Partner Accuracy in Humor Perception and Associations With Relationship Satisfaction

Abstract

Do people accurately perceive their partner’s humor style? The current study extends work on partner perception by examining accuracy and bias in people’s perception of their partners’ humor styles—a subjective, evaluative, and important factor in relationship satisfaction. We recruited 337 heterosexual couples ( N = 674 individuals, Mage = 65.71 years, SD = 12.107) who completed self-reports and partner-reports of humor styles. Truth and Bias modeling revealed that, although bias varied across humor styles, participants consistently demonstrated accuracy in their judgments of their partner’s humor styles. Bias forces were moderated by relationship satisfaction such that assumed similarity biases were stronger among those in particularly satisfying relationships.