On the role of humor appreciation in interpersonal attraction: It’s no joking matter

The belief that another person shares your appreciation for humor is likely to exert a powerful effect on interpersonal attraction because sense of humor is a highly valued quality in others, and an important personal characteristic. In an attitude similarity-interpersonal attraction laboratory experiment, participants were led to believe an unseen stranger had manyf or very few, similar attitudes. In addition, participants were allowed to interact, via an intercom, with the stranger, in order to relate a favorite joke. The stranger responded positively or neutrally to the joke. Although both attitude similarity and response to the joke influenced ratings of interpersonal attraction in the expected direction, the positive response to the joke was sufficiently powerful to overcome attitude dissimilarity. A dissimilar stranger who responded positively to the joke was more attractive than a similar stranger who responded neutrally. The results are interpreted äs indicating that some dimensions of similarity are more important than others, and that humor appreciation may be an especially critical dimension. We are attracted to those others whose views we believe are similar to our own. From the early observations of Aristotle (1932), to the Undings of current social psychological research (Smeaton, Byrne, and Murnen 1989), this has been a consistent theme, and a robust relationship (Byrne et al. 1971). Although the similarity-attraction relationship has been extended to personality (Caspi and Harbener 1990; Thelen, Fishbein, and Tatten 1985) and physical appearance (Feingold 1990) similarity, the primary focus, and most consistent results, have involved similarity of attitudes and beliefs. Humor 10-1 (1997), 77-89. 0933-1719/97/0010-0077 © Walter de Gruyter 78 A. Cann, L. G. Calhoun, and J. S. Banks The underlying process assumed to be driving the similarity-attraction relationship is the reinforcement (positive affect) that results either from believing another supports your views (Byrne and Clore 1970), or, possibly, from the expectation that one who agrees with you will like you (Condon and Crano 1988), creating a mutually satisfying reciprocal relationship. As the proportion of similar attitudes increases, positive affect increases, and attraction grows (Byrne and Nelson 1965). The only limiting factor is that the similarity of attitudes and beliefs must be recognized if it is to positively affect attraction. Thus, it is the perception of similarity, not the reality, that determines the expressed degree of attraction (Byrne and Blaylock 1963). The particular attitudes or beliefs that are believed to be similar, or dissimilar, would be expected to impact on the level of attraction. Agreement or disagreement on personally important topics should produce a stronger reinforcement and a more powerful affective response. Results from surveys of naturally occurring friendship pairs (Kandel 1978; HUI and Stull 1987) support this proposal. Some beliefs, those judged äs more relevant to the individual, seemed to better predict the reported levels of friendship and the stability of the friendship relationship. It follows that receiving Information implying perceived similarity on a dimension judged äs important to seif and äs valuable in interpersonal interactions could dramatically affect ratings of interpersonal attraction. Despite the logic of this argument, little attention has been paid to this possibility in the similarity-attraction literature. An early investigation, using the highly controlled "attraction to a stranger" procedure found no effect for issue importance (Byrne and Nelson 1964). Attraction changed äs the proportion of similar attitudes changed, regardless of the level of importance. While subsequent studies did find an "importance" effect, so long äs important and unimportant issues could be compared (Clore and Baldridge 1968), specific issues that might be expected to affect attraction have not been examined. The present study examined this possibility through an indirect manipulation of perceived similarity of humor appreciation. The question is whether a person would be attracted to a stranger simply because the stranger laughed at the person's rendition of a joke, regardless of the level of agreement on other issues. Humor appreciation was selected äs the dimension of similarity because it is a part of having a sense of humor, which appears to be a generally recognized highly valued characOn the role ofhumor appreciation in interpersonal attraction 79 teristic of seif and of others. For example, in rating one's own sense of humor, individuals tend to have highly inflated views of their position relative to others. In two different samples, over 90 percent of respondents claimed to have average to above average senses ofhumor (Allport 1961; Lefcourt and Martin 1986). Given that so few individuals are wüling to admit to having a below average sense ofhumor, this must be a characteristic closely tied to positive definitions of seif. Humor appreciation has been considered a component of multidimensional definitions of sense of humor (Sveback 1974; Thorson and Powell 1993a), and has emerged äs a factor in recent attempts to validate a sense of humor scale (Thorson and Powell 1993a, 1993b). Sense of humor also has been shown to be a highly desirable quality in others, at least in heterosexual relationships. Murstein and Brust (1985) had students in dating relationships rate a series of humorous Stimuli, and rate their attraction to their partner. They found that similarity in humor ratings was associated with higher levels of loving, liking, and predisposition to marry. More recently, Buss (1988) conducted a series of studies to identify effective behaviors for attracting members of the opposite sex. College students were asked to rate a large set of behaviors thought to be relevant to "courting" success. From these ratings, Buss generated lists of the "20 most effective male acts" and the "20 most effective female acts" for attracting the opposite sex. For both males and for females, the act that was at the top of the list, the most effective act for both groups, was "displaying a good sense of humor". Obviously, sense of humor, äs a personal quality, is potentially very important, and perceived similarity of humor appreciation, äs it implies a good sense of humor, could dramatically affect perceptions of interpersonal attraction. In the present study, perceptions ofhumor appreciation similarity were manipulated in same-sex pairs, and the impact of this perceived humor similarity was compared to similarity on other attitudinal dimensions. If humor appreciation similarity is of no particular importance in interpersonal attraction, discovering similarity, or dissimilarity, should only minimally affect attraction. The proportion of perceived similar attitudes would be altered only slightly. Alternatively, if humor appreciation is a highly valued factor, then discovering similarity should significantly alter ratings of attraction. Participants will "discover" that they share many similar or few similar attitudes with a "stranger". The participants will then conduct a controlled interaction with the "stranger" during which they learn that the 80 A. Cann, L. G. Calhoun, and J. S. Banks "stranger" shares or does not share their appreciation of humor. Given the assumed potency of humor appreciation äs an interpersonal variable, it is predicted that perceived agreement on humor will negate the negative effects of disagreement on other attitudinal issues. Thus, attraction should be greatest when other attitudes and humor are all similar, slightly lower when humor similarity is present, despite attitudinal dissimilarity, and still lower when humor similarity is not confirmed, but other attitudes are similar. Attraction would be lowest when neither source of similarity is strong.