Kids Who Laugh: How to Develop Your Child's Sense of Humor
... In this first type of humor, the infants exhibited certain behaviors such as surprise and laughter in response to some incongruous situations in the form of a "peek-a-boo" game (Southam, 2005). This type of behavior has been argued to emerge as young as six to eight months old (Franzini, 2002;Reddy, 1991;Ziv, 1989). It is worth noting that humor of this type was not acknowledged by McGhee (1979) as incongruity perception, as a core prerequisite of humor, could not be mastered until a child reaches 18-24 months when s/he can begin fantasizing. ...
... The data above showcases evidence that a child can appreciate humor prompted by cartoons and even participates accordingly in the humorous situation. Regarding this, Franzini (2002) and McGhee (1979McGhee ( , 1989 contend that the probable cause of children appreciating visual humor like cartoons could be attributed to their visual perception on which they perceive the world around them. ...
Humor has been characterized as an index of children's language development and cognitive performance. While research on this area has been abound cross linguistically, specific inquiry on children's humor development in the Indonesian context remains scant. Occupying this lacuna, this research sought to examine kinds of humor acquired by the children in early childhood by invoking McGhee's humor developmental stages. Embracing a descriptive qualitative method, the study involved eleven Indonesian-speaking children in Yogyakarta aged around 1 to 5 years old, where the data were assembled primarily through direct naturalistic observations. The children's spontaneous humor production was recorded as they were interacting with their peers and/or their parents in their homes and neighborhoods. The findings revealed that the children could perceive and produce nonverbal and verbal humor, confirming existing literature. As they grow, certain patterns of humor also emerge, indicative of their cognitive and social development. More research is necessary to better understand how children of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds understand, respond to or initiate a humorous situation.
... Some humorous manifestations related to the pleasure that stems from social empowerment get stronger at this stage, including antisocial humor, as when children make fun of the opposite sex and of friends making mistakes (Dowling 2014;Franzini 2002). ...
... 2. The representation of blunders (even as real past experiences but that become humorous for being intentional) and popular jokes were two strategies young adolescents had at first hand when they were asked to create a cartoon in our first exploratory workshop in which no Introduction to humor and cartoon was given. In line with other studies, blunders have been identified as common themes in primary school children (Dowling 2014;Franzini 2002;Pitri 2011). Interestingly, their presence is rare in workshops in which an Introduction to humor and cartoon was given as if participants were opened to more challenging activities. ...
Developmental studies on humor have historically approached a limited age range – from birth until early adolescence – and have mostly considered humor interpretation and the production of situational and verbal humor. Focusing on cartooning, a highly demanding cognitive and communication activity, in this paper we aim to provide empirical data drawn from a larger age span than usual – 10 to 18 years old – to better understand what adolescents find humorous and how they create humor. Our corpus comes from nine workshops of cartoon production and interpretation conducted between 2015 and 2018, in which a total of 63 girls and 72 boys participated. Based on a fine-grained cognitive and communication analysis, we distinguished six different profiles of texts depending on: whether and how a fictional situation (i.e. a humorous incongruity) was built, its relation to the referenced situation addressed (topic), and the author’s motivation. Simple Correspondence Analyses enabled us to identify that these texts varied according to the adolescents’ age and the cartoon’s format (single panel or strip). Greater cognitive sophistication was evidenced in single panel cartoons and among middle and late adolescents, who also showed a concern for social issues. Some gender variations were found.
... A sense of humor differs from a person to another and this begs the question of how one develops a sense of humor. Franzini (2002) argues that a sense of humor tends to correlate with genetics, as well as the environment one grows up in. Research shows that children with dysfunctional families and unfair circumstances are more likely to develop a powerful sense of humor as a coping mechanism. ...
The present study attempts to investigate the differences between males and females in understanding and appreciating the humor found in memes and written jokes. There is a common social stereotype that tends to portray women as being unfunny and slow at getting the joke and men as being superior at humor making and understanding. It is hypothesized that males understand and appreciate humor in memes and jokes more than females. In order to test the validity of the stated hypothesis, a questionnaire and a test are used as research tools. Both the test and the questionnaire were administered to a cluster sample of 29 participants per gender (at a total of 58 participants). The 58 participants are third year students of English at Frères Mentouri Constantine 1 University. The questionnaire is used as a personal information gathering tool where students answered questions related to their exposure to English media and their favorite social media platforms. The test is the main research tool which provided the participants with 6 memes and 8 written jokes of different types of humor. First, they are expected to react to them. Second, they are required to explain the humor found in them or justify their reactions if understood. The results obtained from the analyzed data reveal that there is a gap in the understanding of humor in memes and written jokes among the two genders. Males’ humor understanding level was higher than women’s by more than 10%. However, with humor appreciation, males and females are almost equally appreciative of humor.
