Love is humour!

A sense of humour will undoubtedly be among the qualities most people list as important in a romantic partner when you ask practically anyone. But how significant is humour in building a solid relationship? And does humour style matter?

Recently, University of Western Ontario researchers attempted to answer this question. They focused on how two types of humour, affiliative humour (making remarks, jokes, or clever banter to help someone laugh or feel better when they're sad), and aggressive comedy, played a part in their study of over 100 couples (using sarcasm or ridicule to criticise or put someone down without regard for their feelings).

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Every couple in the research had been seeing each other for at least three months. Participants in the study were given a questionnaire that assessed their own and their partner's sense of humour as well as their level of pleasure in their marriage. The couples were instructed to talk about an unresolved problem that had developed over the preceding 14 days when they came back to the researchers' lab two weeks later. The couples were observed by the researchers as they conversed in the lab, and their use of affiliative and aggressive humour was examined. The conversations were also recorded, and thereafter a group of observers watched the tapes to assess how hilarious each couple was.

The findings, which were recently published in the journal Personal Relationships, demonstrated that affiliative comedy was equally as entertaining as aggressive humour. However, those who expressed higher levels of relationship satisfaction claimed that their spouses were more amicable and less combative in their humour. Additionally, when people used affiliative comedy to address their issue, their partners said they felt more connected to them afterward; but, when people used more confrontational humour, their partners said they felt distant. Men tended to use more affiliative comedy than women while solving their problems, the researchers discovered, even when men and women used the same level of hostile humour throughout the discussions.

The researchers issue a warning that they are unsure of whether affiliative humour promotes fulfilling relationships or the opposite. According to the study's lead author, Loren Campbell, "people are more likely to engage in pro-relationship activities, such as affiliative humour, when they feel satisfied with their relationship. However, those who employ affiliative humour more frequently are presumably more likely to have partners who find it amusing, which makes them feel better about their relationship.

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Of course, your preferences for a companion will depend on whether you're looking for casual dates or a life partner. However, relationship studies show that humour is also linked to maintaining a relationship, not only getting you that first date or first kiss.

Having a sense of humour still stands out when we pay tribute to someone's life. My own analysis of death notices reveals that when we think back on the lives of loved ones, we frequently cherish their ability to laugh and make others laugh.

Why do we take ourselves so seriously when we should not? One explanation is that laughing is fun, and laughing with someone else makes it much more fun. A sense of humor's capacity to balance off bad emotions with pleasant ones is one of its many benefits. We want to be around funny people, especially if they can help us laugh at the things and circumstances that make us feel stressed, anxious, or depressed. However, there are many ways to have fun in life. Why do individuals place a higher value on humour than, say, having a nice beach house or being an excellent cook?