Reading Activity Week #9 (Due Thursday)

| 15 Comments | 0 TrackBacks

After reading chapter #8 please respond to the following questions:

Of the various aspects of humor presented in the chapter, which did you find the most interesting? Why? Which did you find least interesting? Why? What are three things you read about in the chapter that you think will be the most useful for you in understanding the psychology of humor? Why?

Which of aspects of this chapter fit best  into the Theory "Z" your group came up with (make sure you say what group it was)? Which fit least and why?

Please make sure you use the terms, terminology and concepts you have learned so far in the class. It should be apparent from reading your post that you are a college student well underway in a course in psychology.

Please use spaces between your paragraphs to make your post easier to read - thanks in advance.

Let me know if you have any questions.

No TrackBacks

TrackBack URL: http://www.psychologicalscience.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/1981

15 Comments

This chapter was a big improvement over the last chapter for me and I really enjoyed the content. Even though a lot of the chapter was someone of a review of previous chapters except applied to childhood, I found this chapter an easier read that I definitely had more interest in. My favorite part was probably the section on humor and cognitive mastery because it was “new” to me. According to this section, children enjoy humor that reflects skills they currently are working on or have recently become proficient in. The study cited in this section found that children find humor in things that are not too easy or too difficult for them to cognitively understand. Later on in the chapter, this same concept was found to happen in older adults as well.

My least favorite part of the chapter is probably the section on cognitive development of irony and sarcasm simply because it was somewhat repetitious of previous chapters. I could be wrong about this, but one of the paragraphs sounded oddly familiar so I think the author saved himself some time and writing by copying and pasting the paragraph.

When reading, I came across a couple of sentences that reminded me of something else I have read in this book. Because of this, I will likely remember these concepts:

On page 260, it is stated that

“more humorous children also tended to be those who were taller and heavier and who had exerted more effort on mastery of gross-motor skills (which are particularly involved in physical play activities seen in the playground) and less effort on intellectual activities and mastery of fine-motor skills (which are needed for writing, art, and other academic activities observed in the classroom).”

I thought this concept was interesting because the activities mentioned to be a product of fine motor skills are also those that are generally characteristic of creativity. From a previous chapter, I remember reading that there is a link between creativity and humor, so I thought that maybe children who are found to be more humorous would also spend more time mastering fine-motor skills rather than gross-motor skills. These links may be of completely different origins, but I thought of them nonetheless.

I will also remember the two theories presented in the section about humor development: modeling/reinforcement hypothesis and the stress and coping hypothesis. According to the modeling/reinforcement hypothesis, children learn humor from observing humor that their parents engage in. They are also more likely to be reinforced for engaging in humor that their parent enjoy which in turn, molds them into developing similar humor patterns as their parents. On the other hand, the stress and coping hypothesis ascertains that children develop a sense of humor as a result of “coping with distress, conflict, and anxiety in an uncongenial family environment.” (This concept also reminded me of the section a few chapters ago about the personality of comedians).

Lastly, this is the first chapter to my recollection that talks about humor development in terms of genes and/or environmental influences. Prior to reading this section, I really had no opinion as to whether or not humor development was a product of genes, environment, or both besides always thinking both are influential in everything. Not surprisingly, humor development has been suggested to be a product of both. Based on what I read in the text, I would agree that humor development is a product of both, but more so of environmental influences.

This chapter related to my group’s “Z” theory (PSSC) in a couple of ways. First, I think the text mentions this but I can’t find the page, but there is a point (age) where children are able to cognitively process incongruities (which are the basis of humor). According to our theory, humor does not exist unless you cognitively process it. Because of this, before the age where children are able to process incongruities, are they really experience humor or is their laughter and smiling representative of joy and happiness? Also, this chapter also agrees that humor during childhood is very much a product of social interaction. Besides our theory stating that cognitive processing is a staple to understanding humor, we also agree that social contact of some sort is also a staple to understanding humor.

Terms used: incongruity, modeling/reinforcement hypothesis, stress and coping hypothesis

Throughout class we have learned that humor is used as a coping mechanism. We joke, tease, laugh, and more in order to help reduce the tension and stress that we experience on a daily basis. Humor as emotional coping was the aspect from chapter eight that I enjoyed most. This aspect focused more on children who use humor to cope with life stressors rather than adults. Joking and laughter helps children cope with arousing, embarrassing, and threatening topics during different stages of development. For example, children who are experiencing the process of being potty trained will find a great deal of humor and laughter in words that relate to urination and defecation. By laughing and joking around with these words it helps reduce the stress of potty training that the children are experiencing. I really enjoyed this aspect of the chapter because it explains that even children of a young age experience stress and anxiety and they turn to humor in order to cope. However, a question that I have after reading this would be if the children are experiencing mirth when you use humor to cope. Since the humor is mainly used to reduce their anxiety, awkwardness, and more it makes me question if the laughter they share triggers actual mirth or if it is a fake or forced humor. It would be interesting to measure whether humor as a coping mechanism includes mirth or if the humor is fake and forced laughter to reduce stressors.

I wasn’t very interested in reading about the cognitive congruency hypothesis. McGhee’s idea here was that in order for pleasure to be experienced from humor there needs to be an optimal level of challenge to the cognitive structures. We’ve discussed in class several times that as we develop and grow, our humor processes do as well. I didn’t find this aspect of the chapter very interesting because it didn’t present any new information and seemed vague.

I really enjoyed reading about the influence of genetics on humor. I think the idea that both the environment and genetics play a role in humor will help me further understand the psychology of humor. For example, our humor is partially based on our past experiences (environment) and our tendency and frequency to smile, laugh, and experience mirth is based more on genetic factors. Self-report measures are a good way to determine the amount of influence genetics and environment play on our sense of humor. These measures assess the overall tendency that we share humor with family members. However, there will always be different environmental factors that we are all exposed to which contribute to different styles of humor.

Humor changes over our lifespan. This concept will also help me further understand the psychology of humor. As young adults we commonly use humor to experience social acceptance, establish relationships, as well as finding and maintain a social status in our peer group. However, as we age, older people are more likely to use humor to help them keep a positive outlook on life and coping with stressors such as health problems, death of a spouse, and more.

Resolution in humor was also another interesting concept in this chapter. Resolution is used as a way to resolve the incongruity in jokes. It is described as a set of techniques used in forms of verbal humor to simultaneously activate incongruous multiple schemas. As children develop and experience humor, they learn to organize and comprehend incongruent jokes in a way that they are able to ‘resolve’ them.

