Dissing Oneself versus Dissing Rivals : Effects of Status, Personality, and Sex on the Short-Term and Long-Term Attractiveness of Self-Deprecating and Other-Deprecating Humor

Evolutionary Psychology
www.epjournal.net – 2008. 6(3): 393-408
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Original Article
Dissing Oneself versus Dissing Rivals: Effects of Status, Personality, and Sex
on the Short-Term and Long-Term Attractiveness of Self-Deprecating and
Other-Deprecating Humor

Gil Greengross, Anthropology Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA Email:
Humorology@gmail.com (Corresponding author)

Geoffrey F. Miller, Psychology Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA.
Abstract: This study explores the adaptive functions and design features of self- and other-
deprecating humor. Sixty-four female and 32 male college students participated in a two-
part study. In the first part, we examined the relationships among participant demographics,
personality traits, and preferences for producing different types of humor. Men report using
more other-deprecating humor than women do, and the use of other-deprecating humor
decreases with age for both sexes. In the second part of the study, each participant listened
to tape recordings of opposite-sex people who were described as having different levels of
status, and who produced different types of humor; then participants rated each person’s
attractiveness as a potential short-term and long-term mate. Humor type and presenter
status had no effects on short-term attractiveness, but self-deprecating humor by high-status
presenters (but not low-status presenters) increased long-term attractiveness for both sexes.
These results are discussed in the light of sexual selection theory and costly signaling
theory.

Keywords: Humor; status; sexual selection; mental fitness indicators; costly signaling
theory
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Introduction
Humor and laughter seem to have evolved as species-typical psychological
adaptations in humans (e.g., Alexander, 1986; Gervais and Wilson, 2005; Miller, 2000;
Weisfeld, 1993). They are universal across cultures and across history. Laughter has an
early and spontaneous onset in infancy (around four months old), and similar behaviors
appear in other social primates such as chimpanzees (Preuschoft and Van-Hooff, 1997;
Waller and Dunbar, 2005). Humor produces distinctive emotional, cognitive, and social
reactions, and is conspicuous in spontaneous human social behavior among mates, friends,
and kin (Kaufman et al., 2008).

