Laughter helps build relationships

“The success of the first date depends exactly on how much time you … laughed,” says Jeffrey Hall (Jeffrey Hall). The more a man jokes and a woman laughs, the more she is interested in him. And if both interlocutors laugh, this is a sure sign that their relationship is strong and harmonious. The researcher made these and other observations when he was looking for a connection between a sense of humor and the level of intelligence.

For the past decade, scholars have debated whether a sense of humor really is a determining factor in a woman’s choice of partner. Is it true that today it is important for a man to play a joke on an opponent? And does this mean that in the claim to the heart of a lady, one can arrange not fights, but comedy stand-ups? Geoffrey Hall is sure that finding a person who will love your sense of humor is valuable in itself.

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• Look at yourself with humor!

“The notion that humor is a sign of intelligence is too one-sided,” Geoffrey Hall continues. “If you are dating a person with whom you can always laugh, it means that your future relationship will be filled with mostly positive emotions.”

In his article “Sexual Selection and Humor: The Case for Warmth and Openness”¹ the researcher talks about three experiments. In the first study, 35 participants looked at 100 unfamiliar Facebook profiles and tried to guess which people were “hiding” behind them. Their assessments were compared with the results of a survey conducted among users of the social network. Geoffrey Hall found that people with a good sense of humor were more likely to be extroverts, which is what all strangers imagined them to be at first sight. The results of the study also showed that men and women post an equal number of funny posts and videos on their pages.

Pass the tests

• Can you laugh at yourself?

In the second study, almost 300 students completed a questionnaire about the connection between humor and flirting. Evaluating the results, Jeffrey Hall and his colleagues found that the students did not find any relationship between how smart a person was and how funny he wanted to appear. But the connection between a sense of humor and extraversion has only grown stronger. There were also no differences in how men and women perceived jokes. However, Geoffrey Hall did not stop there and conducted another study. He invited 51 couples of single heterosexual students who didn’t know each other. They were asked to chat in a room for 10 minutes and then answer questions. Surprisingly, the results did not show that men tried to look funnier than women (and vice versa). However, the researchers confirmed that the more often the man joked and the woman laughed, the more she was interested in continuing to communicate. But in the opposite direction, it turned out that it does not work. Men did not react too favorably to women who poured jokes.

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• Jacques Salome: “I talk about difficult things simply, poetically and with humor”

Geoffrey Hall invites us to evaluate for ourselves why laughter and humor are so important in relationships, flirting and finding a partner.

1. A good sense of humor often indicates that we have a sociable and open person. “If a person is sociable, then he will easily joke even in the company of unfamiliar people.”
2. Men often joke in order to determine how interested a woman is in them. “They are trying to get her to show her cards. For some, this is a favorite strategy.”
3. Sometimes a man telling joke after joke and a woman laughing out loud at them is part of the pattern. “It’s already done automatically, just like paying a bill for a man and opening a door for a woman.”
4. Humor is valuable in itself. “All research indicates that the more a husband and wife laugh together, the stronger their relationship.”

See more at Online publications mnt.com

¹ J. Hall «Sexual selection and humor in сourtship case for warmth and extroversion», подробнее на evp.sagepub.com