Playful Teasing Research Articles

Banter as transformative practice: linguistic play and joking relationships in a UK swimming club.

This article investigates the multiple interpretations and uses of banter as an inclusive and exclusionary practice amongst competitive youth swimmers inthe Southeast of England. As a metacommunicative act, banter is a form of linguistic play that focuses on the ways in which the words are delivered, and the social relationships involved between those engaged in banter. Through an immersive "apprenticeship" within a competitive swimming club from 2018 to 2022, I was party to particular forms of English "humorous" communication and invitations to join in banter with coaches and swimmers. As competitive swimming can be a monotonous activity, with long periods between competitions and nigh endless repetition of training drills, coaches encouraged swimmers' engagement in banter as an inclusive strategy for squad cohesiveness and to stave off boredom throughout the swimming season. Playful teasing was used to invite engagement in banter from one or more people, helping to foster social bonds, develop joking relationships, and create a relaxed atmosphere within training spaces. Mockery and teasing used to initiate banter were also mobilized as exclusionary social positioning strategies to test the limits of social interaction and define oneself against others. This article asserts that despite the nearly-totalitarian position of the coach within high-performance swimming humorous or joking banter does not simply function as a morale-booting activity or as a substitute for active resistance against monotonous training requirements. By paying attention to the intersubjective processes within joking relationships, here through banter, we can see how youth actively navigate sociality and assert their agency within institutional training environments.

Using retrospective reports to develop profiles of harmful versus playful teasing experiences.

The current investigation's central goal was to elucidate the complex features of peer teasing episodes that individuals use to interpret teasing as harmful versus playful. In 2022-2023, we used semistructured interviews to gather retrospective reports of K-12 peer teasing experiences from a sample of 27 students from a university in southern Ontario, Canada (18-25 years old, 63% female, 78% White). Content analysis revealed the multifaceted nature of teasing, with participants defining teasing as harmful, playful, or including elements of both harm and pleasure. Harmful teasing experiences often included content that was sensitive to the target, occurred between both friends and nonfriends, and often included a power differential with the teasing perpetrator having more power than the target. Targets recalled negative emotional responses, with behavioral responses to mitigate the situation and reduce further teasing. In contrast, playful teasing often occurred between friends or close friends, was often motivated by positive interpersonal motives (e.g., for encouragement), and had positive impacts on the relationship between perpetrator and target. However, despite benign intent, some playful teasing was marked by negative emotional responses and feelings of harm. Results have implications for uncovering the nuanced and complex nature of teasing, and provide a preliminary profile of harmful versus playful teasing interactions.

Spontaneous playful teasing in four great ape species.

Joking draws on complex cognitive abilities: understanding social norms, theory of mind, anticipating others' responses and appreciating the violation of others' expectations. Playful teasing, which is present in preverbal infants, shares many of these cognitive features. There is some evidence that great apes can tease in structurally similar ways, but no systematic study exists. We developed a coding system to identify playful teasing and applied it to video of zoo-housed great apes. All four species engaged in intentionally provocative behaviour, frequently accompanied by characteristics of play. We found playful teasing to be characterized by attention-getting, one-sidedness, response looking, repetition and elaboration/escalation. It takes place mainly in relaxed contexts, has a wide variety of forms, and differs from play in several ways (e.g. asymmetry, low rates of play signals like the playface and absence of movement-final 'holds' characteristic of intentional gestures). As playful teasing is present in all extant great ape genera, it is likely that the cognitive prerequisites for joking evolved in the hominoid lineage at least 13 million years ago.

Understanding Weight Talk in Racially/Ethnically Diverse Homes: A Qualitative Analysis With Parents

ObjectiveTo explore weight talk in the homes of racially/ethnically diverse immigrant/refugee children and their families. DesignQualitative interviews were conducted with parents of young children. SettingTwin Cities, Minnesota. ParticipantsParents from 150 families (25 families each from White, Black, Latino, Hmong, Native American, and Somali households) were recruited from primary care clinics. Eligibility criteria included: participating parent lived with a child aged 5–7 years, shared a meal with this child at least daily, and had another child living in the home. Main Outcome MeasuresWeight talk (ie, weight-related conversations, teasing), intergenerational transmission of weight talk. AnalysisQualitative content analysis using Nvivo software. ResultsThemes were found for each of our 4 research questions. Themes included: (1) parents experienced weight talk in their own homes growing up; (2) parents believed their community or culture influenced weight talk in their home; (3) parents described different ways of approaching weight talk, including not discussing weight, being direct about weight, and playful teasing; and (4) parents described various strategies for addressing concerns about their children's weight. Conclusions and ImplicationsResults suggested weight and health were salient issues for racially/ethnically diverse parents. Further research is needed to investigate why some parents engage in weight teasing, what prompts weight teasing, and the differences between weight- and health-focused conversations to identify potential targets for intervention. Recommendations for health providers working with families with young children, such as training using nonstigmatizing language, are discussed.

