an overall humor ability score. Internal
consistency scores (Cronbach’s alphas) of ratings across the six judges averaged .72 across
the three cartoons, which is somewhat higher than in other cartoon-captioning studies (Feingold
& Mazzella, 1993; Masten, 1986).
2.2.3. Mating success
Participants completed an extended version of the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory
(SOI) (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991) It included nine questions (Cronbach’s alpha 0.75) about
short-term mating success such as lifetime number of sexual partners, number of one-night
stands, and number of times the participant had sex with two or more partners within a 24-hour
period (see table 1 for the raw results). Responses to these items were factor-analyzed to yield
our measure of mating success – a measure that emphasized quantity over quality of mates.
The questionnaire also included 9 items (Cronbach’s alpha 0.81) about attitudes towards short-
term mating such as “Sex without love is OK, morally”; these were factor-analyzed to yield a
measure of pro-promiscuity attitudes. Finally, there were 4 items (Cronbach’s alpha 0.68) such
as “Religion has an important role in my attitude towards love and sex” and “Premarital sex is
wrong”, factor-analyzed to yield a measure of traditional family values. Mating success
correlated 0.34 (p < 0.001) with pro-promiscuity attitudes and -0.10 (ns) with family values; pro-
promiscuity attitudes correlated -0.36 (p < 0.001) with family values.
Insert Table 1 about here
3. Results
3.1 Correlations among humor, mating and intelligence
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Table 2 shows the raw bivariate correlations (for males and females separately) among
the two intelligence measures (MAB vocabulary score and Raven’s abstract reasoning score),
humor ability (rated caption average), mating success, and age. In all analyses there were no
raters’ sex differences.
Insert Table 2 about here
Consistent with prediction 1, both intelligence measures predicted humor ability, for both
males and females, all at p < .001. For males, humor ability was correlated r = .44 with MAB
vocabulary and r = .27 with Raven’s abstract reasoning; for females, the respective correlations
were r = .31 and r = .24. The overall correlations (including both sexes) were r = .38 (p < .001)
between vocabulary score and humor ability, and r = .25 (p < .001) between Raven’s score and
humor ability. This difference in correlations was significant (two-sided Fisher r-to-z
transformations for the difference between the two was z = 2.1 (p < .05)), suggesting
(unsurprisingly) that verbal intelligence more strongly predicts capacity for verbal humor than
abstract reasoning ability does.
To evaluate whether humor production can predict mating success and pro-promiscuity
attitudes factors, two backward multivariate regressions were conducted, with average humor
ability score regressed over sex, verbal intelligence, RAPM, number of captions produced and
either Mating success and Pro-promiscuity attitudes factor as the dependent variable.
For the mating success factor, the final model was significant [F (2, 274) = 73.42,
adjusted
2
R
= 0.35, p < o.001)], with only the sex (women = 0, men = 1) variable as a predictor
(B = 1.16, SE = 0.10, p < .001). Men were more likely to have uncommitted attitudes toward
sex. For the pro-promiscuity attitudes factor, the final model was significant [F (2, 295) = 5.36,
adjusted
2
R
= 0.03, p < 0.01)], with only the humor ability variable in the final model (B = 0.14,
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SE = 0.06, p < 0.01). Participants who had higher humor production scores were more likely to
score high on the pro-promiscuity attitudes factor.
3.2 Structural equation models of intelligence, humor ability, and mating success
Figure 1 shows results of two structural equation models (one for males, one for
females) based on confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) with EQS 6.1 to test if humor ability
mediates the effect of intelligence on mating success. Vocabulary scores and Raven’s scores
were the intelligence measures; judged funniness of cartoons 1, 2, and 3 were the humor ability
measures; the factor derived from the 10 SOI-derived sexual history items was the mating
success measure. For the male model,
2
= 10.262 (df = 7, p < .18), goodness of fit index
(GFI) = .977, comparative fit index (CFI) = .972, and the root mean-square error of
approximation (RMSEA) = .057. For the female model,
2
= 11.315 (df = 7, p < .13), goodness
of fit index (GFI) = .976, comparative fit index (CFI) = .964, and the root mean-square error of
approximation (RMSEA) = .064. The results for both sexes fit the data extremely well, and
show that humor ability strongly mediates the positive effects of intelligence on mating success.
