On pages 24-26 of DRIVEN’s Comedy Issue you will find Elizabeth Walker’s entirely fictitious tale of a flirtatious writer and a mentally well-endowed professor-type discussing the seductive power of funny men.

To prepare that piece, Ms. Walker spoke to Dr. Pat Barclay, a researcher in evolutionary psychology at Cornell University. You will find an excerpt from their actual conversation below.

So how can humor be a sign that someone is attractive?

The basic idea is that anything that involves brain power, such as creativity is a fitness indicator. What that means is it is something that you would expect to be correlated with good genes. In any given species where there’s mating going on, there’s individuals who don’t automatically know about potential mates. Yet it obviously pays to have a good mate who is going to be free of parasites and pathogens and will have those traits they can pass onto the kids. 

There’s a conflict of interest in that all the males will want to be like, “YES I am a good quality male! You want me to be the father of your kids!” Not all of them are but they have an interest in presenting themselves as good. So the choosers, which in most species are the females, are going to need some cues that can’t be faked, some things that only a high quality guy can do. So this is the idea of the peacock’s tail: it’s something that’s costly to produce and it’s very difficult to make a nice symmetrical one, that’s really pleasing and isn’t tarnished and doesn’t have feathers missing. Only a really good quality guy who is able to fend off parasites, pathogens and predators can grow a really good tail. It’s too costly to fake and its not worth it to fake and is some cases it’s too hard. So females tend to pick those traits that are un-fakeable and choose mates based on those. Now I’m saying this mostly in the female because in mammal species its mostly females choosing males, obviously in tune is mutual mate structure. Both sexes choosing partners based on un-fakeable traits.

What about the men? Don’t they have a say in the matter? 

Males choose among sea horses and pike. They have higher parental investment so as a result they are kind of scarcer so the females compete over the males. It depends on the parental investment, how many of each sex that there are that are ready to mate. Some species have mutual mate choice, species that are more monogamous. 

So how does humor fit into all this?

These could be fitness indicators. A fully functional brain is really hard to build and it’s really easy to fuck up a brain in development. Anything that influences development, whether it’s pathogens, injuries, or knocks on the head can mess up brain functioning just a little bit. Too many mutations in your genome can mess things up. In a way, the brain may be a kind of peacock tail, basically. You can’t see another person’s brain but you see what behavior it produces. Anything that demonstrates really good brain function whether this is measures of social influence, problem solving or the ability to play with humor does involve intelligence.  

How smart do you have to be to be funny? 

You have to be smart enough to know your audience. Just knowing your audience is really difficult—you have to know about them and have an idea of what they would find funny and see things from their perspective. It’s extraordinarily difficult to do but that trait is very useful in other sorts of domains. You can see things from other perspectives. You can predict situations a little bit better. Humor is one of these indicators. Not only that, but different forms of humor may reflect different abilities. Some reflect a really good grasp of language—to play with language in really creative ways. Some involve a really good knowledge of expectations. A lot of humor violates expectations in a really subtle way. 

 You need to know what are the social norms and what breaks it just a bit?

In order to break the norm you have to have a good knowledge of what the norms and expectations are. You have to know what is a sufficient violation of the norms. Music and art are a similar thing. Different ways of advertising a similar thing. In this domain creativity is similar. You have to know what’s normal and tweak it just a bit. The creativity to think up new ideas demonstrates good mental workings.

How do you know when it’s working? 

Some things are submissive gestures, or gestures of nonaggression. Smiles are a signal of nonaggression but they can also be used submissively, acceptance of the joke. Formal recognition, of yes I get it. I like this, I  am responding favorably. The listener’s reaction needs to signal to the joke teller that they appreciate this.

 How exactly does intelligence trade off with intelligence? 

If someone is really funny … our perceptions of what is funny depend on the other traits of the individual. We are more likely to laugh at people who we already like. This person who makes you laugh, you have to ask, to what extent are you finding them attractive because they make you laugh or to what extent are you laughing because you like them?

 What’s the best response? 

Female laughter is a really good predictor of their interest in a guy. Guys are going to be particularly sensitive to: is this girl laughing at the jokes I tell. It’s a very powerful indicator of interest, understanding humor is potentially an indicator of intelligence.

But it has to work both ways. 

Exactly. You have to think of what are the social norms in this group, what is considered and what breaks it just a bit. Something that totally violates expectations isn’t funny either. Make no sense. It takes intelligence to make a joke but it also takes intelligence to get those jokes. It works both ways. So one sex is judging how funny they are and the other sex is judging: do they actually get this stuff? And there’s a bit of both.

Why is that? 

It relates to a concept called assortative mating. People tending to pair themselves with those who are somewhat similar to them. In addition this taps the idea that some people are higher market value then others. If one person is really funny then they are going to get with someone who is a similar level. If someone can only tell the fart jokes it’s probably not in their interest to try for somebody who is capable of much more complex stuff because that person will not be interested in them. Because we have mutual mate choice. It pays to tailor your interest according to what you basically can get. Different domains are more important to different people. In assortative mating … if you are trying too hard you are unlikely to succeed.

Is anyone else studying this? 

Humour is a very hard area to study. Mostly because when you bring people into a lab and you say you are studying humour you are expected to be funny and its hard. They are expecting it. There aren’t a whole lot of great studies on this. There’s one study out of McMaster University by psychologist Eric Bressler that says women find the humorous guy to be more attractive than the non-humorous guy.