Religion and sense of humor: An a priori incompatibility? Theoretical considerations from a psychological perspective

Abstract

Although humor is not absent from religion, one may wonder whether religion's historical mistrust of the comic is not accidental, but reflects a deeper reality. Based on theory and research on both psychology of humor and psychology of religion, as well as on the psychological anthropology of early Christianity, the present paper inspects the ways in which religion is related to personality traits, cognitive structures and social consequences associated with sense of humor. Not unexpectedly, the conclusion suggests, from a personality psychology perspective, an a priori negative association between religiousness and sense of humor.

Being religious implies being different in humour: evidence from self- and peer-ratings

“…There is historical evidence that this is the case (Gilhus, 1997). It has been recently suggested that, from a psychological perspective, this discomfort, far from being a historical 'accident', reflects a deeper dimension of religion (see Saroglou, 2002a). Humour entails playing on meaning, openness to the possibility of a meaningless world, introduction of disorder, and transgression of societal norms; it implies surprise, loss of control, openness to novelty and ambiguity, and disengagement with regard to truth, morality, and affection.…”

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine”: humour, religion and wellbeing

“…This aspect of humour is strongly connected with awe and wonder, where cognitive accommodation dominates (Berryman, 1991;Keltner & Haidt, 2003) rather than play, where cognitive assimilation dominates (Piaget, 1945). This disengagement from dogma-driven assimilative thought may appear foolish, lazy, or even dangerous from the perspective of institutional religion (Saroglou, 2002b). However, it is a key component of epiphanies (Miller & C'de Baca, 2001;Pawelski, 2007) and mystical experiences which are so often part of the history of charismatic leaders and founders of new religious movements (Oakes, 1997).…”

“…However, the relationship between humour and formal religion has historically been more ambivalent, if not frankly antagonistic (Gilhus, 1997), and some have argued that these two areas of human life are incompatible on psychological grounds (Saroglou, 2002b).The present article considers the points of contact between the phenomenon of humour and spiritual and religious practices that emphasize self-transcendence, and explores how each may help people to engage adaptively with the ''human comedy''.…”

O gênero da risada

“…Embora o humor não esteja ausente há uma inegável desconfiança por parte das religiões acerca do riso e do humor. Para Saroglou (2002), por exemplo, em uma perspectiva psicoló-gica, há uma relação negativa entre as religiões e traços de personalidade, estruturas cognitivas e consequências sociais tipicamente associadas ao riso: incongruência, ambiguidade, nonsense, baixos níveis de dogmatismo e de autoritarismo, desejo de brincar, espontaneidade, atração pelo novo, distanciamento emocional e desejo de transgredir. Todos estes itens, inerentes ao humor, correlacionam-se negativamente com a adesão religiosa.…”