Children’s humor development: A case of Indonesian children

Wening Sahayu, Sulis Triyono, Eri Kurniawan, Putrasulung Baginda, Nurul Huda Gus Tema

Abstract


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.

Keywords


Children; cognitive development; humor; Indonesian children; social development

Full Text:

PDF

References


Attardo, V. R. (1959). Synopsis of the workshop on humor and cognition. Humor, 25. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1989.2.4.407

Bakeman, R., & Adamson, L. B. (1984). Coordinating attention to people and objects in mother-infant and peer-infant interaction. Child development, 55(4), 1278-1289. https://doi.org/10.2307/1129997

Bergen, D. (2002). Finding the humor in children's play. Play and culture studies, 4, 209-222.

Bergen, D. (2015). Play as a context for humor development. In D. F. Fromberg & D. Bergen (Eds.), Play from birth to twelve: Contexts, perspectives, and meanings (pp. 159–172). Routledge.

Bergen, D. (2018). Humor as a developmental phenomenon: The contributions of Paul McGhee. Humor, 31(2), 213-231. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2016-0091

Bergen, D. (2019). Young children’s play and humor development: A close theoretical partnership. Research on Young Children’s Humor, 11-28. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15202-4_2

Bergen, D. (2021). Humour as a resource for children. In E. Vanderheiden & C. H. Mayer (Eds.), The palgrave handbook of humour research. palgrave macmillan (pp. 311-323). Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78280-1_16

Bergen, B., & Binsted, K. (2003). The cognitive linguistics of scalar humor. Language, culture, and mind, 79-92.

Boyd, B. (2004). Laughter and literature: A play theory of humor. Philosophy and Literature, 1, 23. https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2004.0002

Brône, G., & Feyaerts, K. (2003). The cognitive linguistics of incongruity resolution: Marked reference-point structures in humor. Preprints Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Departement Linguistiek, 205(1964), 58.

Bruner, J. S., Jolly, A., & Sylva, K. (1976). Play: Its role in development and evolution. Penguin.

Chan, Y. C., Chou, T. L., Chen, H. C., Yeh, Y. C., Lavallee, J. P., Liang, K. C., & Chang, K. E. (2012). Towards a neural circuit model of verbal humor processing: An fMRI study of the neural substrates of incongruity detection and resolution. Neuroimage, 66, 169-176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.019

Chik, P. Y. M. (2001). Some correlates of children's humor[Unpublished doctoral dissertation] Monash University.

Chik, P. Y. M., Leung, C. S. B., & Molloy, G. N. (2005). Development of a measure of humour appreciation. Australian Journal of Educational & Developmental Psychology, 5, 26-31./

Clark, E. V. (1995 Language acquisition: The lexicon and syntax. In J. L. Miller & P. D. Eimas (Eds.), Speech, language, and communication (pp. 303–337). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-012497770-9.50011-x

Dukore, B. F. (2010). Seriousness redeemed by frivolity: Ayckbourn's intimate exchanges. Modern Drama, 53(4), 447-470. https://doi.org/10.1353/mdr.2010.0026

Feng, Y. J., Chan, Y. C., & Chen, H. C. (2014). Specialization of neural mechanisms underlying the three-stage model in humor processing: An ERP study. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 32, 59-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2014.08.007

Fraenkel, J. R., Wallen, N. E., & Hyun, H. H. (2016). How to design and evaluate research in education. McGraw-Hill Education.

Franzini, L. (2002). Kids who laugh: How to develop your child’s sense of humor. Square One Publishers.

Greengross, G. (2013). Humor and aging: A mini review. Journal of Gerontology, 59(5), 448-453. https://doi.org/10.1159/000351005.

Hoicka, E., & Akhtar, N. (2012). Early humour production. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 30(4), 586-603. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-835X.2011.02075.x.

Hurford, J. R., Heasley, B., & Michael, B. S. (2017). Semantics: A course book. Cambridge University Press.

Hutauruk, B. S. (2015). Children first language acquisition at age 1-3 years old in Balata. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science Chomsky Bolinger, 20(8), 2279–2845. https://doi.org/10.9790/0837-20855157

Krikmann, A. (2006). Contemporary linguistic theories of humour. Journal of Folklore, 33. https://doi.org/10.7592/FEJF2006.33.kriku.

Lyon, C. (2016). Humour and the young child A review of the research literature. Televizion, 4–9.

