Is sense of humor somehow related to intelligence?

Question

I've seen a couple of documentaries where they insinuate that sense of humor and intelligence could be related. I couldn't find the documentaries on the web, but the following are some studies regarding the issue.

Claims:

• Men can 'laugh women into bed' with GSOH, say psychologists

• Humor ability reveals intelligence, predicts mating success, and is higher in males

• The Relationship of Humor to Intelligence, Creativity, and Intentional and Incidental Learning

• Humor as a Mental Fitness Indicator

How can they be related? Is there a cultural or demographic influence?

Particularly, the first study says that men are not attracted so much by women with GSOH, as woman could be by men with GSOH, and the second one that GSOH is higher among males.

So it kind of suggests that women are not that much intelligent, or GSOH is not an indicator of intelligence among women, or men doesn't like intelligent women.

Answer 1

While the overall evidence that I found suggested that, yes, intelligence and humor are related, there have been some conflicting reports, which makes the situation not crystal clear.

• The Relationship of humor to intelligence, creativity, and intentional and incidental learning (1972) reported that in 80 school children,

sense of humour correlated highly with both creativity (r = .89) and intelligence (r = .91).

The authors also report that another study reported low correlation between sense of humor and intelligence.

• Relation of sense of humor to intelligence (1962) reports on a number of earlier (1920-1939) studies, most of which reported intelligent school children laughed at more humourous opportunities presented to them, and for longer. However, one finding was that college entrance examination scores don't indicate sense of humor.

• In 1994, Psychological studies of the relationship of sense of humor to creativity and intelligence: A review covered this issue:

Although it is widely assumed that sense of humor is closely related to intelligence and creativity, the empirical studies of these relationships, which are reviewed in this article, have yielded conflicting findings. On the basis of the present review and a consideration of other relevant literature, it is suggested that the nature of such relationships might be affected by how the variables are operationalized, several characteristics of the experimental participants, as well as various aspects of the broader experimental context As the extant studies have investigated only a restricted number of the empirical issues to do with those characteristics, it is evident that a considerable amount of research remains to be conducted The more informative characterization provided by such research would clearly provide the basis for more accurate analyses of the nature of intelligence and creativity

• In 2011, Humor ability reveals intelligence, predicts mating success, and is higher in males looked at the ability of 400 university students to write funny captions.

Structural equation models showed that general and verbal intelligence both predict humor production ability

Conclusion

There does appear to be a relationship between humor and intelligence, but, perhaps unsurprisingly due to the slipperiness of the concepts, it depends on how and when you measure it.