One way in which this chapter relates to the "Swarm Theory" is that humor helps children socially interact during their development stages. For example, the Swarm theory believes that humor plays a major role in socialization and interaction, the book suggests that children find humor in different topics during different stages of life which allow them to interact with each other. The cognitive processes of humor was not a major part of our theory so this part of the chapter doesn't relate to the Swarm theory very well. However, the social concepts of humor throughout the chapter support the Swarm theory.

To me, the most interesting part of this chapter was the “humor and Cognitive Development” section. I like this section because it explains at what age and stage of cognitive development children are able to understand aspects of humor such as incongruity. We all know that there is a difference in humor between children and adults and that it has to do with comprehension. This section breaks down the stages of understanding and usage into more specific age groups. For example, McGhee has four stages of development involving incongruences. Another interesting part of this section was the part explaining the development of irony and sarcasm. It shocked me to read that irony may not be fully understood until age eight or nine and before that age, children see irony or sarcasm as a lie not a joke.

The least interesting part of this chapter was “Humor and Play.” This section was my least favorite because it’s a topic we have looked at before in previous chapters. Although this section was the least interesting to me, I still found it interesting. I have to say, I really enjoyed this chapter.

I think the “Interpersonal Aspects of Humor in Children” section will be very useful to my understanding of humor. The explanations of teasing are useful because they give me a way to talk about it. Not just to say that children tease one another but to actually explain why and what motivates it. For example, now I can explain that changes in teasing, as a child gets older, coincides with the changing of the most relevant norms at that stage in their life.

“Individual Differences in Children’s Sense of Humor” also had very helpful information. When looking at genetics using twin studies, it was found that, as opposed to genetics, the environment and being raised within the same family has a much greater effect of the type of humor a child develops. I find this information important because I believe strongly in learning humor. Something that surprised me but is I think is important is that studies have shown a correlation between distant and unsupportive parents and the usage of humor as a coping method. This idea could be combined with one of the previous chapters we read that talked about the humor of comedians and how they were treated growing up.

Also, this chapter provides the basic understanding that humor is something that we develop throughout our life and many different aspects of life can affect the sense of humor we come to have as an adult. This idea really made me think about the impact education has on what we find humorous. I know that since I have been in college, the things I find funny have changed. Is this due to my environment and just maturing? If I were to return to school when I’m older, would my style of humor and what I find funny suddenly change again?

My Z theory is the PSSC theory. I think this chapter’s ideas fit well into our theory because our theory is highly based on cognitive processes and social interaction. I have already mentions aspects of both of these topics. The first thing that sticks out is the section about cognitive development in humor. This shows that concepts such as incongruity, irony, and sarcasm need to be understood in order to experience and/or create humor. The next thing that sticks out in my mind is the social reasons why we use humor like we do or why we develop a certain type of humor. These things have much to do with your social environment such as family and school. I really don’t feel like there is a part of this chapter that doesn’t fit with our theory.

One thing that really caught my attention was the section on Social Influences on Humor Appreciation and Laughter in the Teasing Amoung Children Section. There were a couple of points that interested me. The first being that as soon as children develop a racial identity they can appreciate racist jokes, this could happen as early as 3-6 years old. I think this is more likely in a racially diverse area (not so much Iowa). Its just interesting to think that those jokes would start at such a young age. I think children that young have an aura of being so innocent. Working at a daycare and the YMCA I know that they are not angels, but it seems that not very often do their actions could be offensive. This makes me wonder if they understand the difference between skin colors, but not the real content of the joke. I think it obviously has a bit to do with environment to make it more likely but I wonder if, even though they may have a racial-identity like “I’m black, she’s white” if they really understand that when they make white jokes, or Pollock jokes, etc if they really understand what they are saying. Or perhaps they have not been exposed to the race they are making jokes against, or know of someone close to them of that race?

Least interesting to me was the genetic and environmental factors of humor sections. Last year in my Biopsychology class we were drilled with the idea that it is nature AND nurture working together. However, this section did bring up a few points about things that are more strongly correlated with either environment or genetics, which at least made me feel as if I wasn’t wasting my time.

One thing I will remember is also from the teasing section, the idea that children at 6 years old start avoiding behaviors that other children have been ridiculed for. Again thinking back to my kids I had not noticed this. I have gotten a lot of “But Thomas hit me first!” and expecting that if one is going to get in trouble the other person surely is. I think this would be an interesting thing to observe myself in children.

Another interesting and helpful thing was the interpersonal aspects of humor section. It stated the different levels of childhood and what humor is useful for. They are:
Infants: Helps form attachment and later emotions
Toddlers: Helps with separation and exerting independence
Middle Childhood: Socialization, establishing social groups, communicating social norms, social status
Adolescents: Negotiating sexual relationships

The last important section I think was humor and aging. It said basically that in younger years humor is used for expressing aggression in socially acceptable ways and establishing relationships and social standings. In older years and mostly in women it is about coping with stress and maintaining a humorous outlook on life.
The last two sections are important because they talk about humor over the ages. They I think are the best sections to really understanding development of humor.

I would say that the Social Influences on Humor section would be the best with our Swarm Theory, using humor aggressively and using it to establish and check social status is important to our theory. This is because our theory is about there being a dominant figure, to lead the rest of the pact, which is how humor is explained in this section. Everybody watches each other to figure out what to do and what not to do, and there is someone at the ‘front of the V’ that is leading everyone in these cues.

The section that fit the least is the section on Infancy and early childhood. It talks a lot about early childhood play and the early laughter and smiling, which doesn't really fit anywhere in our theory.

Developmental Psychology has always been an interest of mine, so I was interested to see what this chapter entailed. I thought this chapter presented the information clearly which made it easy to understand. One of the things that interested me almost immediately was the smiling and laughter in infancy and early childhood. I have always wondered why babies laughed. I knew that tickling and other things such as facial expression made babies laugh but I didn’t know exactly why. Babies are known to laugh at people familiar to them. When the person doesn’t fit the schema, laughter happens. For example, when the mother acts like a dog and pants at the baby, the baby will laugh because the mother’s act is an incongruous event and doesn’t fit the schema of the baby’s mother. Familiarity and perceptions of security play a large role in why a baby may think something is funny also. A baby is more likely to laugh or smile at someone familiar rather than a stranger. This is interesting because as adults we tend to laugh at both people who are familiar to us and strangers. Even though they laugh more at familiar people, babies also do laugh at games such as peek-a-boo and the peek-a-boo, where a familiar person may cover their hands and a different person were to reappear. Though the baby finds the familiar person to be humorous, they may still laugh at the new person that reappears. The babies in the trials did laugh less frequently though, which would coincide with the belief that babies to laugh at familiar people more.

