The influence of humor on desirability.pdf
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1、The influence of humor on desirability Eric R. Bresslera,T, Sigal Balshineb aDepartment of Psychology, Westfield State College, P.O. Box 1630, Westfield, MA 01086-1630, USA bDepartment of Psychology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8S 4K1 Initial receipt 15 December 2004; final revi
2、sion received 20 June 2005 Abstract 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 Millers theory that ones ability to produce high-quality humor functioned as a fitness indicator,
3、 and hence, humor production and appreciationhaveevolvedasaresultofsexualselection.Inthisstudy,weexaminedwhethertherearesex differences in attraction to humorous individuals, and whether using humor influences perceptions of humorists personalitytraits.Weexperimentallymanipulatedhowhumoroustwo-stimu
4、lus personswere 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
5、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. D 2006 Elsevier Inc. All
6、rights reserved. Keywords: Sexual selection; Sex differences; Psychological courtship devices; Mate choice; Personality traits; Evolutionary psychology 1. Introduction The capacities to produce and appreciate humor stand as two unique aspects of human psychology receiving little attention from evolu
7、tionary researchers despite their prevalence in 1090-5138/05/$ see front matter D 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2005.06.002 T Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 413 572 5719; fax: +1 413 572 8062. E-mail address: ebresslerwsc.ma.edu (E.R. Bressler). Evolution and Hum
8、an Behavior 27 (2006) 2939 human life. Humor is strongly influenced by social situations, being primarily produced andmorereadilyappreciatedinthepresenceofothers(Chapman,1973;Chapman Malpass Martin Provine, 1993). Furthermore, humor is a highly valued social trait; most people would like to have a g
9、ood sense of humor (Apte, 1987) and report preferring individuals with a good sense of humor as both friends and relationship partners (Goodwin, 1990; Hansen, 1977; Hewitt, 1958; Kenrick, Sadhalla, Groth, Smith, Waldorf, Sprecher Todosijevic, Snezana, Miller, 2000a; Weisfeld, 1993). Unfortunately, t
10、hese theories remain largely untested. In this study, we tested an implication of one theory (Miller, 2000a) by exper- imentally manipulating humor and examining how interpersonal attraction is affected. Miller suggests that humor has evolved as a result of intersexual selection, arguing that many h
11、uman psychological traitsincluding humorreveal underlying mutational load. Thus, phenotypic variation in these traits would provide information about the genetic quality of individuals who display them and would come to be important in mate choice (Miller, 1998, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2001). Miller ar
12、gues that the influence of sexual selection on humor will be apparent in that men will produce humor more than women, particularly in mating contexts (Miller, 1998; 2000a, pp. 9498). Findings that men tend to use humor more often than women do (McGhee, 1979), particularly in mixed-sex groups (Robins
13、on mean ageFS.E.=19.1F0.2 years) participated in this self-paced, computer- administered experiment for course credit. Five men and three women were later removed due to incomplete participation. 2.2. Procedures After completing the informed consent process and providing basic demographic informatio
14、n (age, sex, and ethnicity), participants completed two tasks. In the first task, participants spent 5 min writing autobiographical descriptions of their thoughts or behaviour, to make it seem plausible that we had also collected the statements that they would encounter in the second task. In the se
15、cond task, participants were repeatedly shown two facial photographs depicting two individuals of the same sex as each other and of equal physical attractiveness. Each of the two photographs was presented individually 8 times, for a total of 16 presentations in a series. Each time a photograph was p
16、resented, a statement that was ostensibly authored by the depicted individual was presented with it. One photographed individual in a series was presented with eight nonhumorous statements (nonhumorous individual), while the other individual was presented with five nonhumorous statements and three h
17、umorous statements (humorous individual). The humorous individual was presented with both humorous and nonhumorous statements because even very funny people are not always funny. After the participant had viewed all 16 presentations in a series, both photographs were displayed together along with a
18、set of questions asking the participant to choose which individual was more humorous, desirable as a relationship partner, fun, friendly, popular, intelligent, confident, independent, honest, and trustworthy. After the participants answered these questions, they completed three more series with new
19、pairs of photographs (always matched on sex and attractiveness) and statements, followed by the same forced-choice questions. Across the four series of presentations, each participant saw two pairs of attractive individuals and two pairs of unattractive individuals. Participants were exposed to one
20、of two conditions: seeing only photographed individuals of the same sex as themselves (n=42 women and 41 men) or of the opposite sex (n=63 women and 64 men). Following their participation, participants were probed for knowl- edge of the experimental manipulation and debriefed; none reported being aw
21、are of the humor manipulation. E.R. Bressler, S. Balshine / Evolution and Human Behavior 27 (2006) 293931 2.3. Materials Seventy-six dautobiographicalT statements were created for this study or drawn from popular sources (such as the Internet). Most statements contained a one- to four-sentence descr
22、iption of behavior or preferences. The content was intended to be either humorous (18 statements) or not (58 statements). Prior to the experiment, 10 independent raters (5 men and 5 women, mean ageFS.E.=20.2F0.6 years) judged the funniness of each statement using a seven-point scale (1=not funny at
23、all, 7=extremely funny). The humorous statements (mean ratingFS.E., range=3.5F0.15, 2.44.4) were rated as more humorous than the nonhumorous statements 1.5F0.07, 1.03.0; t(74)=17.4, pb.0001. The humorous statements employed a variety of humor types; see Table 1 for examples. Photographs of the faces
24、 of 40 individuals (drawn from a larger database of 127 photo- graphs of McMaster University undergraduates) who were looking directly into the camera with neutral expressions were used as stimuli. Prior to the experiment, 10 independent raters (6 men and 4 women, mean ageFS.E.=18.9F0.4 years) rated
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