Insert Figure 1 about here
3.3 Sex differences
Table 3 shows sex differences in vocabulary score, Raven’s score, humor ability,
number of captions produced, age, mating success, pro-promiscuity attitudes, and family
values. Males scored significantly higher on vocabulary, humor ability, captions produced,
mating success, and pro-promiscuity attitudes (all at p < .01 or lower).
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Insert Table 3 about here
Regression analyses showed that even controlling for vocabulary score and Raven’s
score, and number of captions produced, men still produced funnier captions on average,
perhaps reflecting higher unconscious mating effort manifest through higher motivation to be
funny. There were no significant sex differences in the correlations between humor ability and
vocabulary or Raven’s scores.
4. Discussion
This study confirmed three predictions derived from a sexual selection model of humor
(Miller, 2000): intelligence predicts humor ability, humor ability predicts mating success, and
males show higher average humor ability. Further, structural equation models showed that
humor ability strongly mediates the positive effects of intelligence on mating success,
suggesting that intelligence is sexually attractive mainly insofar as it is manifest through verbal
humor. Humor is not just a reliable intelligence-indicator; it may be one of the most important
traits for humans seeking mates (Smith, Waldorf, & Trembath, 1990; Sprecher & Regan, 2002).
Of course, mate attraction is not the only function of humor. Humor can also be used in
competing for status with same-sex rivals (Greengross & Miller, 2008), reducing social tensions
(Chafe, 1987), and other adaptive functions (Li, et al., 2009).
The results are consistent with other humor studies. Verbal humor is widely used in
social situations and plays an important role in attracting mates, especially for men (Lundy, et
al., 1998; Provine, 2000). Men were funnier than women on average and produced a larger
number of captions, consistent with the sexual signaling hypothesis in which men try
(unconsciously) to signal their mate quality through their humor ability, and women are more
responsive to and discriminating about humor (Bressler & Balshine, 2006; Miller, 2000).
However, humor ability mediated the effects of intelligence on mating success not only for men,
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but for women, suggesting that men are also discriminating about women’s humor ability as an
intelligence-indicator. Notably, pro-promiscuity attitudes were not associated with humor ability,
but higher family values scores predicted lower humor ability. Nonetheless, given that men
were funnier on average and women to be choosier in selecting mates, men might be more
motivated to display their humor ability.
The study had some limitations in the sample and measures that should be addressed in
further research. Although our UNM student sample was quite diverse in intelligence, humor
ability, mating success, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity, further studies should use larger
samples across cultures and with a wider age range. Also, genetically informative samples
based on extended twin family designs would allow calculation of additive, dominance, and
epistatic genetic effects on humor ability, and genetic correlations among intelligence,
personality, humor ability, and mating success; DNA samples would allow genome-wide
association studies of single nucleotide polymorphisms, copy number variants, and other forms
of genetic variation associated with humor ability. Further studies should use a larger number of
intelligence measures so a proper g factor can be extracted, and should use better, more
objective measures of mating success that address quality as well as quantity of mates.
Another key limitation is the somewhat artificial humor production task: writing captions
for cartoons, in the absence of natural social interactions or potential mates, does not reflect
most everyday uses of humor. However, it seems reasonable to suppose that people may
show stable levels of humor ability across different levels of social interactiveness, ranging from
paper-and-pencil studies such as this, through emails or social networking sites, and stand-up
comedy in front of an audience, to more ecologically valid and ancestrally natural forms of social
interaction such as face-to-face flirtation and conversation. On the other hand, one strength of
the study is the blind rating of humor ability, independent of other social cues. Previous
research shows that people are perceived as funnier if they are more physically attractive, more
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agreeable, or higher in status (Greengross & Miller, 2008; Lundy, et al., 1998), and blind ratings
eliminate such halo effects.
