What Are YOU Laughing About?

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Reader's Digest took an in-depth look at why slap-stick, dim-witted humor appeals so well to men, whether it's in movies, on TV, or in a comedy club. Are they wired differently than women, or are women wound too tightly when it comes to humor? Yes, and no.

The study actually started back in the 90's, when two neuroscientists began to examine the brain and how it responded to humor and laughter. MRI scans of the brain revealed that areas in the front of the brain actually lit up, especially when the response to humor resulted in laughing out loud.

Armed with this information, a Stanford University psychiatrist, Allan L. Reiss, MD, enlisted male and female subjects to participate in a volunteer study. Each person was shown 70 cartoons and was asked to rate the level of humor in the cartoons while undergoing an MRI scan of their brain. The results showed that men and women processed the information differently! The women's scans showed they used the analytical portion of their brain more than the men, resulting in lower humor ratings among the women.

All of which is a fancy way of saying women appear to think a little more about whether they find something humorous. They don’t necessarily expect to laugh and so they enjoy it a lot more when the joke works for them. With men, apparently, it was more like, Hey … cartoon. Must be funny. Funny is good.

Men have such basic needs: Food, sex, sleep...in that order please.

Comedians have made the link between women and their comedic content as well. Insult comic Lisa Lampanelli says, “The first thing women do when you get on that stage is size you up.” Eddie Brill, an experienced stand-up agreed whole-heartedly.

“They even look at my shoes,” he laughs. “So with an all-female crowd, I’ll wear really nice shoes.”

Other comedians have learned the hard way...if you play to a crowd full of dating couples, and you're bashing women, she's not going to be laughing, and her date will not be laughing either.

Regina Barreca, a professor at the University of Connecticut, has studied men, women, and humor for most of her career. She says there are actually three factors that determine what women will - or won't - find funny:

First, women don’t like crude. “We don’t do eye-poking, head-slamming humor. No woman has gone up to another woman and said, ‘Pull my finger.’”

Second, women don’t tell jokes. They tell stories. When a woman says, “I have something funny to tell you,” if you’re smart, you’ll sit down, because you’re going to be there for a long, long time.

Third, women don’t enjoy humor that makes fun of others’ physical shortcomings. By contrast, men make fun of just about everyone. “Men taunt other men with clever nicknames and insults,” says John Morreall, a humor expert at the College of William and Mary. “That isn’t something women do.” There’s a joke on comedycentral.com that goes, “If Laura, Suzanne, Debra and Rose go out for lunch, they will call one another Laura, Suzanne, Debra and Rose. If Mike, Charlie, Bob and John go out, they will affectionately refer to one another as Fat Boy, Godzilla, Peanut-Head and Scrappy.”

So the next time you're laughing yourself to tears over something funny, and your partner isn't sharing your enthusiasm, you can blame it on their brain!