... Crystal (2001) notes that the use of LOL is not necessarily genuine, just as the use of smiley faces or grins is not necessarily genuine, posing the rhetorical question: "How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL?". Franzini (2002) concurs, stating that there is as yet no research that has determined the percentage of people who are actually laughing out loud when they write "LOL". ...
... rumların mizah ürettikleri durumlardan daha fazla gözlemlendiği görülmüştür. Willibald Ruch ve Franz-Josef Hehl mizah anlayışını; kavrama, beğenme, dışavurum, yaratma olarak dört aşamaya ayırmıştır. Mizahın üretilmesi mizahın anlaşılması ve değerinin takdir edilmesinden daha zor olmasından dolayı mizahın yaratılması son evreyi oluşturmaktadır (Akt.Franzini, 2002). Araştırma bulguları bu durumla örtüşmektedir.ÖNERILERAlanyazında çocuklarda mizah gelişimini ele alan çalışmaların sayısı sınırlıdır. Türkiye'de okul öncesi dönemde çocukların mizah gelişimlerini inceleyen bir çalışmaya rastlanılmamıştır. Bu nedenle çocukların mizah gelişimiyle ilgili ile ilgili daha fazla çalışma yapılmasının gerekli ...
zet Mizah; saçma ve uyumsuz düşünce, olay ve durumların zihin tarafından keşfedilme tecrübesidir. Paul E. McGhee; mizah gelişim kuramında mizahla bilişsel gelişimin ilişkisi üzerinde durmuştur ve mizah gelişimini beş evreye ayırmıştır: 1. evre: Bağlanılan figüre gülme; 2. evre: Nesnelere karşı tutarsız davranışlar; 3. evre: Nesnelerin, olayların, insanların tutarsız olarak adlandırılması; 4. evre: Kavramsal tutarsızlık; 5. evre: Çoklu anlamlar ve yetişkin türü mizahın başlaması(espriler ve bilmeceler). Bu çalışma, ebeveynlerinin gözlemlerine dayanarak, 6 yaşındaki çocukların mizah ürettikleri ve mizahın değerini takdir ettikleri durumları, McGhee 'nin mizah gelişim evrelerine göre incelemek amacıyla yapılmıştır. Çalışmada nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden betimsel analiz yöntemi kullanılmış ve yarı yapılandırılmış gözlem formlarından yararlanılmıştır. Betimsel analiz yönteminde, elde edilen veriler daha önceden belirlenen temalara göre özetlenerek yorumlanır. Çalışmada 6'sı kız 4'ü erkek olmak üzere 10 çocuk ebeveynleri tarafından iki hafta süresince gözlemlenmiştir. Çalışma grubundaki çocuklar 64-74 ay aralığındadır. Araştırmacılar tarafından hazırlanmış çok sayıda gözlem formları araştırma öncesinde ebeveynlere verilmiş ve gözlemlerin bu formlara nasıl kaydedileceği açıklanmıştır. Ebeveynlerinden alınan gözlem formları araştırmacılar tarafından incelenerek analiz edilmiştir. Çalışmanın bulgularına göre çalışma grubundaki çocuklar McGhee'nin mizah gelişim evrelerinden kavramsal tutarsızlık evresinde yer almaktadırlar. Anahtar Sözcükler: Okul öncesi, erken çocukluk dönemi, mizah, mizah gelişimi, uyumsuzluk kuramı. Abstract Humor is the experience of being discovered the absurd and incongruous thoughts, events and situations by mind. Paul E. McGhee has emphasized the relationship between humor and cognitive development in his humor development theory and has divided the humor development into five stages: 1.stage: Laughing at the attachment figure; 2. stage: Treating an object as a different object; 3. stage: Misnaming objects or actions; 4. stage: Conceptual incongruity; 5. stage: Beginning of the multiple meanings and adult (style) humor (jokes and riddles). This research has been carried out to analyze the situations of 6-year old children producing humor and appreciating the value of humor in respect of McGhee's humor development stages by means of parent observation. In this research, descriptive analysis method pattern of qualitative research techniques has been used and semi-structured observation forms have been utilized. In descriptive analysis method, collected data are interpreted by summarizing in view of pre-defined themes. In this research, ten children (6 girls-4 boys) have been observed for two weeks by their parents and they are between the 64-74-month-range. Before the research, a large number of observation forms prepared by researchers have been given to the parents and they have been informed how to write down the observations in these forms. The observation forms collected
... Sense of humor enhances in the process of physical, cognitive and language development (Franzini 2002). Children use some actions as humor like throwing things, making different gestures, playing chasing games, sound and word plays etc. Children gain the ability to take control of their emotions using more cognitive ways than behavioral ones from early ages to adolescence (Altshuler and Ruble 1989). ...
