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.