Using the live assessment to discriminate between Autism Spectrum Disorder and Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder

BackgroundChildren with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and children with Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder (DSED) may present with similar social problems, despite differing aetiologies, resulting in diagnostic conundrums. MethodsThirty children: 10 with ASD, no maltreatment history, 10 with DSED and 10 typically developing children were assessed via ‘gold standard’ ASD assessments, including the Autism Diagnostic Observational Schedule (ADOS) and a unique unstructured observation known as the Live assessment. Live utilises a triadic interaction (2 assessors and child), playful teasing and social ‘stress’ scenarios to increase the social challenge. ResultsThe ADOS supported discrimination of DSED from ASD to a degree. Where additional neurodevelopmental problems created ambiguity, the Live assessment was more supportive than the ADOS for unpicking the underlying nature of the social problems. ConclusionLive supported differentiation between ASD, DSED and other neurodevelopmental problems. The greater social challenge presented by Live exacerbated core problems of ASD and, in DSED, core social skills stood out.

The Greatest in the World! by Ben Clanton

Reviewed by: The Greatest in the World! by Ben Clanton Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Clanton, Ben The Greatest in the World!; written and illus. by Ben Clanton. Simon, 2022 [88p] (Tater Tales) Trade ed. ISBN 9781534493186 $12.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781534493209 $9.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 1-3 Apparently even mutant potatoes experience sibling rivalry, as spud brothers Rot and Snot begin their morning with a shouting match about who is the greatest in the world (they never quite specify the greatest at what). Their attempts to settle the argument and their varying degrees of success make up the subsequent chapters of this delightfully goofy early reader graphic novel. First, it’s a potato sack race, judged by little sister Tot; when that ends up in a tie, they move on to a game of hot potato. When Tot wins that game, they decide on a laughing contest; after giggles, guffaws, witch’s cackles, and Santa belly laughs, the two potatoes are tuckered out—Tot, however, is still standing and earns the coveted title of the greatest ever. Clanton, of Narwhal and Jelly fame, brings puns aplenty to this starchy offering, and the characters here have a bit more of a mischievous bite to them than the underwater crew of those titles. Both the barbed interactions and the more playful teasing [End Page 82] will be recognizable to any youngster who has had to negotiate competition with either siblings or friends, and Tot’s generous sharing of “the greatest” title makes an aspirational (if not always realistic) wrap-up. Droll humor marks the third-person narration, while dialogue bubbles filled with dramatic pronouncements and a bevy of exclamation marks elevate the goofy drama to comedic hysteria at points. Rot and Snot are wonderfully disgusting, with peels in shades of ochres and pukey greens mottled by brown spots, while Tot is adorably rambunctious, rolling through the panels with a sweet smile and sporting a polka-dot bow. Fans of Clanton’s other duo will be glad to meet this trio of tubers. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

"A pirate goes nee-nor-nee-nor!" humor with siblings in middle childhood: A window to social understanding?

Humor is a central feature of close and intimate relationships in childhood. However, fundamental questions regarding the relationship between humor production, pretend play, and social understanding have been overlooked. In a selected subsample from a prospective longitudinal study of first-born children (N = 110, M age = 6.91 years, 46.4% female, 98.1% parents identified as English, Welsh, Scottish, or Irish), we conducted detailed observational coding of children’s humor production during dress-up play with younger siblings. Focal children also completed a battery of social understanding tasks that measured emotion understanding and second-order belief understanding. Focal children were also observed during solo free play with Playmobil, and their spontaneous references to others’ cognitions and play with objects were coded. Correlation analyses indicated that children’s word play with their sibling was associated with their tendency to engage in pretense during solo play. Regression analyses showed that humorous sound play with siblings was associated with their emotion understanding and playful teasing with siblings was associated with their spontaneous references to others’ cognitive states during solo free play. Our findings contribute to knowledge and theory regarding domains of development associated with humor production in childhood.