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Self- and other-deprecating humor
Yet, the adaptive functions and design features of humor remain obscure, and
research on humor remains fragmentary and inconclusive. For example, no single theory
yet can explain the diverse forms and functions of humor and laughter (Derks, 1996; R.
Martin, 2007; R.A. Martin, 1998; Schmidt and Williams, 1971). While most humor
research concerns jokes (with distinct “set-up lines” and “punch lines”), only about 10% to
15% of laughter in natural social contexts occurs in response to classically-structured jokes
that would seem funny when repeated out of context (Provine, 2000). Rather, most laughter
occurs in response to short utterances or nonverbal micro-performances during informal
conversation. These might seem funny in the immediate social context, but would often
seem fairly mundane or stupid if repeated later. Thus, rather than studying humor in
general, it may be more productive to focus on specific types of humor used in particular
social contexts.
Self-deprecating and other-deprecating humor are two of the most common types.
Both seem to be universal human phenomena, present in both traditional and industrialized
societies (Apte, 1985). Almost all forms of humor involve ridicule of something – a person,
behavior, belief, group, or possession – at some level. Self- and other-deprecating humor is
usually directed towards a specific person (oneself or another) (Harvey, 1995; Janes and
Olson, 2000) – their behaviors, utterances, personality traits, competencies, social status, or
sexual attractiveness. For example, self-deprecating humor often highlights – in a socially
pre-emptive way – perceived deficits in one’s general intelligence (“Mommy says I’m
special”), personality traits (“Saturday has a morning?”), moral virtues (“If it weren’t for
physics and law enforcement, I’d be unstoppable”), mental health (“Some days it’s just not
worth gnawing through the straps”), or physical attractiveness (“I’m hung like Einstein and
smart as a horse”). Self-deprecating humor often arises between potential mates during
courtship, or between established mates during peace-making after relationship tensions
and arguments. However, it is a risky form of humor because it can draw attention to one’s
real faults, diminishing the self-deprecator’s status in the eyes of others (Lundy, Tan, and
Cunningham, 1998). Based on the idea that verbal humor evolved to function as a fitness
indicator, we hypothesize that expert use of self-deprecating humor can be an especially
risky, reliable indicator not only of general intelligence and verbal creativity, but also of
moral virtues such as humility (Miller, 2007).
Other-deprecating humor – colloquially known as “dissing” (from “disrespecting”)
– often arises in situations of sexual rivalry, in which one individual pokes fun at the
deficiencies in a same-sex rival’s fitness indicators, such as their health, intelligence, or
status (Miller, 2000). It is also a risky form of humor, because it can be taken as a serious
insult rather than a harmless joke (which can lead to physical aggression or even a
homicide ‘arising from a trivial altercation’ – Daly and Wilson, 1988). Many mental
illnesses reflect impaired neuro-developmental stability and impaired socio-cognitive
functioning (Keller and Miller, 2006), and mental illnesses generally impair verbal
creativity and humor production ability (Kaufman et al., 2008; Miller and Tal, 2007;
Shaner, Miller, and Mintz, 2008). So, the use of other-deprecating humor by individuals
with mental illnesses – even minor personality disorders – probably runs a higher risk of
provoking physical or reputational retaliation from the deprecated.
The frequent use of self- and other-deprecating humor in sexual contexts (with
potential mates, established mates, or sexual rivals), plus the sometimes high costs and high
failure rates of deprecating humor, suggests that it might be best understood from the
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Self- and other-deprecating humor
viewpoint of costly signaling theory (Zahavi, 1975; Zahavi and Zahavi, 1997) and sexual
selection theory (Buss, 2003). In these regards, humor resembles many other distinctive
human capacities, such as language, morality, creativity, art, and music, which may have
been favored by sexual selection through mutual mate choice (Miller, 2000). These abilities
may function as hard-to-fake mental fitness indicators that reveal genetic quality (Miller,
2000), neurodevelopmental stability (Prokosch, Yeo, and Miller, 2005), intelligence (Miller
and Penke, 2007), and mental health (Shaner, Miller, and Mintz, 2008). Humor may have
arisen through similar selection pressures to serve a similar sexual-courtship and sexual-
competition functions (Kaufman et al., 2008).
Many studies show that sense of humor is sexually attractive, especially to women
(e.g., Buss, 1988; Feingold, 1992; Lundy, Tan, and Cunningham, 1998; Sprecher and
Regan, 2002). For example, studies on newspaper personal ads show that women are more
likely to say they seek a mate with a sense of humor than men are (Smith, Waldorf, and
Trembath, 1990). Conversely, men are more likely to tell jokes than women, and women
are more likely to smile and laugh during conversations, especially in response to male
speakers (Crawford and Gressley, 1991; Provine, 2000). A recent study informed by sexual
selection theory also found that, while females prefer a male mate who makes them laugh,
males prefer a female mate who appreciates their sense of humor (Bressler, Martin, and
Balshine, 2006). This sex difference in humor production versus appreciation has a fairly
early onset: McGhee (1976) found that by middle childhood (ages 6-11), boys try
significantly more often than girls to initiate humor, both verbally and non-verbally.
Further, Fuhr (2001) found that Danish adolescents aged 12-17 who often produce a funny
joke or remark were generally rated as having higher status, and the highest-status
individual (a boy) among all the boys and girls in a school was the most frequent producer
of humor.

Within this mate choice context, self-deprecating humor seems especially attractive
under certain conditions. Physically attractive people who used self-deprecating humor
were more desirable as mates – especially if they were men (Lundy, Tan, and Cunningham,
1998). Humor also seems to play an important role in human intra-sexual competition.
People use humor to derogate, denigrate, insult, embarrass, and ostracize their sexual rivals,
while minimizing the risks of physical retaliation.
The status of the humor producer may modulate the sexual and social attractiveness
of humor, especially self-deprecating and other-deprecating humor. Since women generally
prefer higher-status males (Buss, 2003), they might be especially attentive to humor
production by high-status males, and there may be positive interaction effects between
status and humor production ability, as there are between status and kindness (Aronson,
Willerman, and Floyd, 1966; Jensen-Campbell, Graziano, and West, 1995). A study
conducted among psychiatrists and other staff members in a psychiatric hospital supports
the notion that high ranked men use humor to retain and reinforce their status and use it
against subordinates in (Coser, 1960). However, it is unclear whether high status men use
humor more effectively to gain and maintain their status, or if their humor is perceived as
funnier because they already have higher status.

