Psychiatric Disorders

A substantial amount of research has been done to understand the relationship between psychiatric disorders and humorous phenomena such as sense of humor and humor appreciation. There are two research questions that are of particular interest:

This entry focuses on a select number of well-researched and more common psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety (focusing mainly on social anxiety), and schizophrenia. In addition, this entry summarizes findings on humor in autism spectrum disorder (ASD; disorders in this group are classified as developmental disorders). ASD is particularly interesting in relation to humor, because it is the only group of disorders in which humorlessness is claimed to be an essential characteristic.