Humor in Times of Crisis: A Systematic Review of the Impact of Dark Humor in Sustainable Communication

Abstract

Climate change and environmental degradation have necessitated the development of effective sustainability communication strategies. Much of the existing traditional based communication focuses on inducing fear; however, rather than motivating people, such communications are often either met with apathy, disbelief, or loss of interest. Conversely, humor (particularly dark humor) has emerged as a technique for communicating about crises in sustainability by attracting attention, breaking down psychological barriers, and encouraging participants to engage with the issue. While dark humor has the potential as a powerful communication tool, it might also trivialize important environmental issues or produce negative emotional responses. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to examine dark humor as a potential alternative approach to sustainability communication that deserves to be evaluated. The primary purpose of this systematic review was to integrate existing literature pertaining to the use of dark humor in sustainability and climate change communication from 2021 to 2026 in order to better delineate the conceptual boundaries of dark humor and to evaluate its utility as a communication tool in terms of both theoretical and practical application, based upon the context of existing literature. To accomplish this goal, this study conducted a systematic review of journal articles published between January 2021 to October 2025 that have been obtained through electronic databases as recommended by the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. The results of the search were collected from Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, ProQuest, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, and PubMed: A total of eight articles were found to meet the criteria for this review. The search was performed by two research team members independently screening the literature and determining which articles should be included in this study according to a list of eligibility.