In summary, the human capacity for producing and appreciating humor may parallel the
capacities of other animals for producing and appreciating other types of courtship displays that
reliably reveal phenotypic and genetic quality.
Acknowledgements: We thank Steve Gangestad, Rod A. Martin, James Boone, and Scott
Barry Kaufman for useful comments and suggestions.
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Table 1
Male and female raw scores on the 10 mating success items
Males Females
(N=200) (N=200)
Mean (SD) Mean (SD)
Age at first intercourse 16.77 (1.70) 16.21 (2.48)
Acts of intercourse in the past month 6.01 (8.93) 6.69 (7.63)
No. of sex partners in the past year 1.85 (1.82) 1.78 (1.49)
Lifetime no. of sex partners 7.22 (10.37) 5.72 (6.56)
Likely no. of sex partners in the next 5 years 5.34 (10.09) 2.42 (3.29)
No. of sex partners on one occasion only 2.63 (4.97) 1.83 (2.87)
Times had intercourse with two or more 0.66 (1.55) 0.24 (0.66)
different partners within the same 24 hours
Times had intercourse with two or more 1.45 (4.91) 0.94 (2.46)
different partners within the same 7 days
Times had intercourse with a new partner 2.85 (5.83) 1.73 (3.90)
within the first week of meeting
Times had intercourse with an ex-partner 2.78 (6.03) 1.80 (4.05)
more than a month after having split up
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Table 2
Correlations among intelligence tests (Vocabulary and Raven’s), humor ability, mating success,
and age, for males (above the diagonal, N=200) and females (below the diagonal (N=200)
1 2 3 4 5
1. Vocabulary .33*** .44*** .05 .37***
2. Raven’s .33*** .27*** -.14 .05
3. Humor ability .31*** .24** .13 .21**
4. Mating success .23** .11 .14 .28**
5. Age .19** .01 .15* .12
* p < 0.05.
** p < 0.01.
*** p < 0.001.
17
Table 3
Sex differences on key measures, comparing males (N=200) and females (N=200), with positive
d values (effect sizes) indicating that men scored higher than women
Males Females t d
Mean (SD) Mean (SD)
Vocabulary score 20.22 (6.02) 18.90 (5.80) 2.24* 0.22
Raven’s score 7.21 (2.45) 6.82 (2.25) 1.64 0.16
Humor ability 0.09 (0.48) -0.09 (0.49) 3.77*** 0.38
No. of captions 11.39 (4.14) 9.85 (3.49) 4.02*** 0.40
Age 21.09 (5.43) 20.12 (3.67) 2.10* 0.21
Mating success 0.08 (0.66) -0.08 (0.46) 2.39* 0.28
Pro-promiscuity attitudes 0.31 (0.61) -0.32 (0.49) 10.95*** 1.36
Family values -0.05 (0.75) 0.05 (0.66) -1.31 0.14
* P < 0.05
** P < 0.01
*** P < 0.001
18
Fig.1. Structural equation model based on confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) testing the effect
of intelligence on reported sexual behavior mediated by verbal humor production. Standardized
estimates for heterosexual men (left of slash for each path, N = 184) and heterosexual women
(right of slash, N = 187) are shown. All paths were significant at p < 0.5.
Intelligence Verbal
Humor
Sexual
Verbal RAPM Cartoon 1 Cartoon 2 Cartoon 3 Reported
.83/.70
.46/.44
.67/.65
.73/.79
.47/.5
8
.93/.95
.67/.51
.14/.23
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... Both male and female poets and artists report having more sexual partners compared to control groups, with increased creative engagement associated with a higher number of sexual partners (Nettle & Clegg, 2006). Humor, as a creative skill, is also associated with casual sexual encounters in both men and women, acting as a mediator between intelligence and mating success (Greengross & Miller, 2011). Similarly, adult playfulness correlates positively with the number of short-term and long-term partners among men and with the number of short-term relationships among women (Moraes et al., 2021(Moraes et al., , 2022. ...
