Secret to a funny joke lies in the teller's reputation

London: A study has found that the secret to a successful joke in fact lies in the teller's reputation.

Being a well-known professional comedian is enough to make your quips seem funny - even if they fall flat when delivered by non-comics.

And a joke is perceived as funnier when it is accredited to a professional comedian than to someone else, with non-nonsensical quips being particularly suited to those who make their living by making others laugh.

Inspired by a disgruntled friend who complained people would laugh at his jokes if they heard them on TV, psychologist Dr Andy Johnson set out to find if there was any substance to his complaint.

In a series of experiments described as "Sunday afternoon science", he split hundreds of volunteers into two groups and asked them to rate a series of jokes written on paper.

Half were told the quips belonged to a well-known comedian such as Jimmy Carr, Paul Merton or Ricky Gervais.

The other half were given the same jokes but told the came from the mouths of the likes of David Cameron, Jamie Oliver or singer Peter Andre.

The gags were rated almost 50 per cent funnier when it was believed they had been made by the professional comic, despite the wording being exactly the same.

Importantly, the volunteers read the jokes and so the teller's timing didn't figure in their thought process.

"We argue that using the name of someone who people consider funny generates an expectancy of humour when hearing a joke," the Daily Mail quoted Johnson, of Coventry University, as saying.

"This predisposes people to find the joke funnier than if they heard it from a non-comedic source," Johnson added.

The study was presented at the British Psychological Society's annual conference in Glasgow.