Is Humor a Meaning Making Process? Investigating the Effects of Absurd Humor and Mortality Salience on Meaning in Life, Moral Identity, Belongingness, and Belief in a Just World

Abstract

Both mortality salience and absurd humor have been found to elicit fluid compensation - the automatic process of strengthening unrelated beliefs in response to a meaning threat. Previous research has suggested that perceiving absurd humor to be funny decreases people's tendency to fluid compensate, suggesting that humor is a meaning-making process. However, these results may have been confounded by mortality salience effects. Furthermore, few studies have investigated the effects of absurd humor and mortality salience on multiple beliefs. In the current study, we aimed to conceptually replicate previous research on the fluid compensatory effects of absurd humor and mortality salience under more stringent conditions and in response to a wider variety of beliefs. Participants (N = 590) recruited via MTurk were randomly assigned to a reading condition and thereafter completed a series of measures of meaning in life, moral identity, belongingness, and belief in a just world. Participants found humor in each reading condition and did not fluid compensate, suggesting that humor is a meaning-making process. Implications and directions for meaning making and humor research are discussed.