I agree with Kayla when it comes to what I found to be the least interesting. The genetic and environmental factors section seemed to be repetitious. I think that a sense of humor is learned, not necessarily inherited. The study done by Beth Manke examined individual differences in interpersonal humor expressions in adolescents. Twins were also examined. A self-report questionnaire was used to assess the degree to which a participant engages in humor and laughter. As I have noted in previous blogs, I don’t think self-report questionnaires should be used because people can easily fake them in order to present themselves as humorous.

McGhee’s four stage model of humor development is definitely one of the things that I will remember from this chapter. Before presenting the four stages, the chapter mentioned that McGhee argued that genuine humor does not begin until the middle of the second year of life, where children start fantasizing about things. This view corresponds with Jean Piaget’s preoperational stage, where in this stage children begin to represent schemas internally. This is another thing I will remember because McGhee also uses Piaget’s assimilation term to describe how the events make sense. Assimilation can be described as interpreting something to make it fit within a schema. Reality assimilation is more serious, and the fantasy assimilation is more playful.

There are four stages that McGhee uses to describe humor development that correspond to general trends in cognitive development. The first stage is named the incongruous actions towards objects, which is when the child is able to represent objects with internal mental schemas. The second stage is called incongruous labeling of objects and events, where in the third year the child is able to begin using language. The third humor stage is called conceptual incongruity, which is when the child realized things have certain characteristics. The fourth and final stage is called multiple meanings where the child is able to manipulate schemas in their minds.

Another thing I will remember cognitive development of irony and sarcasm section. This interested me, therefore making me remember that children must develop the ability to make several complex linguistic and social inferences before appreciating irony and sarcasm. I have used this earlier in this week to describe how I found it interesting that even people with Down’s syndrome can experience sarcasm and irony even though they may find other things in life to be complex.

My Z-theory is the anti-Freud theory. This chapter kind of relates to my Z-Theory because humor is used as an emotional coping. In my Z-Theory, humor is used as a defense mechanism in evolution so being as though humor is used as a coping device, it obviously relates. By laughing and joking about serious things, or issues that normally cause tension, children are able to feel less threatened and gain a sense of mastery. This would coincide with my Z-Theory because the child would feel more powerful , they may use that when they get older. The section that fits the least is the psycho-analytic based case studies of the humor in children. Since my Z-Theory is anti-Freud then engaging in the playful fantasy of humor to transform it into something humorous would not work.

Developmental Psychology has always been an interest of mine, so I was interested to see what this chapter entailed. I thought this chapter presented the information clearly which made it easy to understand. One of the things that interested me almost immediately was the smiling and laughter in infancy and early childhood. I have always wondered why babies laughed. I knew that tickling and other things such as facial expression made babies laugh but I didn’t know exactly why. Babies are known to laugh at people familiar to them. When the person doesn’t fit the schema, laughter happens. For example, when the mother acts like a dog and pants at the baby, the baby will laugh because the mother’s act is an incongruous event and doesn’t fit the schema of the baby’s mother. Familiarity and perceptions of security play a large role in why a baby may think something is funny also. A baby is more likely to laugh or smile at someone familiar rather than a stranger. This is interesting because as adults we tend to laugh at both people who are familiar to us and strangers. Even though they laugh more at familiar people, babies also do laugh at games such as peek-a-boo and the peek-a-boo, where a familiar person may cover their hands and a different person were to reappear. Though the baby finds the familiar person to be humorous, they may still laugh at the new person that reappears. The babies in the trials did laugh less frequently though, which would coincide with the belief that babies to laugh at familiar people more.

I agree with Kayla when it comes to what I found to be the least interesting. The genetic and environmental factors section seemed to be repetitious. I think that a sense of humor is learned, not necessarily inherited. The study done by Beth Manke examined individual differences in interpersonal humor expressions in adolescents. Twins were also examined. A self-report questionnaire was used to assess the degree to which a participant engages in humor and laughter. As I have noted in previous blogs, I don’t think self-report questionnaires should be used because people can easily fake them in order to present themselves as humorous.

McGhee’s four stage model of humor development is definitely one of the things that I will remember from this chapter. Before presenting the four stages, the chapter mentioned that McGhee argued that genuine humor does not begin until the middle of the second year of life, where children start fantasizing about things. This view corresponds with Jean Piaget’s preoperational stage, where in this stage children begin to represent schemas internally. This is another thing I will remember because McGhee also uses Piaget’s assimilation term to describe how the events make sense. Assimilation can be described as interpreting something to make it fit within a schema. Reality assimilation is more serious, and the fantasy assimilation is more playful.

There are four stages that McGhee uses to describe humor development that correspond to general trends in cognitive development. The first stage is named the incongruous actions towards objects, which is when the child is able to represent objects with internal mental schemas. The second stage is called incongruous labeling of objects and events, where in the third year the child is able to begin using language. The third humor stage is called conceptual incongruity, which is when the child realized things have certain characteristics. The fourth and final stage is called multiple meanings where the child is able to manipulate schemas in their minds.

Another thing I will remember cognitive development of irony and sarcasm section. This interested me, therefore making me remember that children must develop the ability to make several complex linguistic and social inferences before appreciating irony and sarcasm. I have used this earlier in this week to describe how I found it interesting that even people with Down’s syndrome can experience sarcasm and irony even though they may find other things in life to be complex.

My Z-theory is the anti-Freud theory. This chapter kind of relates to my Z-Theory because humor is used as an emotional coping. In my Z-Theory, humor is used as a defense mechanism in evolution so being as though humor is used as a coping device, it obviously relates. By laughing and joking about serious things, or issues that normally cause tension, children are able to feel less threatened and gain a sense of mastery. This would coincide with my Z-Theory because the child would feel more powerful , they may use that when they get older. The section that fits the least is the psycho-analytic based case studies of the humor in children. Since my Z-Theory is anti-Freud then engaging in the playful fantasy of humor to transform it into something humorous would not work.

I found this chapter to be the most boring we've read so far, though I've never been that interested in developmental or child and adolescent psychology. One interesting topic however, was McGhee's four-stage model of humor development. Since at least as far back as Frued developmental psychology has focused on defining various critical periods where people acquire new skills or abilities, or begin to wrestle with different issues. Piaget famously outlined the stages of cognitive development people go through. At each of Piaget's four stages children develop new mechanisms for handling information. First they rely only on sensation and movement to learn (sensorimotor stage), then language and symbols (pre-operational) before expanding their abilities to include abstract thought and reason (concrete) and finally developing the full capabilities of an adult using more advanced deductive reasoning and acquiring the ability to hypothesize and make predictions (formal operational).

