THAT'S THE WHY:WOULD YOU be immediately attracted to someone who, by their own admission, had no sense of humour? Or might that make you think twice?
Why we often find a sense of humour desirable in a potential romantic partner is in some ways intuitively obvious: it conjures up the prospect of fun and someone with a lighter view on life.
Meanwhile, the scientific literature offers the suggestion that proficient use of humour could indicate a person is smart and engaging, because getting it right requires a cognitive flexibility and the ability to communicate.
A recent study in Canada asked 320 women and 178 men to answer questions about how they would use humour when getting to know potential romantic partners.
And what did it find?
“Men are more inclined than women to produce humour when getting to know a prospective romantic partner and that women are more inclined than men to evaluate the humour of potential mates,” wrote the authors in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin last year.
The researchers also analysed descriptions from the ‘Relationship’ section of an online dating site to see how a sense of humour was used or rated: “Among profiles explicitly mentioning humour, men more frequently advertised their willingness to produce humour; in reciprocal fashion, women expressed a greater desire to locate a humorous partner,” they write, adding that their work “also uncovered associations between humour and underlying traits, such as intelligence and warmth.”
