Immature Jokes: What Kids ’ Humour Can Tell Us About Their Ability To Empathise

By Emma L. Barratt There’s nothing less funny than explaining a joke. But analysing humour can actually tell us a lot about the development of sympathy and empathy in children. Having a joke land is a complex task which requires an in-depth understanding of both the situation and mental state of the person on the receiving end. One audience, for example, might find a joke hilarious, whereas another might find that same joke wildly offensive. Zeroing in on the appropriate joke, therefore, is likely to require a good amount of empathy. This ability to imagine the thoughts and feelings of your audience is pivotal to humour being well-received, but the relationship between humour and empathy has only been addressed in a handful of studies so far. However, new research from Caitlin Halfpenny and Lucy James at Keele University gives us a window into how empathy shapes humour by taking a look at junior schoolchildren’s use of jokes, and the different humour styles that emerge with different levels of empathy and sympathy. The team asked 214 junior school children aged between 9 and 11 years old to complete two self-report questionnaires. The first, the Humour Styles Questionnaire for young children (HSQ-Y), was used to identify which of four types of humour style the kids use: self-enhancing and affiliative, which are both adaptive humour styles, and aggressive and self-defeating humour, which are considered maladaptive. The second measure, the Thinking and Feel...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Developmental Social Source Type: blogs