Faith and laughter
Do atheists and practicing Christians have different senses of humor
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12196018 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bernard Schweizer (Long Island University, corresponding author), Karl-Heinz Ott (Center of Theological Inquiry) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication date | 2016-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humor - International Journal of Humor Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0933-1719 • E-ISSN: 1613-3722 |
| Publisher | De Gruyter Mouton (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/humor-2015-0109 |
| OpenAlex | W2497573194 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 8 |
This study analyzes the reactions of practicing Christians and atheists to various kinds of humorous materials. The goal was to determine whether the presence or absence of Christian belief serves as a predictor for humor appreciation, specifically whether practicing Christians appreciate certain types of humor more (or less) than atheists do. Reactions by all study participants to 18 passages presenting various humor styles were dispersed from “not funny at all” to “very funny,” indicating the subjective nature of measuring humor appreciation. The results show almost no correlation between the presence or absence of Christian faith and the degree of humor appreciation. The only notable exceptions are that practicing Christians tend to react less favorably than atheists to the most blasphemous, disparaging kinds of humor, while atheists are somewhat less amused by good-natured religious jokes compared to practicing Christians. All other joke categories were judged similarly in terms of their perceived funniness by members of the two contrasting religious populations. The overriding determiner of funniness was found to be the inherent comical quality of individual jokes as well as, to some degree, the joke category from which humorous passages were drawn, rather than the presence or absence of Christian faith among the joke recipients. This finding contradicts a-priori claims about the supposed negative correlation between sense of humor and religiosity. The study further exemplifies adaptive statistical methods to extract significant trends and tendencies from empirical data obtained through an online survey
Art · Faith · Joke · Laughter · Literature · Religiosity · Sense of humor · Theology · Communication in Education and Healthcare · Humor Studies and Applications · Media Influence and Health · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
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| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.88 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |