“Goosebump man. That's funny!”: Humor with siblings and friends from early to middle childhood

Amy L Paine,Nina Howe,Victoria Gilmore,Gassiaa Karajian,Ganie Dehart

doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2021.101321

Amy L Paine, Nina Howe + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2021.101321

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Abstract

We investigated change and continuity in children's humor production from early to middle childhood with siblings and friends. Sixty-five children (M age = 56.4 months, SD = 5.71) were observed as they played with their older or younger sibling and with a friend in two separate play sessions. Children were observed again approximately three years later (n = 46, M age = 94.6 months; SD = 6.6). Spontaneous humor production was coded in the play sessions. Focal children's humor production did not differ as a function of relationship or time. Children's tendency to produce humor with their sibling at 4 years of age was associated with humor production with a friend, both concurrently and three years later. Our findings draw attention to childhood sibling relationships and friendships as rich contexts for humor and continuities across relationships and time.

Highlights

We investigated change and continuity in children’s humor production from early to middle childhood with siblings and friends
From two to three years of age, children produce novel jokes in addition to those they copy from others (Hoicka & Akhtar, 2012) and recognize the distinction between mistakes and humorous intentions (Hoicka & Gattis, 2008)
In all subsequent ana lyses, we collapsed children’s humor categories into total humor focal children produced within each play session

Summary

Introduction

We investigated change and continuity in children’s humor production from early to middle childhood with siblings and friends. The repertoire of humorous acts displayed in childhood is thought to expand and develop in close connection with a child’s ability to recog nize incongruities and to understand the minds of others (Hoicka & Akhtar, 2012; Martucci, 2016; McGhee, 1979, 2002). Children communicate their humorous intentions through the humor frame, with playful and exaggerated facial expressions, gestures, and vocalizations (Bergen, 1998, 2002). Despite some early exceptions (e.g., Bergen, 2002; Groch, 1974; McGhee, 1976), there are few observational studies of the nature of friends’ shared humor in childhood

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