Playful teasing and the emergence of pretence

The study of the emergence of pretend play in developmental psychology has generally been restricted to analyses of children’s play with toys and everyday objects. The widely accepted criteria for establishing pretence are the child’s manipulation of object identities, attributes or existence. In this paper we argue that there is another arena for pretending—playful pretend teasing—which arises earlier than pretend play with objects and is therefore potentially relevant for understanding the more general emergence of pretence. We present examples of playful pretend teasing in infancy before and around the end of the first year, involving pretend communicative gestures, mis-labelling and almost non-compliance with prohibitions. We argue that the roots of pretence not only lie earlier in human infancy than generally acknowledged, but also are rooted in playful emotional exchanges in which people recognise and respond to violations of communicative gestures and agreements.

You can't sit with us…just kidding! An investigation into the association between empathy and prosocial teasing

AbstractProsocial teasing is the positive playful form of relational aggression, and studies have found children engage in playful teasing more often than aggressive teasing. Therefore, understanding the basic characteristics or skills that contribute to the more complex social skill of prosocial teasing is important. The current study focused on the role of empathy in students' perception of their engagement in two different forms of relational behaviors, playful and aggressive. Associations between empathy and engagement in playful and aggressive relational behaviors were investigated with 389 fifth‐grade students in the Midwest with the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS) rating scale and modified Children's Social Behavior Scale—Self‐Report (CSBS‐S), along with gender interaction in those relationships. Results demonstrated that empathy was significantly and negatively related to the level of engagement in both relational aggression and prosocial teasing. No gender differences were found in levels of relational aggression or in prosocial teasing. Gender differences were observed in empathy, where girls reported higher levels of empathy than boys. Results indicated that empathy was a significant predictor of engagement in both relational aggression and prosocial teasing for both fifth‐grade boys and girls. Implications concerning these findings are discussed.

Inconsistent Definitions of Bullying: A Need to Examine People’s Judgments and Reasoning about Bullying and Cyberbullying

Despite decades of research efforts, researchers have yet to reach a consensus on the definition of bullying. There are ambiguities around the conceptualization of bullying relating to the intent, harm, repetitions of an act, and power disparity in episodes of bullying. Practically, the lack of differentiation between bullying and playful teasing as well as between bullying and other types of aggression has made it difficult to accurately measure bullying and derive the prevalence rate. There has been scant attention to how people evaluate an intent, harm, repetitions of an act, and power disparity between bullies and targets. If bullying is a moral issue, it involves people’s moral judgments and cannot be understood solely by empirical descriptions of the behavior. In this paper, I considered how social domain theory can be applied to help understand people’s judgments about bullying behaviors, which, in turn, is helpful in improving our conceptualization of bullying.

Just kidding: the evolutionary roots of playful teasing.

Accounts of teasing have a long history in psychological and sociological research, yet teasing itself is vastly underdeveloped as a topic of study. As a phenomenon that moves along the border between aggression and play, teasing presents an opportunity to investigate key foundations of social and mental life. Developmental studies suggest that preverbal human infants already playfully tease their parents by performing ‘the unexpected,’ apparently deliberately violating the recipient's expectations to create a shared humorous experience. Teasing behaviour may be phylogenetically old and perhaps an evolutionary precursor to joking. In this review, we present preliminary evidence suggesting that non-human primates also exhibit playful teasing. In particular, we argue that great apes display three types of playful teasing described in preverbal human infants: teasing with offer and withdrawal, provocative non-compliance and disrupting others' activities. We highlight the potential of this behaviour to provide a window into complex socio-cognitive processes such as attribution of others’ expectations and, finally, we propose directions for future research and call for systematic studies of teasing behaviour in non-human primates.

