Are Men Funnier Than Women?

By: Cory Perrin
10/22/2011 08:00 AM ET

Men are funnier than women. While some may disagree with this claim, it has often been pointed out as true, and now the University of California in San Diego has a new study that might prove it. Researchers performed a caption-writing contest, where men and women students were put up against each other.

The contestants were awarded points based off laughs they received. The difference in points wasn’t great, 11 more for men, and evidence still shows insight to the claim. Although the researchers also point out that men in general think they are funnier. This gives lead to why the persona of men are typically more funny than their female counterparts.

A co-author to the study, New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff, points out that society feels men are funnier simply because men try to be funny more often. He states it’s a confidence thing. According to study author Laura Mickes, a postdoctoral researcher in the UC San Diego department of psychology, “There is some shred of truth to the received wisdom about men being funnier, but it does not come close to explaining how much funnier they think they are.”

She also states the stereotype of males being funnier is something she has alway questioned, but she points out, “Even more surprising, though, is that it was pretty much just other males who found males funnier.” Authors also noted that men used vulgarity and sexual humor slightly more than their female counterparts, which were not surprising results.

Often times the stereotype leads people to think that men are funnier, yet when people were asked about the captions done in the study, they always related the funnier ones to men and not so funny to the women. Many times they were wrong.

Source: Men Funnier Than Women