Skip navigation

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

 

Humor ability reveals intelligence, predicts mating success, and is
higher in males
Gil Greengross
Geoffrey Miller
Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, United States
Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, United States
A good sense of humor is sexually attractive, perhaps because it reveals intelligence, creativity, or good parent
and other good genes traits. If so, intelligence should predict humor
production ability, which in turn should predict mating success. In this study, 400 university
students (200 men and 200 women) completed measures of abstract reasoning (Raven’s
Advanced Progressive Matrices), verbal intelligence (the vocabulary subtest of the Multi-
dimensional 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.
READ: