Male Humour Use and Its Effect on Desirability in Women
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Date
2007Item status
Restricted AccessAuthor
Brown, Alexa J
Metadata
Abstract
It is quickly coming to be accepted in our society that a sense of humour is a desirable
trait in men. While there are a relatively small number of studies in the area, those
looking at humour have found strong correlations between humour and increased
attractiveness, but only for women rating men. There has been little work done on
what types of humour in particular women are attracted to. In this study women rated
the attractiveness of men on a scale of 1 – 10, based on a photograph and an
accompanying vignette. Humour was manipulated so that the vignette contained
either no indication of humour, or one of three humour types – performance-based,
sarcasm or self-deprecating. It was found that the humorous men were rated as
significantly more attractive than their non-humorous counterparts. From the three
humour types studied here only performance-based humour had a positive effect on
desirability. It was also discovered that demonstrated humour, where the vignette
contained an example of the men’s humour, had a positive effect on attractiveness,
whereas humour that was simply suggested or based on the opinions of others had no
significant effect on the attractiveness scores assigned to the men.