The Dating Game: The Importance of Female Laughter as a
Receptivity Signal ANTHONY R. GAROVE & SALLY D. FARLEY
Slide 2
Humor and Sexual Selection Miller (2000) argued that humor
evolved as a sexually selected trait in males because humor
production served as a mental fitness indicator, or rather, a means
to display intelligence to potential mates General intelligence is
significantly correlated with independent ratings of humor
production skill, which in turn, is predictive of reproductive
success (Greengross & Miller, 2011; Howrigan & MacDonald,
2008) Women find humorous men more physically attractive (McGee
& Shevlin, 2009) and desirable, whereas men find women more
desirable when they are receptive to their humor (Bressler, Martin,
& Balshine, 2006; Wilbur & Campbell, 2011).
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Laughter: A Receptivity Signal? Although theoretical accounts
of laughter capture its social nature, there is disagreement about
the adaptive function of laughter. Some theoretical formulations
have converged on the importance of laughter as a sexual
receptivity or courtship signal, particularly in women (Bressler,
Martin, & Balshine, 2006; Mehu & Dunbar, 2008) Li et al.
(2009) manipulated male humor attempts and female responses in an
experimental study that used pseudo speed- dating videos
Participants inferred that men were more romantically interested
when they initiated humor attempts, and that women were more
romantically interested when they had positive responses, which
included laughter.
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Hypotheses: H1: Two males competing for the same potential
partner will increase humor production if their rival attempts
humor, successfully or unsuccessfully. H2: Perceptions of rival
intelligence should be higher when rivals attempt humor. H3:
Perceptions of female receptivity (likelihood of obtaining a date,
perceived female receptiveness, and confederates perception of male
rivals intelligence) should be highest when a potential partner
laughs in response to a males attempt at humor.
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Humor present/laughter present condition
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Design and Procedure Male participants were randomly assigned
to one of four conditions in a 2 (message humor: present or absent)
x 2 (confederate laughter: present or absent) between subjects
design. Participants watched a short video displaying an attractive
female confederate reading a script presented as a message she
received from a man from an online dating service. Content of the
script was identical with the exception of the addition of five
humor attempts in the humor conditions. Confederate laughed
immediately after the humor attempts in the humor conditions, or
laughed at exactly the same point at which humor attempts were
omitted in the control conditions.
Slide 7
Results: Did humorous messages elicit competitive humor
production in male participants? Consistent with H1, after being
exposed to humor attempts by a male competitor, participants
generated more humor attempts in comparison to the control group.
F(1, 101) = 17.38, p