Funny People Are Smarter – IOTW Report

Funny People Are Smarter

Newsweek-

Albert Einstein attributed his brilliant mind to having a childlike sense of humor. Indeed, a number of studies have found an association between humor and intelligence.

Researchers in Austria recently discovered that funny people, particularly those who enjoy dark humor, have higher IQs than their less funny peers. They argue that it takes both cognitive and emotional ability to process and produce humor. Their analysis shows that funny people have higher verbal and nonverbal intelligence, and they score lower in mood disturbance and aggressiveness.

Not only are funny people smart, they’re nice to be around. Evidence suggests that having a good sense of humor is linked to high emotional intelligence and is a highly desirable quality in a partner. Evolutionary psychologists describe humor as a “heritable trait” that signals mental fitness and intellectual agility to prospective mates. In studies of attractiveness, both men and women rate funny people as more attractive, and cite having a good sense of humor as being one of the most important traits in a long-term partner.

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31 Comments on Funny People Are Smarter

  1. Then… ah… some people here are 10’s ?

    Also, consider this. You might be funny – or not. But WHAT does it take to make you laugh?

    There’s the funny transmitter.

    And there’s the funny receiver.

    And then there are people who can crack themselves up. What are they? My grandfather would do that and I’d fall out of my chair at the dinner table.

    14
  2. This story appeared in Newsweek? The humorless left wing rag that portrays Trump as a Nazi and doesn’t understand how anyone could vote for him?

    Now, THAT is funny!

    Oh, and so are all y’all IOTW posters and commenters… And now we know you’re smart and good marriage material too. Ha!

    9
  3. …doctors can have a weird sense of humor. There was this one time I laid my leg open at the knee, a pretty good gash, and went in to get it stitched. The wound was long and kind of deep, but it wasn’t near any main cables so it wasn’t all that bloody either, especially after it was cleaned out with Betadine and injected with what I assume (now) was Novacaine.

    …so after this was done by the nurse, the doctor breezed in and was weirdly jovial, like an enemy just died or he was loopy from being on call too long or something, or maybe he’d just been taking some “samples” (this was before they were so paranoid about narcotics, so maybe…). I was in the room by my 14 year old self because I’d wrecked my dirt bike at my buddies and got ambulanced in (after lying to everyone about how it happened), but they had phone consent from the folks, so it was a ‘go’ for stitches, and this doctor looks at me without speaking, looks at my gaping wound, gives me this dented grin, and then grasps the upper and lower edges of my ( thankfully) numb wound and pulled them up and down like lips as he said in a squeaky voice, “Hi there, I’m Dr. Mengele, how are you?” in time with moving them closed and open like my living flesh was a macabe sock puppet.

    First time I ever saw a nurse cringe, although not the last.

    I didn’t know what to say. I’d had plenty of stitches growing up, but none that ever talked to me.

    He still hadn’t spoken while looking at me, and had my knee continue by saying “I think you’re going to need…”, then tuned his head to me and in a NORMAL voice, completed with “…a couple of stitches”.

    Then that grin again.

    …I was alone in a hospital with him and a mortifed nurse, but at 14 I still did what adults in authority said, especially if I was in trouble, so stitch away he did, instead of me running for the hills…

    …I guess the stitch job was OK, although that knee always gave me crap the rest of my life when it rained, and its the same one that’s jacked up NOW, but not sure that’s the DOCTOR’s fault.

    …anyway, that was the first exposure I remember to a learned man like a doctor having a weird, punchdrunk sense of humor.

    …but it was something I was destined to see many times later in life, but those are different stories for another day…

    7
  4. Recently I bought some Land O’ Lakes butter from my local grocery store. When I got home I noticed that on the receipt it was listed as “LOL butter”.

    So I tried it, and sure enough, it tasted funny.

    21
  5. …we had a weird joke that was inculcated into fire exams once, too. There was this one time a crazy guy set his own digs on fire, called 911, hung up, then took up station in a soon-to-be burning room with a rifle to shoot responders. Lt. Gazelle (not his real name) had the duty car and lived nearby, so he even beat the cops in and reported a working structure fire with possible entrapment, then got out of the car to assess the situation closer.

    That’s when Nutty mcBadshot started popping caps at him.

    Fortunately, Goofystick Craycray kinda sucked at shooting even an unsuspecting target from a smoke-filled room at that distance and missed, but was close enough to make the unexpected danger clear to Gazelle, so he got back to the car STAT and backed away, telling incoming units to stay away until LEO got there.

    It had a happy outcome in that no one, not even Charlie Crackers, died, but this is not that story.

    …the thing is, they liked to put “Attention” questions in with the training material, to see if you were actually awake during training, or just reading and regurgitating, interspersed with the real questions. You know, stuff like,
    “What’s the biggest sea creature?” (a whale).

    “What’s the smallest flying animal?” (A hummingbird).

    “What’s the fastest land animal?” (A cheetah).

    …and so on.

    …after that incident, though, they changed the LAST one. Instead of “Cheetah”, the answer to “What is the fastest land animal” was changed to.”Lt. Gazelle running away from the violent mental at 123 Loopy lane”.

    …so this act of attemped murder of everyone coming to the rescue was reduced to a classroom funny.

    …you had to, if you took it too seriously, you wouldn’t be able to function.

    …so it probably would have STILL been a joke, had he HIT the Lieutenant.

    …if it had hit him in the ASS, anyway…

    4
  6. …there was another joke about the Fire Triangle (really, a square when they added “Chemical Chain Reaction”).

    The question was, broadly, “What can you remove to put out a fire?”

    The answers, again broadly, were,
    1) Remove the heat.
    2) Remove the oxygen.
    3) Remove the fuel.
    4) Remove the chemical chain reaction.

    …to which, someone added…
    5) Remove the Chief from the scene.

    …because every firefighter was SURE he could put a fire out better if the Chief wasn’t calling the shots, dontcha know…

    …Chief thought it was funny

    It stayed in.

    4
  7. Bad_Brad
    FEBRUARY 21, 2020 AT 7:09 PM
    “Where do funny looking people fit in?”

    …at the Democrat Primaries.

    (Budum-dum!)

    …I’m here all week, try the veal…

    7
  8. They don’t know it but all democrat candidates are fatally funny. Some people are funny because we laugh at them, not with them.

    Take the squaw, the one who looks like those inflatable, arm flailing things trying to draw attention at a used car lot, but it’s Liz Warren at the dem debate.

    I could rail on in a lengthy post, but Super has already covered that. At least thrice.

    These knuckleheads have no self awareness. None.

    1
  9. They don’t know it, but all democrat candidates are fatally funny. Some people are funny because we laugh at them, not with them. Bless their hearts.

    Take the squaw, the one who looks like those inflatable, arm flailing things trying to draw attention at a used car lot, but it’s Liz Warren at the dem debate.

    I could rail on in a lengthy post, but Super has already covered that. At least thrice.

    These knuckleheads have no self awareness. None.

    3
  10. …don’t back off on MY account, @PHenry, the Interwebs is big enough for BOTH of us, and I’ve set the bar pretty low, so you can walk right over and look like…well…a GENIUS…

    3
  11. I want to congratulate all the participating readers here in convincing the rest of the blogs that we are not that smart. It was a tough job, but you got it done. LOL, LOL, LOL

    5
  12. Three one-liners heard 27,397 times on the Ed Sullivan Show, 1950-1970.

    That was no lady, that was my wife…

    That was no ladle, that was my knife…

    Take my wife…please.

    That’s some funny lines right there.

    1

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