Abstract
AbstractWe investigated humor production in relation to social understanding and relationship quality in early childhood, by coding N = 72 5‐year‐olds’ (M = 5.78, SD = .41) spontaneous humor production during play with an older (n = 34; M age = 7.84 years, SD = .84) or younger sibling (M age = 3.72 years, SD = .54). Children who demonstrated better understanding of minds also produced more humor (preposterous statements and humorous anecdotes, and sound play). Types of humor were differentially associated with siblings’ ratings of positive rapport; associations were moderated by sibling constellation factors. Our findings highlight children's humor production as an important marker of their understanding of minds and of their warm, positive relationships.
Highlights
Shared humor is a central feature of children's close relationships and a universal, integral part of human experience that is characterized by playful incongruity or, a benign conflict between what is expected and experienced| wileyonlinelibrary. com/journal/sodeSocial Development. 2021;30:592–611.| in reality (McGhee, 1979; Pien & Rothbart, 1976; Schultz, 1976; Warren & McGraw, 2016)
In exploratory analyses we investigated whether the relationships between children's humor production, social understanding, and relationship quality differed as a function of the structure of the sibling relationship
The association between focal child references to cognitions and sibling imitation of humor was moderated by gender composition of the sibling dyad, R2 change = .12, F(3, 63) = 3.38, = .02, where this relationship was only significant among brothers, B = .21, SE = .05, p < .001; no statistically significant effects were observed for female–female, TA B L E 4 Partial correlations between sibling responses to focal child humor production, references to internal states, and ratings of relationship quality
Summary
Shared humor is a central feature of children's close relationships and a universal, integral part of human experience that is characterized by playful incongruity or, a benign conflict between what is expected and experienced| wileyonlinelibrary. com/journal/sodeSocial Development. 2021;30:592–611.| in reality (McGhee, 1979; Pien & Rothbart, 1976; Schultz, 1976; Warren & McGraw, 2016). The ability to conceive and express humor may be an important marker of a sophisticated appreciation and understanding of the mental states of others (Airenti, 2016; Hoicka & Akhtar, 2012; Martucci, 2016) and of warm, intimate relationships (Bergen, 2002). Children share humor in their close relationships in the first years of life (e.g., Hoicka & Akhtar, 2012; Loizou, 2005; Reddy, 2001), and demonstrate a widening repertoire of humorous incongruities across childhood (Airenti, 2016; Coates & Coates, 2019; Loizou & Recchia, 2019; McGhee, 1979; Paine et al, 2019). In the present study we investigated associations between humor production, understanding of minds, and relationship quality within the context of children's play with an older or younger sibling in early childhood
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