A double-edged sword: The nature of team comedians in sport teams

Recent literature identified several informal roles (i.e., those that naturally arise without coaches’ delegation of responsibilities) that may be relevant for sport teams. Among them, team comedians are defined as those who consistently use humor in their environments. Given humor is an integral component of interpersonal relationships and intragroup functions, team comedians may have a critical influence within their teams. The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of team comedians (i.e., their behaviors, how they emerge, their impact on team functioning, how their humor is managed by other members). Thematic analysis of data gathered via semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 13 coaches and 27 athletes from 7 teams revealed several themes pertaining to the behaviors, emergence, outcomes, and the management of team comedians. Team comedians’ most frequent behaviors involved playful teasing of teammates, though they also engaged in self-disparaging humor, as well as aggressive humor toward teammates and/or their opponents. Athletes’ emergence as team comedians appeared to be influenced by a variety of role-occupant related (e.g., outgoing personality, higher status) and contextual (e.g., coach influence, team environment) factors. Depending on the nature of their behaviors, both positive (e.g., enjoyment, team integration, reduced tension) and negative (e.g., conflicts) outcomes ensued. These findings offer insight regarding informal role emergence and illuminate the double-edged nature of team comedians and humor in sport contexts. Potential strategies and future research directions focusing on the promotion of positive uses of humor by team comedians are discussed. Lay summary: This study explored coaches’ and athletes’ perceptions of team comedians. They used various forms of humor that had positive (e.g., enjoyment) and negative (e.g., conflicts) outcomes. Several factors influenced team comedians’ emergence (e.g., personality, team environment). This study highlights the dynamic aspects of team comedians and their humor. Implications for Practice Athletes who use humor frequently are encouraged to consider the content of their humor and the contexts under which they occur. Coaches should encourage athletes to engage in positive forms of humor that include suitable content and occur under appropriate contexts. Strategies for managing negative humor include ignoring the behavior, addressing the behavior directly/indirectly, establishing team norms and rules, and allowing athletes time to socialize prior to game/practice sessions.

Peer Influence in Elementary School: The Importance of Assessing the Likeability of Popular Children

We examined the degree to which children perceive influence behaviors and influence over social norms from different types of high-status children to vary in a sample of 453 3rd through 5th grade children. Using a cluster analysis of peer-nominated popularity and likeability measures, we identified a seven-cluster solution, including three high-status clusters: Well-Liked, Popular, and Popular/Well-Liked. Popular children were perceived as using ridicule and having influence over misbehavior. Popular/Well-Liked children were perceived as using playful teasing and modeling and influencing over trend-setting and sports norms, at a degree similar to Popular children. However, Popular/Well-Liked children were not perceived as using ridicule or influencing over misbehavior; rather, they scored higher than all other status groups for prosocial assertion and academic motivation. Well-Liked children were perceived as using prosocial assertion and influencing over academic motivation at a higher degree than Average children but at a lower degree than Popular or Popular/Well-Liked children. Although the influence associated with likeability alone appeared relatively limited, likeability in conjunction with popularity seems to make a difference regarding influence behaviors and norms. A person-centered approach that takes into account multiple facets of social status is likely to enhance understanding of high-status children’s influence on their same-age peers.

Mocking the Wasps or the Meaning of Homeric kertomia Again

Abstract The aim of this paper is to provide a new theoretical framework for the understanding of an otherwise controversial Homeric notion: kertomia. So far, all systematic treatments of this term have been based on the model of classical definition, and sought to find a set of essential criteria which would account for all its instances in Homer. Given its very wide application, to phenomena so diverse as gentle, off-record mockery in Il. 24.649-658, and playful teasing of insects in Il. 16.259-265, I argue that such an approach will never do justice to all its Homeric instances. My paper therefore seeks to provide a new way of describing this notion, making use of prototype theory developed by cognitive linguists. I argue that this theoretical framework is capable of accommodating all its diverse meanings without sacrificing the important nuances of any of them.

“The murderer is him ✓”

AbstractThis paper analyzes humorous comments created through a popular viewing-and-commenting system used in China and Japan, known asdanmu(ordanmaku). This system enables its users to superimpose anonymous comments on the video frame, which are displayed in subsequent viewing. We collected 327 user-selected ‘funniest’ screenshots of comments fromdanmuvideo sharing sites. Using content and discourse analysis, we re-contextualized the comments and identified main mechanisms of humor. Results show that speakers make fun of the plot, characters and of each other, relating to the video frame, Chinese culture and Japanese fandom. They rely on non-aggressive but rather playful teasing, allusions and retorts, and apply multimodal resources such as color, layout, and symbols to enhance the humorous effect. Our study contributes to the emerging research focus on multimodal humor (Yus 2016), social semiotics and a discursive approach todanmu-mediated communication.

Chimpanzee and gorilla humor: progressive emergence from origins in the wild to captivity to sign language learning

AbstractThis article examines available (mainly anecdotal) evidence related to the experience of humor among chimpanzees and gorillas in the wild, in captivity and following systematic sign language training. Humor is defined as one form of symbolic play. Positive evidence of object permanence, cross-modal perception, deferred imitation and deception among chimpanzees and gorillas is used to document their cognitive capacity for humor. Playful teasing is proposed as the primordial form of humor among apes in the wild. This same form of humor is commonly found among signing apes, both in overt behavior and in signed communications. A second form of humor emerges in the context of captivity, consisting of throwing feces at human onlookers—who often respond to this with laughter. This early form of humor shows up in signing apes in the form of calling others “dirty,” a sign associated with feces. The diversity of forms of signing humor shown by apes is linked to McGhee, Paul E.Humor: Its origin and development. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman & Co, McGhee, Paul E.Understanding and promoting the development of children’s humor. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. model of humor development.