Marinkovich, K. (2010). Right hemisphere has the last laugh: Neural dynamics of joke appreciation. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 1, 8. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-010-0017-7

Martin, R. A., & Ford, T. (2018). The psychology of humor: An integrative approach. Academic Press.

Martucci, K. (2016). Shared storybook reading in the preschool setting and considerations for young children’s theory of mind development. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 14(1), 55-68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X14523750

Masten, A. S. (1986). Humor and competence in school-aged children. Child Development, 57(2), 461-473. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130601

McGhee, P. (1979). Humor: Its origin and development. Freeman.

McGhee, P. E. (1989). Chapter 5: The contribution of humor to children's social development. Journal of Children in Contemporary Society, 20(1-2), 119-134. https://doi.org/10.1300/J274v20n01_09

McGhee, P. E. (2013). Humor across the life span: Sources of developmental change and individual. Humor and Aging, 27.

McGhee, P. E., & Frank, M. (2014). Humor and children's development: A guide to practical applications. Routledge.

McGraw, A. P., & Warren, C. (2010). Benign violations: Making immoral behavior funny. Psychological science, 21(8), 1141-1149. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610376073

Moran, J. M., Wig, A., &; Janata, K. (2003). Neural correlates of humor detection and appreciation. NeuroImage, 3, 6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.10.017

Neely, M. N., Walter, E., Black, J. M., & Reiss, A. L. (2012). Neural correlates of humor detection and appreciation in children. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(5), 1784-1790.https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.4172-11.2012.

Paine, A. L., Howe, N., Karajian, G., Hay, D. F., & De Hart, G. (2019). ‘H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, PEE! Get it? Pee!’: Siblings’ shared humour in childhood. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 37(3), 336-353. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12277

Paine, A. L., Karajian, G., Hashmi, S., Persram, R. J., & Howe, N. (2021). “Where’s your bum brain?” Humor, social understanding, and sibling relationship quality in early childhood. Social Development, 30(2), 592-611. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12488

Panksepp, J. (2005). Beyond a joke: From animal laughter to human joy? Science, 308(5718), 62-63. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1112066

Papalia, D. E., Olds, S. W., & Feldman, R. D. (2001). Human development (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Reddy, V. (1991). Playing with others’ expectations: Teasing and mucking about in the first year. In A. Whiten (Ed.), Natural theories of mind (pp. 143-158). Blackwell.

Ruch, W., Attardo, S., & Raskin, V. (1993). Toward an empirical verification of the general theory of verbal humor. Humor, 6(2), 123–136. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1993.6.2.123

Samson, A. C., Zysset, S., & Huber, O. (2008). Cognitive humor processing: different logical mechanisms in nonverbal cartoons—an fMRI study. Social Neuroscience, 3(2), 125-140. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470910701745858

Semrud-Clikeman, M., & Glass, K. (2010). The relation of humor and child development: Social, adaptive, and emotional aspects. Journal of Child Neurology, 25(10), 1248-1260. https://doi.org/10.1177/0883073810373144

Sezgin, E. Y., & Hatipoğlu, R. (2017). The study of the 5-6-year-old children’s appreciation the humour at preschool education. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 5(11), 1902–1911. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2017.051107

Schwartz, E. (1999). Humor development in children from infancy to eighth grade. Research for Nursing Practice,1(2), 1-6.

Southam, M. (2003). Therapeutic humor: Attitudes and actions by occupational therapists in adult physical disabilities settings. Occupational therapy in health care, 17(1), 23-41. https://doi.org/10.1080/J003v17n01_03

Southam, M. (2005). Humor development: An important cognitive and social skill in the growing child. Physical & Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics, 25(1-2), 105-117.

Voolaid, P. (2016). Children’s funny remarks in the field of linguistic humour theory. Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, (64), 159-180. https://doi.org/10.7592/FEJF2016.64.voolaid

Veatch, T. C. (1998). A theory of humor. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 11(2), 161-215. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1998.11.2.161

Wyer, R. S., & Collins, J. E. (1992). A theory of humor elicitation. Psychological Review, 99(4), 663-688. https://doi.org/ 10.1037/0033-295x.99.4.663

Ziv, A. (1989). Using humor to develop creative thinking. In P. E. McGhee (Ed.), Humor and children’s development: A guide to practical applications (pp. 99-116). The Haworth Press, Inc.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v11i3.43707

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


View My Stats

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.