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

Abstract

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.

How Do Children Play with Toy Trains and for What Benefits? A Scoping Review

“…This was likely a result of the 'close-ended' and structured nature of the train set indicating to children clearly their use, in turn requiring less discussion and clarification on the themes and uses of the toy before being able to play with them [43]. Further, children's social play with toy trains additionally included humour [48,49] and references to the internal states of other people and the toys and characters [18,58], both of which are associated with children's developing social understanding [19,71].…”

“…This type of play is common in both pre-school aged children [1] as well as older children (6-7-year-olds) [4]. Indeed, setting up toys as a part of play has been found to be more common than playing pretend with toys in expected or creative ways [18,19] and is negatively associated with them both [13,18].…”

Embracing neurodiversity in doll play: Investigating neural and language correlates of doll play in a neurodiverse sample

“…The opportunities afforded by toys such as dolls for referencing and appreciating the internal worlds of others may facilitate the development of social understanding compared to playing on electronic devices (Carpendale & Lewis, 2015). In support of this, references to the internal states of others are associated with other aspects of children's social-cognitive development such as their production of humour (Paine et al, 2022) and perspectivetaking skills (Howe, 1991;Tessier et al, 2016).…”