Children's humor types and psychosocial adjustment

Claire L Fox,Simon C Hunter,Siân E Jones

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2015.09.047

Abstract

Attempting to understand how humor styles relate to psychological adjustment by correlating these two constructs fails to address the emerging understanding that individuals use combinations of humor styles, and that different combinations may be differentially associated with psychosocial adjustment. Indeed humor types have been identified in adult samples (Galloway, 2010; Leist & Müller, 2013). The main aim of the study was to explore whether similar humor types are evident at a younger age and whether these types can be distinguished in terms of children's psychological and social well-being. Participants were 1234 adolescents (52% female) aged 11–13years, drawn from six secondary schools in England. Self-reports of humor styles and psychosocial adjustment were collected at two time points, 6months apart. A cluster analysis was performed using the child humor styles scores at Time 1. Four humor types were identified: ‘Interpersonal Humorists’ (high on aggressive and affiliative humor, low on self-defeating and self-enhancing humor), ‘Self-Defeaters’ (high self-defeating humor, low on the other three), ‘Humor Endorsers’ (high on all four humor styles), and ‘Adaptive Humorists’ (high on self-enhancing and affiliative humor, but low on aggressive and self-defeating humor). ‘Self-Defeaters’ scored highest in terms of maladjustment across all of the outcomes measured. Our analyses support the presence of distinctive humor types in childhood and indicate that these are related to psychosocial adjustment.

Highlights

Over the past two decades, there has been a steady accumulation of research on the topic of humor
It is recognised that among children and adults, there are four main types of humor style, and these reflect the use of humor in everyday life (Fox, Dean, & Lyford, 2013; Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir, 2003)
The ‘Humor Endorsers’ (Cluster 3) reported significantly less loneliness the Self-Defeaters (Cluster 2), but significantly more loneliness than the ‘Adaptive Humorists’ (Cluster 4) and the ‘Interpersonal Humorists’ (Cluster 1) (Table 5). This is the first study to identify humor types using a large sample of adolescents and a longitudinal design

Summary

Introduction

Over the past two decades, there has been a steady accumulation of research on the topic of humor. Far less research has focused on the social/emotional functions of humor in children or the way that these functions develop through childhood/adolescence (Martin, 2007). It is recognised that among children and adults, there are four main types of humor style, and these reflect the use of humor in everyday life (Fox, Dean, & Lyford, 2013; Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir, 2003). Aggressive humor enhances the self, at least in the short-term, but is done at the expense of others Affiliative humor enhances one's relationships with others and reduces interpersonal tensions Selfdefeating humor, largely untapped by previous humor scales, is used to enhances one's relationships with others, but at the expense of the self Selfdefeating humor, largely untapped by previous humor scales, is used to enhances one's relationships with others, but at the expense of the self (e.g. ‘I often try to make people like or accept me more by saying something funny about my own weaknesses, blunders and faults’)

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