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Theories of humor often suggest that humor requires a per-ceived violation, or something that disrupts people’s sense of how the world ought to be (Freud, 1928; Gruner, 1997; Veatch, 1998). Moral psychology theories, however, typically suggest that the very same types of normative breaches elicit negative emotions, such as disgust, rather than amusement (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999). We hypothesize that humor is elicited by benign violations and show that moral violations that simultaneously seem benign elicit laughter and amuse-ment in addition to disgust. Humor Is Important Humor is a psychological state characterized by the positive emotion of amusement and the tendency to laugh (Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Martin, 2007; Veatch, 1998). Understanding humor is important to psychological science. Humor is ubiqui-tous. People of all ages and cultures experience humor in their daily conversation, observation, and imagination (Apte, 1985; Wyer & Collins, 1992). The pursuit of humor affects people’s entertainment choices and whom they select as friends, dates, and mates (Martin, 2007; Provine, 2000). Humor also bestows social, psychological, and physical benefits. It attracts atten-tion and admiration, softens criticism, delineates social bound-aries, and alleviates conflict between people with differen