McGhee's four stage model of humor development is quite similar to Piaget's theory. Rather than summarize McGhee's findings I'm going to list the stages and discuss some of the problems with his theory (many of which come from the same problem's in Piaget's theory) and some interesting experiences I've had with the four stages throughout my life.

The four stages are: 1) incongruous actions towards objects, 2) incongruous labeling of objects and events, 3)conceptual incongruity and 4) multiple meanings. What I really liked about McGhee's theory was that it relies heavily on schema theory that we learned about earlier in the book. As children progress through the stages (which is from ages 2 or 3 to about 7, unlike Piaget's which is birth to adolescences) they develop more sophisticated forms of incongruity recognition and play which mirrors their cognitive development. Initially they simply use objects in incongruous ways, then begin using words and names or labels as the source of incongruity, then using characteristics of objects as the source of incongruity, and finally using more complex forms of schema manipulation as the source of incongruity. A quick example between the first and fourth stage is that in stage one they may put a foot or shoe to their ear pretending it is a phone, whereas in the fourth stage they understand jokes with a punch line such as: Why did the scientist throw the clock out the window? He wanted to see time fly, which presumably involves multiple schema's or at least an understanding that 'fly' is the source of ambiguity for the scientist.

My sister was born 9 weeks premature and, amongst other medical problems including a whole in her heart and a collapsed lung, developed cerebral palsy. Doctors were very worried that she would never reach full cognitive development so my family began using a lot of cognitive games in the hopes of offsetting any medical impairments she may have. One was to tell a joke and try to come up with alternative punch lines that would make the joke still (or more) funny. The first was "Why did the chicken cross the road…" since this is easy. I remember when my sister was around 4or 5 she came up with the following joke: Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it was a golfball. Sydney was pretty close to the ideal developmental stage here though it's tough to tell if this is simply mislabeling (stage 2, incongruous lableling of objects) or a more sophisticated re-grouping of basic concepts involving more elaborate cognitive effort (stage 3, conceptual incongruity).

My groups z-theory was equilibrium theory. One interesting idea discussed in this chapter was about irony and sarcasm. The text explains that developing an understanding of these concepts seems to progress with childrens' development of a 'theory of mind.' Which is an ability to think about and understand how others think about different ideas and concepts. As children develop an understanding that someone may misunderstand that someone else is trying to be funny, for example, they are better able to understand the purpose and function of irony and sarcasm. In this way it seems that this development of a theory of mind has a profound impact on children's abilities to sympathize and empathize with others. These developments highlight the ability of humor to bring balance to personal and social situations by giving the person tools with which to better understand themselves, their environment, and their place within it.


One problem with the equilibrium theory however was the sort of contradictory findings of how personality and behavioral characteristics effect a child's sense of humor. Basically, if by 'sense of humor' we are referring to the ability to 'produce', 'comprehend', and 'appreciate' humor than it is highly correlated with a lot of pro-social (balance or equilibrium generating) concepts such as maturity, intelligence, cooperation, and 'social competence.' However, when you define a sense of humor as the ability to make others laugh it is correlated with a number of anti-social and aggressive ideas such as aggressiveness, classroom disruptiveness, and problems with authority figures.

I found this chapter one of the most interesting just because I am interested in developmental psychology more so in child and adolescents. What I found the most interesting in this chapter is McGhee’s four stage model of human development which correlated with Piaget. The first stage of human development is called incongruous actions toward objects, which begins at in the middle or the second year of life. Children at this age are able to represent objects with internal mental schemas, and their humor consists of playfully assimilating objects into schemas to which they don no normally belong. An example of this would be a child holding a shoe to their ear and talking to it as if it were a phone. The second stage is called incongruous labeling of objects and events, which begins in the third year of life, when a child is able to begin using language in playful ways. An example of this would be getting amusement out of calling a dog a cat and a nose and eye and so forth. The third stage of human development is conceptual incongruity and it begins around three years of age, when the child begins to realize that words refer to classes of objects/events that have certain key defining characteristics. For example, instead of simply finding it humorous to call a dog a cat its funnier to say a cat moo’s, instead of meow’s. The final stage occurs around age seven and is called multiple meaning, when children progress from the preoperational to concrete operations stage. Kids in the concrete stage are able to manipulate schemas in their minds, imagining the effects of various objects/events. They start to realize that other people have different perspectives then their own.

The concept I found least intriguing was that of humor and play. It seemed kind of a no brainer. For one, of course infants have to learn from their parents. Parents teach them to recognize the verbalizations and behaviors that signal “this is play” and they also teach their children the meaning of the “humor frame” by means of facial expressions, behavioral and vocal exaggerations, and verbal labels indicting “this is funny.” Humor involves a greater degree of incongruity, bizarreness, exaggerations, or discrepancy from the way things normally are, along with playful attitude. According to McGhee making sense of events can occur in two ways: either through reality assimilations, which is more serious and reality based or fantasy assimilation which is more playful and makes use of pretense and make believe. Children might pretend to comb their hair with a pencil thus giving the pencil schema inappropriate characteristics of a comb (fantasy assimilation). Overall, when a child perceives information that doesn’t fit with their existing schema about a particular event/object they experience incongruity.

One thing I will remember is smiling and laughter in infancy and early childhood. I find it interesting how laughter occurs in response to an unexpected or incongruous event, which is appropriate to the infant’s cognitive level, but doesn’t mesh with his/her developing schemas. The incongruous tactile stimuli, actions, sounds, and facial expressions that trigger laughter in infants gradually evolve into an internalized sense of humor, as developing schemas enable the child to manipulate mental representations of concepts and language in incongruous ways. Furthermore, laughter in infants appears to occur in response to the perception of an incongruous object/event in a safe, playful, and nonthreatening social context. Also, tactile and auditory stimuli produce high rates of later at 7 or 8 months (i.e., kissing stomach) and visual and social action are more likely to induce laughter at 12 months (i.e., “I’m going to get you game”). In addition, an infant is not able to resolve the incongruity by assimilating what they saw as an overarching schema, therefore making sense of it in their own way. I thought it was interesting how smiling occurred in response to a wider variety of events, especially incidental events, although it also occurs along with laughter in the context of intentional silliness events. Moreover, there at four type of laughter, comment, chuckle, rhythmical and squeal laugher.

