You’re having a laugh! Humour ISN’T a dealbreaker when finding ‘the one’ – and trying too hard to be funny can actually put people off, study finds

Contrary to popular dating advice, scientists now say a good sense of humor won’t get you far when it comes to finding love.

Researchers from the University of Queensland matched 554 single people on more than 800 dates, and found no relationship between ratings of attractiveness and humor.

Inverting another old adage, the researchers also found no differences between the sexes in terms of how important humor is to a potential partner.

Women were no more likely than men to find a funny partner attractive, and men were no more likely to find someone attractive if they laughed at their jokes.

Lead researcher Henry Wainwright said the findings also contradict the theory that humor is a sign of evolutionary advantage because it is linked to the transmission of intelligence to offspring.

To test the theory that being funny is attractive, the researchers first asked participants how funny their ideal partner should be, and how funny their partner should find them.

Participants then went on four three-minute quick dates with members of the opposite sex and were asked to score their partner on how fun they were and how much their partner enjoyed their sense of humor.

The researchers also recorded the number of times they laughed, noting whether it was at their partner or at themselves.

Preliminary results from people’s stated preferences seem to confirm the traditional view as women showed a greater preference for funny partners, and viewed this preference as important, while men preferred partners they might find funny.

However, when the researchers examined post-dating outcomes, the preference for funny partners seemed to disappear.

“We found that regardless of gender, participants who laughed more at their partner or had more laughter did not rate their partner as more or less attractive,” Wainwright said.

“Interestingly, this finding contradicts the common belief that women are more attracted to funny men and that men are more attracted to women they find funny.”

Mr Wainwright added: ‘Our results suggest that trying too hard to be funny on a date may be more counterproductive than helpful – you should just be yourself.’

However, it’s not just about getting some good dating advice; These findings have some important implications for theories regarding the origins of humor.

Although humor is found in almost all human cultures, scientists are still unsure why it evolved.

Likewise, people consistently say they are more attracted to funnier individuals even though there is no clear reason why this is the case.

One theory, known as the “fitness index hypothesis,” claims that humor evolved because it is an indicator of the genetic fitness that humans look for in a mate.

The idea is that if humor or wit requires intelligence or other useful traits, then the funny partner will have some useful genes to pass on to his or her offspring.

“If this is true, this process would lead to an evolutionary advantage for being funny and being attracted to funny people, a possible explanation for why humor is present in almost all human cultures,” Wainwright said.

However, Mr Wainwright said his study was inconsistent with the theory that being funny requires quick thinking, intelligence and creativity.

The study was published in the journal Evolution and human behavior.

The reasons behind our attraction may lie elsewhere, with some recent studies suggesting that we are more attracted to those with whom we share interests or who are simply similar to us.

A series of studies conducted by Boston University researcher Charles Chu found that people are more likely to be attracted to someone with whom they share even one common belief.

Dr. Chu attributed this to what is called “essential self-heuristics,” where people believe they have an inner core that determines why they are the way they are.

If someone believes that their inner core determines their likes and dislikes, they assume the same is true for someone else.

According to Dr. Chu’s findings, this may mean that when we find someone with similar interests, we assume that they have a similar basic nature to us and that we are attracted to them.

This effect is found in large agreements such as the topic of abortion, but also in trivial matters such as estimating how many blue dots there are on a page.

“I found that with highly meaningful dimensions of similarity as well as with minimal arbitrary similarities, people with a higher belief that they have an essence are more likely to be attracted to those others who are similar rather than to others who are different.” Dr. Chu says in an interview with The Brink.

Other recent speed dating experiments have also shown that people are often more attracted to people who are similar to them.

The study found that higher rates of facial similarity were a good indicator of whether two people would be attracted, even if they were of a different race.