This study aims to clarify the roles of self-deprecating and other-deprecating humor
in human sexual selection, by investigating their use and influence on attractiveness as a
function of the humor producer’s sex, status, and personality traits. Since women are
generally the choosier sex, we expect them to pay more attention to diverse cues of mate
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Self- and other-deprecating humor
quality, including both status and humor production ability. Thus, male use of self-
deprecating and/or other-deprecating humor may be more sexually attractive to women
than vice-versa. We also hypothesize, based on the logic of costly signaling theory, that
self-deprecating humor by otherwise high-status potential mates may be more attractive
than self-deprecating humor use by otherwise low-status potential mates. Conversely,
other-deprecating humor use by high-status potential mates may be less attractive than
other-deprecating humor use by low-status potential mates.

Knowledge of the connection between the signaler and the message is imperative to
understand why the self-deprecation can only enhance the attractiveness of high-status
individuals and not others. Anyone can imitate the phenotypic expression of desirable traits
that they think can benefit them. People evaluating these behaviors do not usually separate
the signal from the signaler. Thus, the signal itself is embodied not in the message, but in
the signaler. Therefore, when people see or hear a person using self-deprecating humor
they inevitably interpret it based on their knowledge about that person.
Finally, we thought that, insofar as the “Big Five” human personality traits may
implement different status-seeking and sexual strategies (Nettle, 2006; Penke, Denissen,
and Miller, 2007), they may predict differential use of self-deprecating humor, other-
deprecating humor, and other forms of humor. We also used the Humor Styles
Questionnaire that assesses participants’ sense of humor on four different scales (Martin,
Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, and Weir, 2003). These styles include two positive humor
styles (affiliative and self-enhancing humor) and two negative ones (other and self-
deprecating humor). People’s own sense of humor may have an effect on how they
perceive others’ humor and therefore need to be controlled. In addition, the positive humor
styles tend to be positively correlated with extraversion and openness, while the negative
styles negatively correlate with agreeableness and conscientiousness and positively
correlate with neuroticism (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, and Weir, 2003).

Materials and Methods

Participants

Students from introductory Psychology courses at the University of New Mexico
participated in this study. The 64 female participants (mean age = 20.0 years, SD = 2.3)
and 32 male participants (mean age = 21.2, SD = 5.5) received partial course credit for
participation.

Procedures

Up to 10 participants sat in a room for each session of the experiment. For the first
part of the experiment, the participants completed several questionnaires. These included:
(1) a basic demographic inventory, (2) the NEO-FFI-R survey (Costa and McCrae, 1992)
of the “Big Five” personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness,
extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), and (3) the Humor Styles Questionnaire
(HSQ) (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, and Weir, 2003), which uses 32 Likert-scale
items to assess participants’ preferences for four types of humor production: affiliative
humor (sharing humor to enhance social bonds), self-enhancing humor (using humor to
maintain self-esteem and cope with stress), other-deprecating humor (using humor to
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Self- and other-deprecating humor
disparage others; hostile and offensive humor), and self-deprecating humor (making fun of
oneself).
For the second part of the experiment, each participant was given an individual
Walkman with ear-covering headphones and a particular cassette tape, depending on their
sex and the counter-balanced condition they were in. The separate tapes and headphones
were intended to minimize the effects of contagious laughter, which affects people’s
reactions to humor, and which might confound the results (Provine, 1992). Male
participants listened to two successive female presenters, each giving a brief (1-minute)
performance; female participants likewise listened to two successive male presenters.
(Presenters were drama students from the theatre department at the University of New
Mexico). Neither the readers nor the listeners were aware of the hypotheses of the study.
Before the first performance, participants read a brief printed description of the
presenter as an opposite-sex college student of either high status (having a high GPA,
owning a car, and with parents having high status jobs) or low status (having a low GPA,
owning a bicycle, and with parents having low-status jobs) (see Appendix A for full
descriptions); this status manipulation was adapted from Weaver, Fisher, Ehney (2002).
After reading this description, the participant pressed “play” on his or her Walkman and
listened to the first performance.
Each performance consisted of an anecdotal story told by the presenter as if it had
happened to him or her. Each story was one of four humor types (see Appendix B for
examples): a self-deprecating joke, an other-deprecating joke, a non-deprecating joke, or a
non-humorous story about a personal experience with nature. All stories were adopted from
the routines of popular stand-up comedians, and were of very similar word-count and time-
length. (Before the study, three male and three female judges independently rated each
performance for funniness; all three humor types were perceived as equally funny, and
funnier than the non-humorous story.)