Second thing I will remember is the concept of cognitive development of irony and sarcasm. Most humor in childhood arises from spontaneous verbal and nonverbal behaviors during playful interactions, such as wordplay, silly gestures, and action, incongruous fantasy play, teasing, irony, sarcasm and practical jokes. In order to understand and appreciated irony and sarcasm, children must develop the ability to make several complex linguistic and social inferences. For one, they need to distinguish what the intended meaning of the ironic statement is from the surface meaning and must learn to substitute the true meaning for the literal one. Second, they need to recognize the pragmatic (i.e., social and communicative) functions of irony in speech. Irony is used to mute/tinge the implied praise/criticism, making the criticism less negative and the compliment less positive than they would be using literal language. Lastly, irony is used to convey humor, based on the incongruity between the literal and implied meanings, and is meant to be funny in the end. This doesn’t develop until a child is about six years old. In order to comprehend one needs to depend on the “theory of mind” or the ability to infer a speaker’s beliefs/intentions. All in all adults find subtler forms of irony funnier, while children find more obvious forms funnier. Of all ages a sincere or deadpan intonation made the irony seem less insulting and funnier than did a sarcastic intonation.

Lastly, but not least I will not forget is that in our older years of our life span, declining cognitive abilities may be associated with reduced comprehension of humor, but no reduction in humor appreciation and enjoyment. More conservative attitude in older as compared to younger adults are associated with greater enjoyment of incongruity-resolution and reduced enjoyment of nonsense humor. Older adults tend to use humor in less aggressive and affiliative ways, but with all the experience they’ve had throughout their life may enable them to have a generally more humorous outlook on life and an increased ability to use humor in coping with life stress.

Overall, when it comes to my groups “Z” theory also known as the PSSY theory. Our theory states that in order to have humor you must be able to process it cognitively and there is a need for social interaction to occur. Right from inception, laughter functions as a form of social communication. Also, as cognitive capacities become more complex, children are able to perceive and enjoy more sophisticated forms of playful incongruity. In order to understand and enjoy different forms of humor one must have a certain level of achieved cognitive development. I do think that humor as a coping mechanism does related according to psychoanalytic theory, because children use humor to cope with uncertainty and stress. In addition, aggressive humor making fun of others and humor as a means of improving one’s mood.

Humor is a complex, and to understand individual differences within humor one can look to the developmental process. Humor begins at birth, and continues to develop over our childhood and adult lives. Children develop their understanding and production of humor alongside their cognitive, social and emotional capacities.


Smiling begins early; infants begin to smile during their first month. They smile at simple things like their belly being rub, however babies begin to smile when they recognize faces of their family. Laughter first appears in infant around 10 to 20 weeks of age. Researchers note that humor that is cognitive demanding on the infant seem to become the most effective way of inducing laughter, laughter begins to occur in reaction to incongruent events. In the “Trick Trial”, infants understood that toys did not go on their mother’s head. However, infants are almost entirely limited to laughing in response to their mothers’ tricks showing social communication and reaction between the infants and caretakers. Laughter increases in frequency during the ages of 3-5, while smiling decreases. Laughter and smiling both occur in reaction to nonverbal or play actions, like unintentional humor, at humorous things they said, there is also an increase in response to social negative behavior such as teasing, shoving, or ridicule.


Humor and social play are closely related. Our cousins the apes, also use laughter and humor in their rough and tumble play. Play is defined by the book as any activity that is non-serious and playful. Both Laughter and play both emerge at the same age, encouraged as a form of social and emotional communication, both have similar elements are enjoyable, and share similar characteristics of motivation, control and reality . Children, who have a greater sense of humor, tend to engage in more social play, a larger frequency of jokes, teasing and telling humorous stories with others. Reserachers state that social play helps children testing their assimilations of object or ideas into their forming schemas of the world. Cognitive and humor develop together, children laugh at objects or ideas that did not fit into their schemas, young children understand simple incongruences, and as they get old enjoy more complex incongruences . Paul McGhee proposed that humor development corresponds to our stages of cognitive development. There are 4 stages of humor; the first was incongruous actions towards objects, children at this stage are able to represent objects with internal mental schemas. Incongruous labeling of objects and eventsis the second stage that started at in the 3rd year when children are using language in playful ways and manipulating simple schemas, like calling a dog a cat. The 4th and final stage is called multiple meanings which begin at about 7 years of age. They can now manipulate in their minds, and understand double meanings like puns and irony. Furthermore, they can understand abstract ideas and have flexible thinking.


Incongruity and its resolution in humor is composed of incongruity that can be resolved by understanding of both the meaning of the original statement and the joke element of the statement. Children in 1st grade have trouble in comprehending the resolution between the two meanings. Children, show an increasing understanding. By 5th grade children exhibit the greatest understanding of incongruent and humor. In most cases, the understanding of incongruence develops through verbal and nonverbal social play. To appreciate incongruence like irony and sarcasm.


Children have individual rates of development. The book suggests that there is genetic and family influences to humor. A twin study shows that there is a high correlation between monozygotic twins comparing personality traits, however there is a lot environment impacts. People of the same background or same family enjoy the same jokes. Parents can teach children to use humor as an emotional coping tool with stress or uncertainty, aggressive humor like teasing, and humor to boost moods.

This fits into my "Z" theory, in that "swarm flock" in that birds of a flock would typically learn to flock together at the same stimuli or people of the family family will laugh at the same stimuli.

My favorite section of the chapter discussing the developmental psychology of humor was the section that discussed humor and aging. Although there isn’t much longitudinal research done in this area, the current research suggests that people at different stages of their life use and seek humor for different reasons. Developing individuals may use humor to develop or maintain relationships or express aggression towards others within the group or those in an out group in a socially acceptable way. They might use affiliative or aggressive humor to achieve these goals. As the individual ages, older people tend to use humor to enhance their lives by maintaining a humorous outlook on their life despite stress. If individuals differ in their use, appreciation or style, but have been consistent in this throughout their life, difference might be able to be attributed to the fact that they grew up in different eras, and therefore have been exposed to many different opportunities or cultural values. Older individuals also tend to be more conservative than younger people, and tend to enjoy incongruity-resolution types of humor, and were less fond of nonsense types of humor. Some of these findings were surprising and seemed almost contradictory to me. I feel like I know many elderly people who use a lot of aggressive humor, but I don’t see why the book separates humor used to cope with life stressors from other types of humor (such as aggressive humor). A person could use aggressive humor to cope with their life; I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. A person may poke fun at another as a way to feel better about themselves or use it just use the feel good effects of mirth and laughter to improve their lives. It would be very interesting to see in the future what longitudinal research might be done in this field.

