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Sure, a lot of people say they value a sense of humor in their relationships but what does that entail? While it might not seem like much, being able to cut up with your lover might make your relationships much more successful.

Just a few years ago Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Jeffrey Hall from the University of Kansas concluded in an article that was published in the journal Personal Relationships that humor is one of the most important things when it comes to building a strong relationship with your partner. He surveyed the findings of over thirty studies and looked at the date from over fifteen thousand participants to really get as much information as possible. Whether you like to cut up a lot or just a little, without humor your relationship is most likely lacking.

Hall told The University of Kansas News as follows in regards to these findings:

“People say they want a sense of humor in a mate but that’s a broad concept.”

“That people think you are funny or you can make a joke out of anything is not strongly related to relationship satisfaction. What is strongly related to relationship satisfaction is the humor that couples create together.”

“Say you and your partner share a quirky sense of humor but romantic comedies or sit-coms do nothing for either of you. So it’s not that any style or a sense of humor is better or worse. What matters is that you both see quirky humor as hysterical. If you share a sense of what is funny, it affirms you and affirms your relationship through laughter.”

The playfulness between partners is crucial when it comes to building a proper bond. Being able to laugh at each other and poke fun might not seem like much but to many, it is what defines whether they grow together or apart. Sure, you shouldn’t be making your lover into the butt of a joke but being a little cheesy here and there can go a long way. Knowing your limits and when cutting up is not okay is very important but sharing that laugh is well worth it.

The abstract of Hall’s article goes as follows:

This manuscript reports a meta‐analysis of the correlation between humor and relationship satisfaction in romantic relationships, combining 43 distinct samples from 39 manuscripts and including 15,177 participants (54.7% female) with a mean age of 34.0 years. Drawing from 3 theoretical dimensions of humor (i.e., within‐person/relational, positive/negative, instrumental/content free), weighted mean effect sizes were estimated for 12 distinct subdimensions of humor. All 6 positive types of humor were positively associated with relationship satisfaction, and 4 of 5 negative types of humor were negatively associated with relationship satisfaction. Instrumental humor was unassociated with satisfaction. In support of the proposed relational dimension, self‐reported humor showed small associations with satisfaction, while partner‐perceived and relational humor showed medium and large effect sizes, respectively.

Are you and the person you love able to make jokes and cut up? How important do you consider a sense of humor to be in your relationship? For more information on this please feel free to check out the video below.