A multivariate approach to the study of humor in preschool children

The primary purpose of the present study was to provide a further understanding of the nature of humor in young children through an investigation of laughter and smiling and variables surrounding these behaviors within the context of the child's preschool. This study, therefore, was focused on three topics: (a) the child's ability to appreciate and create humor events as a function of age and gender, (b) the relationship between humor and creativity, and (c) the types of humor prevalent in preschool children.

In order to meet these purposes data were collected from 90 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (45 males, 45 females) enrolled in 3 nursery schools by systematic observation, teacher ratings of humor and creativity, interviewer ratings of creativity, and the Kogan and Wallach Uses and Instances Tasks of creative ability. Observers recorded humor events, defined by remarks or behaviors in which laughter or smiling co-occurred, for six, ten-minute sessions for each child. In addition to the humor event itself, humor style (Incidental, Silliness/Clowning, Targeting), mode (verbal, motoric, combination), intention (positive, neutral, negative), social setting (alone, peer parallel, peer cooperative), and play setting (blocks, dolls, crafts, among others) also were recorded for each event.

Results revealed differences between males and females as well as among age groups with respect to a child's ability to appreciate and create certain styles of humor. More specifically, in contrast to males, females laughed more at personally produced Incidental events, smiled more at other-produced Incidental events, and had more events coded as positive in intention. . With respect to age differences, three-year-olds generally were characterized by smiling at Incidental events, whereas four- and five-year-olds smiled and laughed at other kinds of events (i.e., Silliness/Clowning and Targeting), and created events that others besides themselves could appreciate.

In an attempt to relate humor and creativity, correlational analyses were performed and yielded only one modest relationship between creativity and humor: the production of Silliness/Clowning events correlated with the creativity index (test score). Other analyses did not provide evidence for a direct relationship between creativity and humor when humor is measured by behavioral observations.

Results from this study provide evidence for the existence of three types of humor in the preschool children: assertive humor, sweet humor, and socially regarding humor. Assertive humor was characterized by verbally expressed humor events, producing Incidental events at which others laugh, laughing at other-produced Incidental events, producing Targeted events at which others laugh, age, events judged negative in intention, laughter and smiling during peer cooperative play, and the lack of smiling at personally-produced Incidental events. Sweet humor was composed of positive humor events, smiling at personallyproduced Incidental events, laughter and smiling during peer cooperative play, and high teacher ratings on humor consistency in play. Finally, socially regarding humor was comprised of smiling at personallyproduced Targeted events, smiling at other-produced Targeted events, and laughter and smiling during peer parallel play.

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This investigation has provided evidence for the view that humor has multiple aspects and is not a unitary phenomenon. Reference was made to other studies that have addressed similar issues and similarities and/or differences were noted. The discussion examined some implicat icns for future research.