The sections I was least interested in were the sections discussing the genetic and environmental factors and their role in the development of a sense of humor. Overall, the main point learned from this section is that both genetic and environmental factors influence a child’s sense of humor. I feel like this was not anything new that I was learning because every other psychology class I’ve taken up to this point has also emphasized this point. It is not solely nature or nurture, it is a combination of both.

One point that the book discussed that I will remember is a study that examined the social influence on children laughing behaviors. One study found that when preschoolers listened to a humorous recording, they were more likely to laugh if they had also watched a video that showed another child laughing at the same tape then if the child they observed had not laughed at the tape. This sticks out in my mind because it reminded me a lot of Albert Bandura’s Bobo doll study. Bandura found that when children had watched a video of adults playing aggressively with a Bobo doll, they too were more likely to act aggressively when they were with the Bobo doll . Bandura used this study to support the theory of social learning and that we model our own behaviors after what we see others do. This shows that the social learning theory not only plays a role in aggressive behaviors, but also behaviors expressing mirth, along with many other behaviors.

Another thing that I found particularly interesting was the idea that things are the funniest when they use concepts that are fairly new to them, but that they still are able to comprehend. Things that are very familiar to them are less humorous. The relationship between the cognitive difficulty and appreciation of humor. This is known as the cognitive congruency hypothesis. This is similar to the idea that performance is highest when a task is moderately difficult. If it is too difficult or too easy, performance suffers. An optimal amount of cognitive effort is needed in both humor and tasks to maximize mirth or performance.

I will also remember McGhee’s Four-Stage Model of Humor Development in Children. These four stages are incongruous actions toward object, the earliest stage starting around 2.5 years, where humor is found when objects are in schemas that they do not belong. The next stage, around 3 years, in the incongruous labeling of objects and events, like calling their mom, dad, or other nonsense usage of language. Next the child develops conceptual incongruity, where they also mislabel things, but with more detail than just giving it the wrong name, but maybe saying that a dog might say meow. The last stage doesn’t happen until around age 7 and is called the multiple meanings stage where they are able to make plays on words and come up with they own jokes and riddles. From here, they continue developing from language based jokes and puns to more absurd jokes. This four stage theory shadows the a child’s development and cognitive ability.

My group’s Z-theory is the Equilibrium theory. This theory emphasizes that humor is used in social contexts to create a balance, whether it is within themselves or within the entire group. The section on humor in aging populations touched on this and the tendency for one group (younger people) to use humor more for creating a balance within the group, while elderly populations tend to use humor as a coping mechanism or to maintain a humorous outlook on their life, therefore creating a mirthful balance within themselves.

My favorite part of this chapter was the section on smiling and laughing in infancy and early childhood. The text shows that children first tend to smile in response to some type of touch along with their caregivers voice and from there it moves to visual stimuli. Later on babies begin to smile when they recognize objects and eventually faces. I am not sure why I find this interesting but I really enjoyed reading about the different research studies. My favorite studies were the ones involving peek-a-boo. I found the study including trick trials really interesting. For a child a little older it seems that the trick trials would be more enjoyable but the study shows that infants prefer standard peek-a-boo because they are able to make sense of it.
My least favorite section to read was McGhee’s Four-Stage Model of Humor Development. There is no real reason why I did not enjoy this section as much as the others but it was the slowest portion for me. The section goes through McGhee’s 4 stages of humor which are incongruous actions towards objects, incongruous labeling of objects and events, conceptual incongruity, and multiple meanings. One of the issues brought up about this is that some believe that the transition between stages 3 and 4 reflect a change in what children verbalize.
I think the part that will stick with me the most is from the teasing among children section. The text says that “as soon as children begin to develop a strong positive sense of racial-ethnic identity between three and six years of age, they begin to enjoy humor that disparages members of other racial-ethnic groups.” I’ve always thought that the aggressive form of humor was a learned behavior but after reading this I realize that I may need to do some more research into the topic.
I also enjoyed reading the hypothesis about the family environment and humor development. At the beginning of the chapter I was questioning this because it showed that the amount a child laughs between infancy and 2 years of age is positively correlated with the amount the caregiver laughed. The text gives 2 hypothesis. One is the modeling/reinforcement hypothesis and the other is the stress and coping hypothesis. I believe both of these probably have a part in the development of humor.
I also really enjoyed reading about humor and play. We’ve discussed most of the information previously so a lot of it wasn’t new but I still find it interesting to read about different studies. Apter suggested that play is best viewed as a state of mind rather than a characteristic of certain types of activities. When it’s described like this it seems to be more closely related to humor than if it is thought of as an activity.
I think the section that best fits into the play doh theory is the section on humor and play. The play doh theory was very heavily influenced by the social aspect of humor and this whole section revolved around the idea that humor is a social function. The part I would say fit least is the section on genetics. However, the whole point of the play doh theory is that almost any theory has a place so even the genetic section can fit in.

Chapter eight discussed the developmental processes involved in the psychology of humor. I found Paul McGhee’s (1979) theory of humor development to be the most interesting topic covered in chapter eight. McGhee’s theory on humor development was based primarily on the cognitive development theory proposed by Jean Piaget (1970). McGhee agreed with Martha Wolfenstein’s (1954) research that argued humor does not development until the second year of a child’s life. At this time of a child’s life, a child is able to create schemas internally instead of relying on direct influences to create schemas for them. What was interesting from McGhee’s theory is how heavily it relied on the incongruity-resolution theory. According to McGhee’s theory as it related to the Piagetian theory, at the age of two, a child is able to perceive information that does not fit with his or her existing schema in order to experience the incongruity of the event. According to the text, once a child is able to realize the incongruity of an episode, he or she can either reinterpret the perceived information in order to relate it to an existing schema (referred to as assimilation) or the child can modify the schema so that it is able to incorporate new information (referred to as accommodation). What is interesting is that this is the first step a child makes in order to expand his or her knowledge of the world. Similarly, this is interesting because it is the first step a child makes in order to expand his or her intelligence in order to develop a certain acquisition of knowledge for themselves. Although this was not mentioned in the text, this may also be interpreted as being one of the first steps a child makes in order to develop his or her individual personality by creating a framework for the present schema.

