Men are funnier than women according to research carried out at Aberystwyth University.

Researchers at Aberystwyth and the University of North Carolina have been putting the commonly held view that men are funnier than women to the test.

Evolutionary psychologist Dr Gil Greengross from the Department of Psychology at Aberystwyth and Prof Paul Silvia and Dr Emily Nusbaum from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, have undertaken the first ever systematic review comparing men’s and women’s ability to produce humour.

They systematically reviewed studies worldwide that looked at sex differences in humour ability, and used meta-analysis to calculate the difference.

They also looked at possible cultural and evolutionary explanations to explain the variance.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, show that on average men have higher humour production ability than women.

Dr Greengross said: “Humour is a complex phenomenon that involves social, emotional, physiological, cognitive, cultural and evolutionary influences, to name a few. One important aspect is the ability to make others laugh.

“Humour production ability is a distinct cognitive ability that is largely uncorrelated with appreciation and enjoyment of humour.

“When looking at who is the funnier sex, we focus then on humour production ability.”

The research team focused on studies where men’s and women’s humour ability was evaluated objectively.

For example, a study where subjects were provided with a cartoon and were asked to write a funny caption to accompany it.

These captions were then rated by independent judges for funniness, without knowing anything about the person who had written the caption, including their sex.

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