When we meet someone or begin to establish a romantic relationship with another person, it is common to notice that they make us laugh. Laughter is a powerful catalyst for attraction in the initial stages of relationships and has been supported by numerous studies.
However, little research has delved into the role of humor in established relationships, beyond the initial stage. This was what motivated researchers Kenneth Tan, Bryan KC Choy and Norman P. Li to study how humor serves as a link between couples, maintenance, commitment and satisfaction in the relationship.
Are couples who are fun more satisfied, or are more satisfied couples more able to see the fun side of their partners? This is how the study by the aforementioned authors, published in the journal Psychological Science, is introduced. To carry out the research, they had the participation of 108 couples from a university in Singapore, whose romantic relationship had an average duration of 18.27 months.
The approach used was a diary, in which participants were required to complete daily assessments for seven consecutive nights, reporting their perceptions of humor in their relationship, their level of satisfaction, commitment, and perceived commitment in the couple. In this way, the researchers were able to examine fluctuations in mood and how it influences the perception of quality within already established romantic relationships.
Based on the results obtained, they corroborated that humor exerts a notable influence on the indicators of interest in the romantic relationship. Those days in which participants reported higher levels of satisfaction, commitment, and perceived partner commitment also coincided with greater humorous participation from their partners. Thus, humor is used to express and measure interest in the relationship.
Another observation by the researchers is that there are delayed effects in the relationship between humor and relationship quality over time. They found that the positive quality of the relationship on the day also predicted more perception of humor the next day, positively influencing the use of humor in the relationship. That is, on days when couples were more satisfied and committed to the relationship, they found their partner funnier both on the same day and the next. And it also happened in the opposite way, on the days when they were less satisfied and committed to the relationship, they found their partner in less humor both on the same day and the following day.