There was not a certain topic that I found to be uninteresting in chapter eight, but I did agree with the text for falsifying Shultz and Horibe’s (1974) study. The study presented children in grades one to seven with a series of intact and modified jokes. The modified jokes were presented in one of three fashions: incongruity was removed, resolution was removed, or the original joke was presented. The results from the study found that children in grade one did not report a difference in the perceived funniness between the original jokes or the jokes where the resolution was removed; however, both types were found to be more humorous than those where the incongruity was removed. Children in grades three to seven found the original jokes to be the most funny. Shultz and Horibe wrongfully concluded that the results indicated that younger children find humor in incongruity, but do not require the incongruity to be resolved in order to find the humor. Furthermore, results from the study stated that when asked to explain the meaning of the original jokes, children in grade one had difficulty explaining the hidden meaning of the ambiguous words and had trouble understanding the resolution of the joke. Again, Schultz and Horibe wrongfully concluded that these results suggested that a later stage of Piaget’s cognitive theory is required for a child to perceive the resolution components of humor in order to appreciate it. In other words, Schultz and Horibe were suggesting McGhee’s fourth stage of humor development was a better category to explain the transition from incongruity-only humor to incongruity-resolution humor. What Shultz and Horibe neglected to account for is the idea that the jokes presented may have required a certain level of intelligence in order to find the perceived humor. The children in grade one may not have acquired this level of intelligence in order to understand and appreciate the humor involved in the jokes that were presented. Additionally, the text noted Pien and Rothbart’s argument that stated incongruity with or without resolution may be perceived as humorous at all ages. For these reasons I found Shultz and Horibe’s (1974) study to be falsifiable and under-developed.

In order to understand the psychology of humor it is important to realize that when discussing humor, there is a suggested inverted-U relationship between cognitive difficulty and enjoyment of humor. This idea is important to understand because it explains the presence of a “happy medium” in order to understand and appreciate something as humorous. As stated in the text, humor with too great of a cognitive demand on a child is not understood and therefore not enjoyed, but jokes with too little of a cognitive demand are viewed as simplistic and therefore not found to be funny. Humor must match the complexity level of a child’s current cognitive schema. Secondly, in accordance with Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory, humor can be used as a coping strategy. Freud believed humor resulted from repressed sexual aggression and although this may not be entirely true, it has been found that joking and laughing with others about taboo topics and anxiety arousing issues is an important way for children and adults to manage negative emotions. Therefore, it is important to understand that jokes and laughter are not only meant to be used as a way to express humor, it may also be used as a way to cope with negatively stressing events. Lastly, it is important to understand that humor is a form of social communication that is taught at an early age to infants by their parents. According to the text, children are socialized into the ideas of play and humor by their caregivers in similar ways and in similar social contexts. For this reason, social environment tends to play a larger part than genetics in the development of humor. Humor and play is taught to children at an early age and is conditioned by that child’s life experiences, which helps explains the reason for different children having different types of humor.

One aspect that fit into my groups Z-theory is the idea that humor is not an overall aggressive act. Understanding and participating in humor is not meant to always be an aggressive act. This idea is illustrated by McGhee’s second stage of humor development, incongruous labeling of objects and events. At this stage, a child engages in humor by mislabeling objects or events, for example, calling a “dog” a “cat” instead. This idea of humor is not at all aggressive and therefore does not agree with Superiority/Disparagement Theory. One idea that did not fit into my groups Playdoh Theory was the support for Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory. Freud’s theory suggested that jokes are a way of expressing taboo topics relating to sex and aggression in a socially acceptable manner, which allows the individual to release the feelings of anxiety related to these topics. Although this theory has some good points, initially, my group decided to refute Freud’s entire Psychoanalytic Theory.

The section I enjoyed the most in this chapter was that on the development of irony and sarcasm in young children. It makes perfect sense to me that children must learn pragmatics before they are able to distinguish concepts such as irony and sarcasm because of complexity issues. I have experienced this often when interacting with young children (particularly younger relatives of mine) when I spoken with a sarcastic tone. They are usually puzzled and don't understand what I am trying to convey. It makes sense that children learn humor by modeling older children and adults, and that eventually they catch on to this type of humor that is not cut and dry like the "canned" jokes through experience. The study by Dews on ironic criticisms using subtle and obvious humorous statements and the fact that adults appreciate the more obvious and chidren appreciate more direct forms of humor seems in support of what I would see fit.

The section I did not find very interesting or convincing was that on genetic factors in humor. Although genetics may play a role in most types of development along with the environment, there has not been a lot of support for the role of genetics in humor. Family influence, peer relations, the environment, and of course an individual's temperament seem to be better predictors combined in the formation of a humorous concept in identity. The McGhee modeling/reinforcement hypothesis and stress and coping hypothesis seem to lend greater support for the family and environment development in humor.

Three things I think I will take away from this chapter that on humor and aging; it interested me that across cohorts, humor is seen differently, and the types of incongruity-resolution (INC-RES) versus nonsense humor (NON) change over time spans. I also thought it was interesting that younger individuals use humor more for establishing relationships and testing socially exceptable norms, while older adults (particularly women) are more likely to use humor is a coping strategy, or to maintain a positive outlook on life. I also took away quite a bit on the section about cognitive development, and the ages at which mental schemas begin to occur and thus humor develops around what children know from their world. This is especially evident in games with young children (such as "peek a boo"). Children must learn incongruity resolution to be able to understand humor in the world around them, and they do so at different stages of development. Lastly, I have gained more knowledge on interpersonal aspects of humor. I thought it was particularly interesting that different types of humor are relevant in interactions (such as aggressive forms of teasing in children, the use of sexual innuendos upon adolesence and adulthood). It makes sense that humor seems to shift in the type of social group one is interacting with as well (for example, in a professional setting, humor is limited to safer, work-appropriate topics).

In conjunction with our Z-Theory, the Swarm theory, I would say that interpersonal and social aspects are a main component (the use of aggression, sexual undertones associate with superioriy and aggression theories) and also the section in personality and how the children were likely to be viewed in the classroom and by peers (this also links with our superiority aspect). Although I enjoyed the aspects of cognition in this chapter, our theory disregards that cognition plays a central role in humor, so cognitive mastery and development would not be in support of our theory.

Overall, another great chapter to read.

I found this chapter overall interesting but I think what I enjoyed the most was reading about laughter and humor in infancy and the changes that occur regarding humor and play from infancy into childhood. Smiling first occurs typically in the first month due to tactile stimulation and at about two months infants also smile at moving objects. Laughter first occurs between 10 and 20 weeks. Over the course of the first year of a child’s life the frequency of smiling and laughter increase and are the result of a greater variety of material and behaviors. As age increases the laughter requires more cognitive demands. As infants and small children’s cognitive schemas and what they find humorous coincide. A child will find something humorous that is incongruent or unexpected from the cognitive schema that they have developed. For example when an infant is mastering object permanence (the recognition that objects exist even when they are not visible) they enjoy the game of peek-a-boo. I found it to be interesting that infants find peek-a-boo to be more enjoyable when the interaction is between their mother rather than a stranger. Peek-a-boo is not enjoyed when played without a person this indicates that laughter from the beginning is seen as a form of social communication.

