Identifying when children begin to laugh and appreciate humor has been the main objective of a group of researchers from the University of Bristol (United Kingdom). To achieve this, they have analyzed 671 children from 0 to 47 months through an early mood survey, which was made up of 20 questions that parents had to answer.
The results of this investigation indicated that the earliest age at which children seemed to appreciate humor was one month, although it appears that half of the children surveyed reacted to these stimuli at two months of age and also, 50 % began to make jokes at 11 months.
Among the findings, published in the journal Behavior Research Methods, the authors found 21 different types of humor in children. Specifically, children under one year of age proved capable of appreciating forms of visual, physical and auditory humor, such as playing hide-and-seek, making funny faces, tickling, voices or the improper use of objects, such as put a cup on your head.
At 3 years old, making fun of others is funny
Also, the children in the study were able to assess humor as a result of a reaction from others, such as scares or teasing, and found it fun to play with animals. For the older two-year-olds, humor was reflected in language, for example, in mislabeling, such as telling them that the dog is mooing.
Children under one year of age were shown to be able to appreciate visual, physical and auditory forms of humor
Children in this age group were found to have a mean streak, appreciating teasing others and aggressive humor, such as pushing someone. Finally, three-year-olds were found to play along with social rules, such as saying naughty words to be funny, and showed some understanding of tricks and puns.
“Our results highlight that humor is a complex process that develops in the first four years of life. Given its universality and importance in so many aspects of children’s and adults’ lives, it is important that we develop tools to determine how humor first develops so that we can better understand not only the emergence of humor itself, but how humor can help young children to function cognitively, socially and in terms of mental health”, explains Dr. Elena Hoicka, first author of the study.
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