People might be laughing at your jokes because you're attractive — not because you're funny

Do you like your partners to have a great sense of humor? One researcher thinks you should stop kidding yourself — you like your partners because they're attractive, and that's why you think they're funny.

Professor Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College London, studies the way people express their emotions and has found laughter to be a linchpin in determining a healthy relationship, The Telegraph reports. The amount a couple laughs together, Scott believes, determines how much they like each other — not how funny they are.

"You will hear women say: he's really attractive, I really fancy him, he's got such a great sense of humor," Scott told The Telegraph. "What they mean is: He's really attractive and I laugh because I fancy him."

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Scott added, "If you ask human beings when do you laugh, they talk about jokes, but you're very rarely laughing at jokes. You're laughing to show you agree with people, that you're in the same group as them, that you like them. If you didn't like them you wouldn't give them your laughter."

There you have it! Keep on cracking those jokes — so long as you're both laughing, it doesn't matter how dumb they are.