After listening to the first performance, the participant pressed “stop” on his or her
Walkman, and completed 19 Likert-scale items concerning that performance. The first two
items were manipulation checks: participants rated the presenter’s funniness and status. The
middle 15 items concerned other aspects of the presenter’s apparent mate value (e.g.,
intelligence, physical attractiveness). The last two items asked participants to rate how
attractive they thought the presenter was as a possible short-term or long-term sexual
partner (1 – not very attractive to 9 – very attractive).
After rating the first presenter, participants read a similar printed description of the
second presenter’s status, pressed “play”, listened to a second performance (also one of
four story types), pressed “stop”, and completed the same 19 Likert-scale items to rate the
second presenter’s funniness, status, mate value traits, and attractiveness as a short-term
and long-term sexual partner.
Statistically, the study used a 4x2x2x2 between-subject mixed design. The four
factors were: (1) type of humor (self-deprecating humor, other-deprecating humor, non-
deprecating humor, or non-humorous story); (2) status of the presenter (high or low); (3)
sex of the presenter (male or female); (4) the presenter’s order (first or second). Humor
type, status, and presenter’s sex were fixed effects, while the presenter order was a random
effect.


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Self- and other-deprecating humor

Results

Sex differences in personality and humor scales

Table 1 shows sex differences in the “Big Five” personality traits and humor scales.
These data are consistent with previous studies showing that women score higher than men
on openness and neuroticism, while men score higher than women on use of other-
deprecating humor (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, and Weir, 2003).




Table 1. Sex difference in personality and humor scales



Mean
SD

Median
Scale Range
_________________________________________________________________________
Big Five
Personality Traits
Openness*
Male
9.59
9.62
11.50
-36 to 36


Female
13.76
10.26
13.00
-36 to 36

Conscientiousness Male
12.56
10.36
13.50
-36 to 36


Female
15.02
11.41
14.50
-36 to 36

Extraversion Male
13.81
9.89
14.00
-36 to 36


Female
12.77
11.76
14.00
-36 to 36

Agreeableness Male
5.34
10.14
4.50

-36 to 36


Female
7.93
10.73
8.50

-36 to 36

Neuroticism* Male
-4.94
10.17
-6.00
-36 to 36


Female
0.21
12.48
0.00

-36 to 36
_______________________________________________________________________
Humor Styles
_______________________________________________________________________
Self-deprecating Male
27.84
8.84
28.00
8 to 56


Female
27.20
9.95
25.00
8 to 56

Other-
deprecating* Male
32.09
7.52
32.50
8 to 56


Female
28.46
8.43
28.50
8 to 56

Affiliate
Male
48.03
4.51
49.00
8 to 56


Female
46.35
7.28
48.00
8 to 56

Self-enhancing Male
40.28
6.90
40.50
8 to 56


Female
38.17
9.40
40.00
8 to 56
* significant sex difference at p < .05

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Table 2 shows the overall correlations between “Big Five” personality traits and
humor scales (See Table 2). The correlations in this table are for all participants, but for the
most part, were consistent with the correlations computed for each sex alone.

