Your sense of humour has nothing to do with the genes, and everything to do with your upbringing. A study was conducted by researchers at the St Thomas Hospital, London on 71 pairs of identical twins and 56 pairs of fraternal twins, who were raised together. The twins were asked the kids to go to a separate room and rate five cartoons of Gary Larson's The Far Side on a scale of 0 to 10 with 10 being most funny. The results showed that siblings tend to have similar views on how funny a cartoon is. But identical twins, who have exactly the same genes, were no more likely to agree on this than fraternal twins, who share only half their genes on an average, like ordinary siblings.
This suggests that it is shared environment, rather than shared genes, that make brothers and sisters laugh at the same things. This implies that there is a lot of cultural influence on humour and might explain why popular jokes vary so much between nations, says Tim Spector, who led the study. ( Twin Research , Vol 3, No 1).
We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together.
.png)
Comments are moderated and will be published only after the site moderator’s approval. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name. Selected comments may also be used in the ‘Letters’ section of the Down To Earth print edition.