Are men funnier than women? Yes, according to gender stereotype, arguing an evolutionary selective advantage akin to a peacock’s gaudy feathers in attracting mates. Not so, says a recent study published in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Using a gender blind New Yorker cartoon captioning contest, researchers from UCSD concluded that men were only a “skosh” funnier than women (by 0.11 points out of a possible 5). Even that advantage came largely from men, who rated other men funnier than women did. Plenty of lolz from the article itself!
“Sad for the guys,” Christenfeld said, “who think that by being funny they will impress the ladies, but really just impress other men who want to impress the ladies.” snark
The difference in self-assessment was greater than the actual difference detected by the contest. “Male confidence, in this domain at least,” the researchers write, “does seem to outstrip male competence.” ouch
Lead author (Laura) Mickes declined to make any funny comments because they’d be attributed to her male coauthors anyway. hahaha
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
Hah, apparently so are women. Turns out that men just try harder. As for me, I’ll take my humor any where I find it 🙂
Always remembering this is a generalized fact, which only means there’s a very slight percentage more probability that the guy you talk to will be funny, compared to a woman. 😉
edit: specially if you’re another man. 😛
Someone has to be serious and responsible.
The most interesting part of this study is that both men and women were more likely to incorrectly remember a funny joke as having been said by a man, even if it had actually been said by a woman (and visa versa).
So the stereotype of “men are funnier” influenced individuals memory of the gender of the joke-teller.
Justin Kiggins , therein lies the basis of the stereotype! Interesting stuff..funny, too.
Who defined what qualifies as ‘humour’ in this study? 🙂
I don’t know many jokes that are politically correct, but would bet that women are better than men in applying political correctness to what they …say. 🙂
Richard L. Fellner , the participants of the study..both genders 🙂