Conscientiousness was positively correlated with use of self-enhancing humor (r = +.25, p
< .01) and negatively correlated with use of self-deprecating humor (r = -.22, p < .05).
Extraversion was positively correlated with affiliative humor (r = +.52, p < .01) and self-
enhancing humor (r = +.30, p < .01), and negatively with self-deprecating humor (r = -.29,
p < .01). Agreeableness was negatively associated with other-deprecating humor (r = -.49,
p < .01) and self-deprecating humor (r = -.22, p < .01). Neuroticism was negatively
correlated with affiliative humor (r = -.28, p < .01) and self-enhancing humor (r = -.40, p <
.01), and positively with self-deprecating humor (+.42, p < .01). Thus, use of other-
deprecating humor was associated with lower than average agreeableness, whereas use of
self-deprecating humor was associated with lower than average conscientiousness,
extraversion, and agreeableness, and higher than average neuroticism. Also, though not
indicated in the table, the correlation between other-deprecating humor and age was -.44 (p
< .02) for males, -.17 (p = .17, ns) for females, and -.23 (p < .05) for both sexes combined.

Table 2. Correlations among “Big Five” personality traits and humor scales
_________________________________________________________________________
“Big Five” traits
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9
1.
Openness

-.13 +.04 +.02 +.05 +.15 +.03 -.19 +.11
2.
Consc’ness


+.23* +.05 -.19 +.19 +.25** -.14 -.22*
3.
Extraversion


+.09 -.38** +.52** +.30** +.10 -.29**
4.
Agreeableness



-.27** +.01 +.01 -.49** -.22**
5.
Neuroticism
-.28**
-.40**
-.01



+.42**
Humor type
6.
Affiliative
+.42**
+.22*

-.05
7.
Self-enhancing +.12




-.02
8.
Other-deprecating






+.21*
9.
Self-deprecating








_________________________________________________________________________
* significant at p < .05
** significant at p < .01

Manipulation checks

To see if the manipulations of status and humor type worked, we ran a general
linear model with status, humor type, and sex as factors. Results showed that participants
rated the presenters described as high status as having higher status than the presenters
described as low status (means 6.54, se = .19 vs. 4.25, se = .19 on the 1-9 scale, p < .001).
Humor ratings showed that both male and female participants rated the non-humor
condition as less funny that the humor conditions (males: means 2.56, se = .58 vs. 4.56, se
= 0.58 on the 1-9 scale, p < .0001; females: means 2.56, se = .58 vs. 4.76, se = 0.58 on the
1-9 scale, p < .0001).

Presenter effects
Variance components analysis was performed for each dependent variable in the
mate value questionnaire. A Restricted Maximum Likelihood Estimate analysis was
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Self- and other-deprecating humor
performed using the Mixed procedure in SAS. The analysis was performed separately for
males and females, since each had two different presenters. In all analyses, the estimated
variance for the presenter effect was close to zero, meaning it had no effect. Specific male
or female presenters did not significantly affect participant responses.


Do humor type and presenter status influence mate attractiveness?

To test whether humor type and presenter status influence mate attractiveness, we
ran a general linear model using the mixed procedure in SAS, with humor type, presenter
status, and sex as fixed effects, and participants and presenters as random effects. All
possible interactions were included in the model as well.

Humor type, presenter status, and presenter sex all had significant main effects on
participants’ rated interest in developing a long-term relationship with the presenter
[humor, F(3,174) = 12.96, p < 0.0001; status, F(1,174) = 4.25, p < 0.05; sex, F(1,174) =
4.63, p < 0.05]. There was an interaction between humor type and presenter status
[F(3,174) = 3.13, p < 0.05]. No effects were found for participants’ rated interest in having
a short-term sexual relationship with the presenter. Figure 1 shows the mean estimates of
long-term attractiveness by humor type and presenter status, across all participants of both
sexes.