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Creativity offers both survival and reproductive benefits, being a desirable trait in potential mates and linked to fertility and sexuality. We investigated whether viewing attractive faces of potential short-term or long-term partners in a simulated dating portal enhances participants’ creativity. We also explored possible mediators (arousal, mood, sexual arousal, motivation, and attraction) and moderators (relationship status, satisfaction, mate value, and sociosexual orientation). In Study 1, 483 participants ( M age = 30.06, SD = 6.37; 242 women, 241 men) viewed either four attractive or four unattractive opposite-sex potential partners and wrote self-promotional bios. No significant creativity differences were found between the attractive and unattractive groups. However, men were more flexible and produced more original ideas than women, while women showed greater fluency and self-creativity promotion. In Study 2, 494 participants ( M age = 30.84, SD = 6.06; 258 women, 236 men) viewed profiles of attractive potential partners for either short-term or long-term inclined relationships. Women's fluency and originality were higher in the long-term condition, but sexual arousal negatively impacted both fluency and originality when choosing an attractive partner for a long-term relationship, particularly when a real date desirability with the mate was high. Overall, the results suggest that creativity is influenced by the mating context, though the effects were modest. Future studies should increase sample sizes, geographic diversity, and experimental settings.
... Individuals with high CF tend to excel in interpersonal relationships, demonstrate strong problem-solving abilities (Yağan & Kaya, 2023), and easily adapt to new circumstances, feeling confident in diverse situations (Hartkamp & Thornton, 2017). A significant number of cognitive variables have been linked to CF, including intelligence (Birney & Beckmann, 2022) and humor (Greengross & Miller, 2011). Cognitive flexibility and humor are strongly related, as both involve processes such as incongruity detection and frameshifting. ...
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Despite the growing interest in healthcare clowning and its effectiveness across various settings, there has been a lack of research exploring specific features of clown doctors, such as their humor styles, playfulness, and cognitive flexibility (CF). This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the relationships between these three variables in a sample of 210 Italian clown doctors. Participants completed a brief demographic questionnaire, the Comic Styles Markers (i.e., Fun, Benevolent Humor, Nonsense, Wit, Irony, Satire, Sarcasm, and Cynicism), the Short Measure of Adult Playfulness, and the CF Scale. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that CF positively predicted Playfulness, Benevolent Humor, and Wit, while it was negatively related to Sarcasm. This increased CF is reflected in the use of more adaptive forms of humor (Benevolent Humor and Wit) and less negative ones (Sarcasm), as well as an increase in Playfulness, which represents a distinctive characteristic of clown doctors. These results are discussed in light of the training required to become clown doctors, where improvisation is a key element that fosters cognitive flexibility.
... Su estudio demostraría que la habilidad para el humor denota inteligencia y predice éxito en el emparejamiento. El sentido del humor sería un indicador honesto, difícil de falsificar, de inteligencia, creatividad y otros rasgos de "buenos genes" y de "buen padre" (Greengross et al., 2011;Howrigan & MacDonald, 2008). De este modo, lo que subyace a la preferencia de las mujeres por el rasgo de sentido del humor en hombres, es la valoración que hacen las participantes por la inteligencia de la potencial pareja como característica que aumenta las probabilidades de éxito reproductivo y de conseguir un buen compañero (Prokosch et al., 2009 También podrían encontrarse diferencias en la importancia concedida a la inteligencia social y otros criterios de elección de pareja entre mujeres estudiantes y profesionales pertenecientes a distintas carreras, de modo que esto es otro campo en el que se debe investigar. ...
