There’s a great line in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, where the sultry Jessica Rabbit is asked why she loves her husband, Roger, a manic comedian with a penchant for mischief, who’s half her size. Her answer: “He makes me laugh.”
Although that may seem like an exaggeration, there’s a lot of truth to Jessica’s perspective; heterosexual women consistently rank sense of humor as one of the most attractive traits that a man can have. Heterosexual men also find women with a sense of humor attractive, but to a lesser extent.
A new research paper by Wayne State University linguist Ljiljana Progovac suggests that when it comes to human evolution, the phrase “survival of the fittest” could be replaced by “survival of the wittiest.” Her research shows that in the caveman era, humans shifted from a might-makes-right tribal culture, where physically dominant people had the most opportunities to reproduce, to one where a sense of humor was the sexiest trait you could have.
Why did cavedwellers find a sense of humor sexy?
The big changes came when early humans realized that inter-tribal violence did more harm than good. Therefore, being a physical threat was out of style as it was more advantageous to be “groupish.” Those who could cooperate within their tribe to ensure they could compete with other tribes then started getting all the action.
Even though early humans treated those in their tribe with greater civility, within this friendly society, those who were verbally fluent became dominant and more attractive to potential mates.
“From the very first moment that our ancestors started combining two words together, those combinations opened up a new kind of competition. Not physical. Verbal,” the Science Blog writes. “The ability to coin a devastating nickname, to skewer a rival with a phrase, to make the tribe laugh at someone else’s expense; these skills, she argues, were subject to sexual selection just as surely as the peacock’s tail or the bowerbird’s elaborate stick construction.”
It seems that even though language developed over a hundred thousand years ago, things haven’t changed all that much since.
Progovac posits that early humans could insult one another or express their sense of humor by using simple two-word verb-noun compounds such as “killjoy” or “pickpocket.” According to the author, people who knew how to throw around those compounds in clever ways had higher reproductive fitness than those who weren’t as adept. The children born to witty individuals could then go on to create even more complicated grammatical rules to show off their wit. This, in turn, led to the evolution of more complex languages.
Progovac’s paper also notes that, on one hand, being quick-witted is an advantage when it comes to sexual selection, while those who aren’t as funny are less likely to be selected.
“In addition to positive selection due to superior language skills and eloquence, it is also important to acknowledge the role of negative selection with respect to these skills, as even minor language disturbances or ‘disorders’ can have a detrimental effect on selection,” Progovac writes. “Especially damning seem to be insults that directly refer to such skills, such as dim-witted, half-witted, f**kwit, slow, and dull, indicating the value that is still placed on wit and quick-wittedness. This suggests that quick-wittedness plays a role both in positive and negative selection in humans, even today.”
This study is a wonderful example of two inspiring ideas. The first is that even if you aren’t genetically blessed with traditionally great looks, a sense of humor can go a long way towards helping you find a romantic partner. Second, humans evolved an incredible sense of humor because it was better to make fun of each other than to beat them with a club.