Figure 1. Mean estimates of long-term attractiveness (on a 0-8 scale) by humor type and presenter status,
across all participants.
Mean estimates of attractiveness for a long term relationship
All subjects
7
6
s
es
5
Self Deprecating
en
4
Other Deprecating
i
v
3
General
t
t
r
act
2
Non Humor
A
1
0
High
Low
Status


Planned post hoc tests were conducted to determine if there was a difference in
long-term attractiveness between self- and other-deprecating humor for each level of
presenter status. For high-status presenters, long-term attractiveness was significantly
higher when the presenters used self-deprecating humor rather than other-deprecating
humor (t(174) = 3.94, p < .0001). However, for low-status presenters, self-deprecating vs.
other-deprecating humor had no significant effect on their long-term attractiveness (t(174)
= -0.04, p = .96).
Since participant sex had a significant main effect on rated long-term attractiveness,
we also analyzed the effects of humor type and presenter status separately for male and
female participants. We ran the mixed procedure with humor type and presenter status as
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Self- and other-deprecating humor
fixed effects, and participants and presenters as random effects, and including the
interaction between humor type and presenter status.

For male participants, humor type had a significant main effect on long-term
attractiveness (F(3,54) = 4.64, p < .001), but presenter status had no main effect (F(1,54) =
0.30, p = .59). The interaction between humor type and presenter status was significant
(F(3,54) = 2.92, p < 0.05). Planned post hoc tests revealed that males gave significant
higher long-term attractiveness ratings to high-status female presenters who used self-
deprecating rather than other-deprecating humor (t(54) = 3.37, p < .05). There was no such
difference for low-status female presenters (t(54) = -0.33, p = .75). Figure 2 shows the
mean long-term attractiveness ratings by male participants as a function of humor type and
(female) presenter status.

Figure 2. Mean estimates of long-term attractiveness (on a 0-8 scale) by humor type and presenter status, for
male participants.
Mean estimates of attractiveness for a long term
relationship - Male subjects
7
6
s
s
e 5
Self Deprecating
n 4
ve
Other Deprecating
ti 3
ac
General
ttr 2
Non Humor
A 1
0
High
Low
Status

For female participants, humor type had a significant main effect on long-term
attractiveness (F(3,118) = 11.79, p < .0001). Status of the male presenter also had a
significant main effect on long-term attractiveness (F(1,118) = 7.89, p < 0.01). The
interaction between humor type and presenter status was not significant overall (F(3,118) =
0.91, p = .44). However, the planned post hoc comparison did show that female participants
gave higher long-term attractiveness ratings to high-status males using self-deprecating
humor, compared to high-status males using other-deprecating humor (t(118) = 2.03, p <
.05). Figure 3 shows the mean long-term attractiveness ratings by female participants as a
function of humor type and (male) presenter status.









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Figure 3. Mean estimates of long-term attractiveness (on a 0-8 scale) by humor type and presenter status, for
female participants.
Mean estimates of attractiveness for a long term
relationship - Female subjects
7
s 6
ss 5
Self Deprecating
e
n
e 4
Other Deprecating
v
ti 3
c
General
a 2
ttr
Non Humor
A 1
0
High
Low
Status

Since people react differently to humor, it may be important to control for how
funny the participants perceived the presenter to be. Despite the initial tests finding that
people perceived the humor conditions to be funnier than the non-humorous nature story,
participants in the main study showed substantial variability in the rated funniness of the
different humor types. To investigate whether rated funniness might mediate the results
reported above, we ran a mixed model that included humor type, presenter status,
participant sex, and rated funniness as fixed variables, and participants and presenters as
random variables. We performed the same tests as above with the funniness ratings
included. The results were robust, and while there were a few minor differences, the overall
trends remain the same: both men and women give higher long-term attractiveness ratings
to potential mates who use self-deprecating rather than other-deprecating humor – but only
if the potential mate was described as having high status.

Discussion
This study aimed to apply sexual selection theory and costly signaling theory to
better understand self-deprecating humor and other-deprecating humor. Specifically, we
used a questionnaire to investigate how sex and the Big Five personality traits influenced
use of self- versus other-deprecating humor. We also used audio recordings to investigate
how the described social status of the humor-produced interacts with the type of humor
used, to influence rated sexual attractiveness for short-term and long-term relationships.

With regard to sex differences, women showed higher average openness and
neuroticism than men – a finding consistent with previous personality research. The only
sex difference in self-reported use of the four different humor types (self-deprecating,
other-deprecating, afffiliative, and self-enhancing) was that males reported using more
other-deprecating humor than women – a finding consistent with Martin et al. (2003).
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