Romeand theRomains: laughter on the border between Kinshasa and Brazzaville

AbstractThis article considers humour at the international border between Kinshasa (DR Congo) and Brazzaville (Republic of Congo) as a means through which ordinary people navigate between fulfilling the values of individual opportunism and interpersonal responsibility. Kinshasa's border zone, nicknamedRome, often echoes with laughter as people who engage in unregulated livelihood strategies (Romains) engage in two genres of humour: verbal irony, expressed in nicknames for people, places and activities; and interpersonal joking, expressed in playful teasing. Laughter and jokes are a prevailing mode of interaction at the border, and the ways in which humour is constructed and experienced reveal much about social and moral life. The jokes define membership of a community ofRomainsdistinct from other urban citizens, while making further distinctions between physically disabled people, who dominate trade as intermediaries, and others by playing with hierarchical social relationships in which disabled people are expected to be subordinate. Ultimately, the humour that shapes the community allows for a critical voice on values within it. This article argues that the inconsistencies pinpointed by humour reflect and shape the instability of social relationships and contradictory values thatRomainsaspire to fulfil. Humour is a means of navigating critical commentary on the conflicting values of individual aspiration and responsibility towards others.

Mothers' Management of Adolescent Peer Relationships: Associations With Aggressive, Prosocial, and Playful Behavior

ABSTRACTThe authors examined the relation between adolescents' reports of mothers' management of peer relationships and adolescents' reports of their own aggressive, prosocial, and playful behaviors. The sample comprised 92 adolescents (M age = 15.41 years, SD = 1.81 years) enrolled in a residential summer camp. Higher levels of consulting were related to lower levels of adolescents' relational aggression, physical aggression, playful teasing, and rough-and-tumble play. Higher levels of consulting were related to higher levels of prosocial behavior. Higher levels of guiding were related to higher levels of adolescents' relational aggression and social inclusion. Higher levels of granting access to peers were related to higher levels of adolescents' prosocial behavior and social inclusion. Moderate levels of granting access to peers were related higher levels of playful teasing.

Teasing and clowning in infancy

Summary "… do not take from me your laughter..... it opens for me all the doors of life "— Pablo NerudaBefore they speak or walk or crawl, infants joke. Infant laughter captured the attention of Aristotle, who thought it was the sign of the entry of the soul into the body, and of Darwin, who noted its emergence in the fourth month of life. Darwin saw such laughter as the early appreciation of humour, the presence at this age of which should not surprise us too much, given the early emergence of play in other mammals. In the twentieth century, however, these observations faded from scientific attention; humour began to be seen as an intellectual achievement requiring complex cognitive abilities, with infant laughter seen merely as a reaction to external stimuli. Recent research, however, has uncovered remarkable cognitive and emotional sensitivities in very young infants. And, as it turns out, humour and laughter in infants offer a rich source of insights into their understanding of the world, and indeed for our understanding of infants. The study of infant humour is no joke.

Definitions of school bullying in Taiwan: A comparison of multiple perspectives

Investigating teachers’ and students’ different definitions of school bullying is important for necessary prevention and effective intervention. This study compared definitions of bullying from the perspectives of bystanders, bullies, victims, and educators. A total of 1,558 secondary educators and students in Taiwan participated in this research, including 967 students (537 bystanders, 217 bullies, and 213 victims) and 591 educators. Participants wrote their answers to the open-ended question, ‘What is bullying in your opinion?’. The grounded theory method was employed to analyse the collected qualitative data. Results indicated that educators’ and students’ conceptions of bullying in Taiwan included features of intentionality, power imbalance, assaults, and negative results. Educators tended to refer to the characteristic of repetition, which was rarely mentioned by the students. The bullies were likely to regard bullying as unintended acts, while intentionality was more likely to be identified by the educators. This study categorized aggressive behaviour into three patterns: Playful teasing, bullying, and severe bullying. The bullies thought that they were merely joking, when actually their behaviour was considered bullying from the bystanders’ and the victims’ points of view. This study finally discussed characteristics and categories of school bullying and the implications for interventions.