The section I found the least interesting was genetic factors in sense of humor. I thought that this section was kind of confusing. I think I would have enjoyed it more if they separated the environmental factors and genetic factors into two different sections rather than discussing them together it became a little confusing. What I understood from this section is that environment and genetics influence different traits of humor. Environment plays a more important role when determining what type of humor an individual will like while genetics are more of a factor when humor is seen as a tempered trait.

One thing that I think will be useful in understanding psychology of humor is that evidence exists children enjoy humor that plays with concepts they have recently mastered rather than ones they are familiar with. Humorous stimuli are enjoyed if congruent with complexity of child cognitive schemas. I also think that cognitive congruency is also important which means that an intermediate level of difficulty is most enjoyed as humorous. If the stimuli are too difficult or too easy it will be less appreciated as humorous. I think this is important because it seems that there are many unanswered questions regarding children and humor so this is important to consider when doing further research.

Another thing I find useful in understanding the psychology of humor is the family and environment and factors that are involved in a sense of humor. I thought that the stress and coping hypothesis was important. It suggests that humor develops as a way of coping with stress and conflict and anxiety in a family environment. For example a child who wants to gain attention or approval from their parents may use humor as a way to do so from parents who are otherwise non-nurturing. This is important to me because it suggest that a sense of humor may be developed as uncongenial parenting. I think this could be used as a tool to protect children. If a child is being disruptive in class which is associated with humor in the early grades maybe this could be a sign of something more than a child trying to gain approval from their class mates but it could be an indicator that he/she is not receiving the correct care at home.

The last thing that I find important in this chapter is that children can use humor as an emotional coping tool. Laughing and joking about issues that normally would arouse anxiety and distress allows children are able to protect themselves from such negative feelings and instead feel safe. Smith wrote that play is “play can be defined as behavioral parody of emotional vulnerability because it both mimics and inverts the primary emotions ironically” He suggested the essential function of play “is to make fun of emotional vulnerability of anger, fear, shock, disgusts, loneliness, and narcissism.” Kids usually joke about the different challenges at the different stages of development. This area of research is limited but I think it’s important to acknowledge that adults are not the only ones that use humor as a way to cope with problems. I think that this is important because again you could learn a lot about a child based upon the style of humor they use.

My Z theory is Anti-Frued. Our theory is based around the idea that humor is an inherent trait that is necessary for our survival. We think that humor is used as a defense mechanism and a tool for communication. While reading about smiling and laughing in infants I came across some things that coincide with our theory. For example infants tend to enjoy humor more when it’s an interaction between someone they recognize this indicates the importance of familiarity and perception of security. Also infants find peek-a-boo more enjoyable when they are interacting with a person rather than a toy indicating that even they recognize that humor is a form of social communication. If an infant feels insecure of has a perception of threat instead of laughing or smiling they will cry.

Thought this chapter, there were some key topics discussed that I found to enhance our understanding of how sense of humor is developed. As we have seen in previous chapters, A lot of theorist and studies have shown that humor can actually start out at a very young age. This can be seen by many factors such as personality and behavior traits as well as great environmental aspects as well. Once a child understands these different stages he/she is able to understand and incorporate incongruity which also enables them to use sarcasm and irony in the various humorous styles.

One of the first things that clinched my attention was McGhee’s four stages of cognitive development. His model dealt with children and their different understandings of incongruity. At the first stage they are able to decipher develop schemas with mental objects that are associated with playing as well as making the distinction on which objects aren’t. At stage two by age 3, s child develops the ability to label the various objects and events such as food, ball eye etc. Stage three is where a child starts to come to the realization of words being associated with classifying objects and the certain characteristics affiliated with them as well. And the Fourth and final stage is when there are multiple meanings associated with different terms. Around age 7 is essential for development of a sense of humor because it is when the child learns ways to manipulate schemas associated with same or different words which is seen in humor styles such as sarcasm and irony. With these stages it outlines the various steps a child must go through cognitively to understand and obtain sense of humor!!

Also another factor discussed in previous chapter that can impact your sense of humor initiation and appreciation is your environmental factors. There can be large environmental factors that a child picks up on with regards to sense of humor. We already know that children pretty much imitate pretty much everything they see. This chapter makes the distinction that children are likely to express and enjoy humor with their parents and family members whether it me stress coping strategies or modeling reinforcement. If you’re a parent who laughs and jokes all the time your child is more than likely to acquire those skills earlier in life. Another study by Paul McGhee showed that greater humor was associated with mothers leaving their children alone to solve problems even when they could have helped us. This kind of brings back some memories. I recall my mother doing this on a regular bases for instance we would be getting dressed and say one of us was wearing ( HIGH WATERS) instead of making us go chance she would let the other siblings point it out in which we would change because we didn’t want to be the laughing stock at school. Also some people would develop a sense of humor to gain acceptance in the group which come from a more uncongenial family environment.

Even over a period of time we see that throughout this development of sense of humor one must seek social approval and acceptance to be considered funny. This can be observed by personality and behavioral characteristics. Studies have investigated various individual differences that are taken into account when determining sense of humor. One example is being the Class clown. At a younger stage a development, I would do things that would get me into trouble just to be considered cool with other students. An example would me making faces at the teacher while she was writing on the board, or making stupid noises to get the teacher attention. Over time this changes from doing things out of the norm to get attention to using creativity and incongruities to answer questions. This was seen as being funny instead of being stupid or dumb.
I actually really enjoyed this chapter because in consistently had me go back and see how the development of my sense of humor changed dramatically over time. With the developmental process its gone from acting funny to basically having placement saying witty, sarcastic, unintentional things which comes off as being more mature based.

This fits into the PSSC theory because it furthermore reinforces the fact that humor starts from the cognitive point of view then transitions socially. Some key examples that enhance the PSSC theory is the cognitive development section of humor. The process must occur even as an infant and schemas must be developed on order for anything to be considered humorous. Also displaying that throughout our life span when in fact want to be socially acceptable in society even as young as age 7 in some studies.

Leave a comment

Recent Entries

White House Correspondents Dinner
Is This Funny? Why or Why Not?
Today's  word is.................  Fluctuations   I will never hear or see this word again without thinking of  this joke. …
Snowing in Minnesota
I just got off the phone with friend in Minnesota.  He said that since early this morning the snow…