EN
The mechanisms of human mate selection are amongst the central themes of evolutionary psychology research. Although physical attractiveness provides the basis of successful courting, it is also affected by a number of personality factors. Sense of humor is one of these factors, whose primary function is arguably to support courting. Despite the fact that the study of the evolutionary psychological functions of humor has received increasing interest during the past decade, the evolutionary background of individual humor preference is largely unknown. According to some early views of constitutional typologies (e.g., Sheldon), physique and sense of humor are linked: e.g., persons of the picnic somatotype are assumed to have an active sense of humor. We studied the relationship between humor preference and gender, the extroversion-introversion personality dimension, and physique. Our results showed that men have a stronger humor preference than women and they are more likely to apply humor within a mate selection context. Furthermore, overweight introverted persons also show stronger humor preference. These results are interpreted within the framework of adaptive strategies of mate selection.