This article presents the investigation of the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire for Children (CHSQ Turkish). Four studies were assessed using a sample of Turkish secondary school students in two different schools located in Istanbul and a total of 717 students participated in these four studies. Factor analyses and internal consistency (study 1), test-retest reliability (study 2), concurrent validity (study 3), convergent and discriminant validity (study 4) were investigated in this research. In study 1, the results of the confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis indicated that the four-factor structure (aggressive, affiliative, self-enhancing, self-defeating) of a modified 17-item version was confirmed. In addition, corrected item-total correlations (.50–.70) and internal consistency values of the four factors were acceptable (.82, .83, .80, .73, respectively). Test-retest reliabilities during a 4-week period (.69, .82, .74, .72, respectively) were adequate in study 2. In study 3, concurrent validity of the scale was supported with reference to depression and anxiety. In study 4, convergent and discriminant validity of the CHSQ Turkish were confirmed by assessing AVE, square root of AVE and correlations between four factors. Additionally, the correlations of the four factors of the scale with sensation seeking and loneliness were additional evidence for convergent validity. The CHSQ Turkish was assessed to be a valid and reliable measure.
... Desde temprana edad, los niños aprenden los efectos coercitivos del humor ridículo (Bryant, Brown, Parks, & Zillmann, 1983;Martin, 2007). La burla es una forma agresiva de humor que es frecuente en la mediana infancia, siendo tópicos recurrentes: la apariencia física, las metidas de pata, situaciones escatológicas, el desempeño intelectual y físico (Franzini, 2002;Shapiro, Baumeister, & Kessler, 1991;Socha & Kelly, 1994). El humor antisocial adquiere gran relevancia en el contexto escolar. ...
En el presente trabajo se expondrá parte de la investigación sobre el tema ―Relación entre las funciones ejecutivas y el aprendizaje de la lectura y escritura inicial‖, correspondiente a la beca de entrenamiento otorgada por la Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Se presentará el material diseñado para el apartado dedicado al desarrollo de las funciones ejecutivas (FE.), en el marco de un programa destinado al desarrollo lingüístico cognitivo y a la enseñanza y aprendizaje de la lectura en Nivel Inicial (Borzone, De Mier, Marder & Plana, 2016). El material cuenta como antecedente el que aparece en el programa ―Leamos Juntos‖ destinado a niños de primer grado (Borzone & Marder, 2015). (Page 2015)
... Desde temprana edad, los niños aprenden los efectos coercitivos del humor ridículo (Bryant, Brown, Parks, & Zillmann, 1983;Martin, 2007). La burla es una forma agresiva de humor que es frecuente en la mediana infancia, siendo tópicos recurrentes: la apariencia física, las metidas de pata, situaciones escatológicas, el desempeño intelectual y físico (Franzini, 2002;Shapiro, Baumeister, & Kessler, 1991;Socha & Kelly, 1994). El humor antisocial adquiere gran relevancia en el contexto escolar. ...
Paper abstracts of the IV Learning & Development Conference
... Humor appreciation and humor expression in children occur in different linguistic and non-linguistic contexts. Linguistic contexts in which humor can be found include the telling of jokes, oral narration in the creation of funny stories, and the retelling of previously experienced humorous events, observed TV programs, or movies (Bergen 2003(Bergen , 2006Franzini 2002). Nonlinguistic contexts may include practical jokes, picture cartoons, funny faces, exaggerated gestures, and unexpected silly events (Bergen 2002;McGhee 1979McGhee , 2002. ...
Children with and without hearing loss were compared on their joke-telling and humor-related oral narrative skills. They were asked to tell a joke, create a funny story, and describe a funny movie they had seen. The ability to use humor in language creatively or in recall, the appropriate use of time reference in verbs, and the sequencing of story schema are advanced language skills for children. The conceptual and language skills of humor could be impacted if children do not hear some of the subtleties of language. Results revealed children with hearing loss used shorter and less complex utterances in jokes. They were significantly more likely to produce knock-knock jokes than other types such as riddles, and the knock-knock jokes were at a pre-joke stage. Children with hearing loss also produced funny stories that were less complex. They scored lower on story structure, total narrative ability, and Applebee's story schema. They were less likely to report bathroom humor as the funny part of a joke, story, or movie. This suggests that some aspects of the development of verbal humor may be impacted by hearing loss even among children mainstreamed in regular schools.
