‘H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, PEE! Get it? Pee!’: Siblings’ shared humour in childhood

Abstract

Humour is a central feature of social interactions in childhood that has received little attention. In a sample of 86 7-year-old children (M age = 7.82 years, SD = 0.80), we investigated patterns and individual differences in spontaneous humour observed during free play with their older (M age = 9.55 years, SD = 0.88) or their younger sibling (M age = 5.87 years, SD = 0.96). We coded children's instances, categories, and responses to humour. We investigated the nature of children's humour on the dyadic and individual level. Humour was common, and siblings' production of humour was highly interdependent between play partners. Dyadic humour differed according to structural features of the sibling relationship (age, gender composition), and 7-year-old focal children's humour varied according to gender. This study contributes to knowledge regarding the dyadic nature of children's humour and individual patterns of humour beyond the preschool years.

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

“…We also investigated theoretically predicted associations between children's humor production and their tendency to engage in pretense and their social understanding skills. As in previous studies (Paine, Howe, et al, 2019;, most children produced humor with their sibling during play. Children most often performed incongruities, shared preposterous statements or humorous anecdotes, and engaged in playful teasing.…”

“…However, we found relatively small associations between children's humor production and within-child characteristics. Rather, as in previous studies of siblings, humor production was highly dyadic (Paine, Howe, et al, 2019;Paine et al, 2021). This emphasizes the importance of the social interactional context when studying correlates of children's behavior in play (Gibson et al, 2020), which should inform future work on humor.…”

“…In early childhood, first-born children tend to produce more types of humor with their siblings—including playful banter and teasing and action and object incongruities—than do second-born children of the same age (Paine et al, 2021). In middle childhood, pairs of brothers produce more humor overall than pairs of sisters (Paine, Howe, et al, 2019). Similarly, children’s social understanding skills are influenced by sibling constellation factors (e.g., age gap; Paine et al, 2018).…”

Dispositional playfulness in young children: A cross-sectional and longitudinal examination of the psychometric properties of a new child self-reported playfulness scale and associations with social behaviour

“…It may be particularly interesting to understand how playfulness is associated with humour, given the obvious conceptual overlap between the two constructs, and the adult playfulness literature which suggests a positive association between them (e.g., Yue et al, 2016). The manner in which children use humour in their social interactions with peers has been shown to be associated with broader school adjustment (e.g., James & Fox, 2018;Paine, Howe, Karajian, Hay, & DeHart, 2019), and further research may uncover similar functions for a playful disposition. Furthermore, humour in early childhood has shown sex di erences, with recent research showing that by 7 years of age, boys produce more humour compared to girls (Paine et al, 2019), suggesting that boys' and girls' humour, like the current ndings for playfulness, may come to vary as a function of sex with development.…”

Children’s humor development: A case of Indonesian children

“…The fact that the children in question encountered no difficulties digesting and participating in that humorous encounter signifies that, at this age, they are apt to utilize humor of this type. This is unsurprising, as current research (see Paine et al, 2021;Paine et al, 2019).…”