Humor: The Ingredient Dating Sites Could Be Missing About Attraction

CNBC – Apr 3 – eHarmony collects a ton of data from its 10M users to feed its matching algorithms. eHarmony's users rank humor as highly as loyalty, kindness and affection. "Everybody says sense of humor is the number two or three thing they want in a partner and yet no-one's ever matched on it," said eHarmony CEO Grant Langston. eHarmony has conducted research to find out how that plays into compatibility. Participants watched 30 half minute videos and looked at images, rating them on how funny they think they were, and were assigned a type of humor.

• Physical: pranks or falling Self-Deprecating: people make fun of themselves
• Surreal Humor: producing events and behaviors that are obviously illogical
• Improvisational Humor: where there is no planned course of action
• Wit-Word Play: Includes puns, emphasis on unexpected meanings and usage of certain words
• Topical Humor: pertaining to current events, often satirical
• Observational Finding: the humor in everyday situations
• Bodily: Includes toilet humor, as well as sexual humor
• Dark: making fun of serious situations

Women who appreciated 'wit-word play' and 'self-deprecating' humor were most likely to score a second date. However, women who scored high on an appreciation for 'surreal' and 'topical' humor did not do as well. Men who appreciated 'improvisational humor' were most likely to score a second date. Men who appreciated 'observational' and 'surreal' humor were less successful. Having a shared level of appreciation for 'surreal humor,' 'dark humor,' or 'observational humor' was correlated closely with a successful first date.

by Harriet Taylor
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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team