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Sexual selection research has focused mainly on physical traits and some behaviors, but insufficient research has been made about the role of social intelligence as a criterion of human mate choice. This research was made with a sample of women (N=216) divided in four groups, to whom a survey form with four profiles of men was applied, in order to assess the influence of the level of social intelligence, socioeconomic status and the interaction between them, on the scores that participants made on perceived attractive and consideration for a long-term relationship. Profiles shown were different in each group in their descriptive aspects of social intelligence and socioeconomic status, but the picture and other depictions were kept the same. An assessment of levels of desirability of 12 characteristics and an open question about characteristics that participants considered desirable in a man were also made. A higher assessment for profiles in groups that included descriptions with high social intelligence in comparison with those that had a description that indicates low social intelligence and a higher influence of social intelligence than socioeconomic status were found. Characteristics most highly valued were entrepreneurship and emotional stability, while those with lowest desirability were having material goods and ambition. Characteristics mentioned with the highest frequency were intelligence, good humor, those related with potential socio-economic status and other related with moral behaviors and values. Keywords: Social Intelligence, Socioeconomic status, Mate Choice, Sexual Selection, Human Evolution.
... The display of humor may be a signal of intelligence, especially for men. Greengross and Miller (2011) demonstrated that intelligence predicted humor production capacity, which in turn predicted lifetime number of sexual partners. The production of humor may also be affected by reproductive context, further demonstrating its use as a signal of mate value. ...
... This positive type of humor facilitates social interactions (Caron, 2002), helping find similar others and connect with them (Hall, 2015). Positive humor is regarded as socially attractive (Greengross & Miller, 2011), and in many studies, participants report a preference for companions, friends and/or partners who demonstrate a good sense of humor (Lundy, Tan, & Cunningham, 2005). ...
... B. Bitterly et al., 2017). Previous work indicated that humor is associated with a sense of proficiency achievement and success (e.g., T. B. Bitterly et al., 2017;Greengross & Miller, 2011) and creativity (Kellner & Benedek, 2017). In the current work, we examine the mediating role of the presenter's status in the associations between the use of humor and investment. ...
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While previous work suggested that presenters may benefit from the use of humor, others argue that the use of humor can be risky. Therefore, there is a need to examine the potential moderators and mediators of this process. The study aims to experimentally explore the appropriate use of humor during a professional investment presentation. The sample included 400 participants. After being randomly assigned to 2 × 2 between-subjects conditions (man /woman presenter × with/without a humorous message), the participants watched a video of an investment presentation. Participants who were asked to invest virtual money in the firm after the video. Using a moderated mediation analysis, the results show that humor was related to higher investment amounts and that the presenters’ perceived organizational status mediated this indirect relationship. The novelty of the study lies in its experimental design, focusing on audience behavioral tendencies and its unexplored mixed-gender effect: women tended to invest less when a male presenter used humor, while men tended to invest more when a female presenter used humor. The perceived status of the presenter mediated these associations. Theoretically, the study expands the understanding of the Benign Violation Theory (BVT) regarding the need to address contextual factors while examining the appropriate use of humor. Moreover, to maximize the benefits of humor, one must consider the humor’s relevance to the audience and acknowledge that humor needs to be appropriately used. This is particularly important for people working in investment settings.
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The purpose of the present study was to analyse the previous literature and identify the trend changes in studies of humour styles within four categories: psychological well-being, physical health, personality and counselling/therapy from 1995 to 2021. This systematic analysis included 65 articles published in different journals and available at SCOPUS, Taylor & Francis and PubMed databases. Results indicated that positive humour styles have a positive impact in all the four categories of study while negative humour styles affected individual’s lives negatively. Qualitative study and psychological well-being have dominated the field of humour studies. We see an increase in humour studies publication after the year 2016 with most publications appearing in 2017.
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Both the paperback edition and the hardbound edition of The Language of Humor: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2019) are now available. Please check out the web site: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-of-humor/B37E80D6A21DB3A2E344A4061D996D9C .
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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.
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