A Research on the Relationship between Sense of Humor and Different Appearances of Religiosity

Abstract

There is a negative relationship between humor and religious understanding. Although this thought includes generalizations based on prejudice, it is not completely lacking support. In the literature, it can be said that there are some incompatibilities between the structural and functional features of humor and religion. For example, while humor emphasizes uncertainty by nature and the play on the meaning of words, religion tries to provide a clear perspective to the individual. While humor is fed by mismatch and tries to entertain individuals through the context of play, religion is closer to seriousness in terms of creating a certain order in the life of the individual and society. While humor is constantly trying to achieve dynamism by producing new meanings, it can be thought that religion is more related to conservative attitude. There is a loss of control in laughter and humor, but in contrast religion emphasizes self-regulation (Saroglou, 2002b). These and similar features differentiate between religious understanding and humor, but the relations between the two are not limited to the diverging aspects. In particular, it can be said that there is a harmony between the positive potential of humor and understanding of religion in terms of common goal. The potential of humor to develop social relations is one of the first examples that can be given in this regard. Because humor has many functions such as increasing group harmony and eliminating potential tensions that may arise (Semrud-Clikeman and Glass, 2010, p. 197). In addition, humor’s support to the individual in coping is another common aspect he shares with religion. Humor can reduce perceived threat and provide relief through cognitive and emotional shift or restructuring the situation (Dionigi and Gremigni, 2012). Both humor and understanding of religion can emerge from the routine framework and shed new light on the problems of life. Thus, the individual can tackle the problems more effectively. As a result, it can be said that there are some discrepancies between the understanding of religion and humor, and they have common goals and objectives. Although the differences between the two phenomena are more conspicuous and shape the general perception, the relations between religious understanding and humor are too multidimensional and complex to make unilateral generalizations. In such a background the relevance of religiosity to humor becomes even more interesting. In this context, the aim of the study is to determine whether there is any relationship between the sense of humor of university students and the different appearences of religious life, and if so, what direction. For this purpose, the following questions were sought, and hypotheses were tested:
Q1: Do the different dimensions of religiosity predict the sense of humor and subjective humor perception?
H1: There is a negatively significant relationship between the students’ sense of humor and their intrinsic religious motivation.
H2: There is no significant relationship between sense of humor and perception self-religiosity, importance of religion in personal life.
H3: There is no relationship between subjective humor perception and perception self-religiosity, importance of religion in personal life, intrinsic religious motivation and religious dogmatism.
The sample of the study consists of 577 students studying at Çukurova University. Of these, 325 (56.3%) were female and 252 (43.7%) were male. The age range of the sample is 18-38 years. The mean age was 21.40 and the standard deviation was 2.26. The faculties where the participants are educated are in the form of Faculty of Education, Faculty of Theology, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Faculty of Architecture and Engineering, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Faculty of Communication, School of Physical Education and Sports, Higher Vocational School, Faculty of Agriculture and Faculty of Fine Arts.
The study conducted in the screening model was selected by simple random method. Questionnaires about socio-demographic variables, The Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (Thorson and Powell, 1993), Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale (Hoge, 1972) and Religious Dogmatism Scale (Yapıcı, 2002) were used to collect the data of the study. In addition, the participants were asked to evaluate themselves about the importance of religion in their personal life, their self-humor and self-religiosity. through 10-point Likert-type questions. Independent groups t-test, Pearson Moment correlation and multiple linear regression techniques were used to analyze the data.
It is possible to express the results in this study which deals with the relationship between sense of humor and various religiosity variables:
The highest correlation between the sense of humor and religiosity has emerged in terms of religious dogmatism. Secondly, the importance of religion in personal life and thirdly, the relationship with the intrinsic religious motivation variable reached the level of significance. The relationship between sense of humor and perception self-religiosity is not significant. In general, there is a negative and weak relationship between sense of humor and religiosity variables. This shows that students who give high scores to religiosity variables have some negative perceptions and attitudes about humor. According to multiple linear regression results, only religious dogmatism, one of the religiosity variables, has a low effect on predicting sense of humor. This shows that the relations between sense of humor and religiosity are indirect and weak, and individuals who are habitual of dogmatic and one-way thinking approach to humor from a distance. When the relationships between subjective humor perception and religiosity variables were examined, it was found that there was a weak positive relationship between perception self-religiosity and subjective humor perception. In addition, multiple linear regression results showed that only perception self-religiosity among religiosity variables had a low effect on predicting subjective humor perception. According to this, students who regard themselves as religious, even though they have some reservations about laughing and humor, also consider themselves capable of humor. To put it briefly, the negative correlations between the different appearences of religious life and the sense of humor, but reaching a significant level of significance, and the positively weak relations between the perception of subjective humor and the perception of subjective religiosity suggest that there is ambivalent attitude between humor and piety in the literature.

Mizah Anlayışı ile Dindarlığın Farklı Görüntüleri Arasındaki İlişkiler Üzerine Bir Araştırma

Abstract

Bu çalışmada üniversite öğrencilerinin mizah anlayışları ile dindarlığın farklı görüntüleri arasındaki ilişkilerin incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Tarama modelinde yürütülen çalışma, basit rastlantısal yöntemle seçilen 577 kişiden oluşmaktadır. Araştırmanın verilerini toplamak üzere hazırlanan anket formunda sosyo-demografik değişkenlere dair sorular, Çok Boyutlu Mizah Duygusu Ölçeği, İçsel Dinî Yönelim Ölçeği ve Dinî Dogmatizm Ölçeği kullanılmıştır. Ayrıca 10’lu likert tipi sorular aracılığıyla katılımcılardan dine önem verme düzeyi, öznel mizah algısı ve öznel dindarlık algısı hususunda kendilerini değerlendirmeleri istenmiştir. Verilerin çözümlenmesinde bağımsız gruplar t-testi, Pearson Moment korelasyon ve çoklu doğrusal regresyon teknikleri kullanılmıştır. Elde edilen sonuçlara göre mizah anlayışı ile dindarlığın farklı görüntüleri (dinî dogmatizm, içsel dinî yönelim ve dine önem verme düzeyi) arasında negatif yönde, anlamlı ve düşük düzeyde ilişkiler vardır. Mizah anlayışı ile öznel dindarlık algısı arasında ise herhangi bir ilişki tespit edilmemiştir. Bu dört değişken, mizah anlayışı puanlarındaki toplam varyansın %4’ünü açıklamaktadır. Regresyon katsayılarının anlamlılığına ilişkin t-testi sonuçları incelendiğinde ise dinî dogmatizm değişkeninin mizah anlayışı üzerinde anlamlı bir yordayıcı olduğu, içsel dinî yönelim, dine önem verme düzeyi ve öznel dindarlık algısı değişkenlerinin ise anlamlı bir yordayıcı olmadığı görülmüştür. Buna göre dindarlık değişkenlerinden sadece dinî dogmatizmin mizah anlayışını yordama hususunda düşük düzeyde bir etkiye sahip olduğu sonucuna varılmıştır. Ulaşılan bulgular, ilgili alan yazın çerçevesinde tartışılmıştır.

Keywords

• Din Psikolojisi,mizah,mizah anlayışı,dini dogmatizm,içsel dini yönelim

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