... Humor appreciation and humor expression in children occur in different linguistic and non-linguistic contexts. Linguistic contexts in which humor can be found include the telling of jokes, oral narration in the creation of funny stories, and the retelling of previously experienced humorous events, observed TV programs, or movies (Bergen 2003(Bergen , 2006Franzini 2002). Nonlinguistic contexts may include practical jokes, picture cartoons, funny faces, exaggerated gestures, and unexpected silly events (Bergen 2002;McGhee 1979McGhee , 2002. ...
Nwokah, E. E., & Leafblad, S.
In this study 44 undergraduate students in a language development course participated in service learning with preschool homeless and low-income children as a course requirement. Students completed a survey, questionnaires, reflective journaling, and small-group debriefing sessions. Based on current views on brain-based learning from cortical functioning and dynamic systems perspectives, students learned from the experiences in four main ways. They benefited from multisensory experiences and related problem solving, changes in their attitudes and beliefs, application of classroom information and related learning, and emotional learning.
Huumorilla on monia positiivisia vaikutuksia sekä yksilöön että yhteisöön. Yhteisöön kuuluminen on ihmisen keskeisiä tarpeita, ja huumori voi sekä yhdistää että erottaa yhteisön jäseniä. Tämä tutkimus kuvaa paljon huumoria tuottavien lasten eli hupailijoiden huumoria. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on kuvata paljon huumoria käyttävien lasten toimintaa varhaiskasvatusryhmän erilaisissa tilanteissa sekä sitä, miten huumori rakentuu ryhmässä muiden lasten ja aikuisten kanssa. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan etnografinen. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu 30 videotallenteesta, jotka on kuvattu viidessä eri lapsiryhmässä ja joissa yhdeksän hupailijaa tuottaa erilaisia huumoritilanteita. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, että hupailijat ovat huumorin tuottajina erilaisia ja parhaimmillaan hupailija synnyttää positiivista ilmapiiriä yhteisöön, toimii huumorin käytön mallina muille sekä tukee muita lapsia huumorikokeiluissa. Huumorille on tilaa, kun aikuiset tunnistavat pedagogisesti huumoritilanteet, ymmärtävät huumorin vastavuoroisen luonteen ja antavat hupailijan tuottamalle huumorille mahdollisuuden.
The pursuit of happiness is widely acknowledged as a basic human impulse, so much so that wars have been waged over the concept, its necessity has been written into constitutions, and it has formed the basis for what many consider to be the American Dream. In some ways, in child psychiatry, this concept is at the heart of many of our encounters with patients. Children who have attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder develop negative self‐image as a result of negative feedback from others; teenagers with depression suffer from unrelenting negative cognitions that sabotage their sense of self. At a very basic level, their ability to pursue happiness is being threatened. However, as a discipline, child psychiatry has not developed a way of talking about how to hone the skill of “being happy.” What does such a practice look like, in concrete terms? How would we go about teaching such a practice to our patients, who are often quite vulnerable, in multiple senses of the word? Given that our patients often come to us in the midst of very stressful and difficult circumstances, how can we shift our perspectives and theirs, to include not only ways of thinking about improving dynamics that are not working for the family, but also thinking about how we can bolster families' strengths? One way to do this is by talking about the importance of thoughtfully cultivating the practices of laughter and joy with parents of young children as a way to strengthen attachment, improve self‐esteem, and nourish peer social networks.
Although school‐based programs are effective at decreasing bullying, the majority of studies have been conducted with elementary and middle school students. We conducted a pilot study using a randomized controlled design investigating the social validity of a brief, bullying bystander program adapted to be age‐appropriate for high school students (N = 65). Results indicated that high school students in the intervention group perceived the program to be acceptable and relevant and reported greater increases in knowledge (equation/pits22249-math-0001.png = 0.27) and confidence to intervene (equation/pits22249-math-0002.png = 0.27) in bullying situations compared to students in the control group. Despite being trained in the use of four intervention strategies, students reported using two of the strategies infrequently. Additionally, we found a significant difference between the intervention and control group for only one strategy (Φ = −0.44). This study provides partial support for the social validity of the adapted program. Implications for implementing the program at the high school level are discussed.
The diagnosis, treatment, and side effects of childhood cancer have been described as extremely stressful experiences in the life of a child. Anecdotally, children report that a sense of humor helps them cope with the daily experiences of living with cancer; however, no research has examined sense of humor and childhood cancer stressors. This study investigated the effect of sense of humor on the relationship between cancer stressors and children's psychosocial adjustment to cancer, immune function, and infection using Lazarus and Folkman's theory of stress, appraisal, and coping. A direct relationship was observed between sense of humor and psychosocial adjustment to cancer, such that children with a high sense of humor had greater psychological adjustment, regardless of the amount of cancer stressors. A moderating effect was observed for incidence of infection. As childhood cancer stressors increase, children with high coping humor scores reported fewer incidences of infection than low scorers.
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