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Humor Styles in Younger Children

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Research on Young Children’s Humor

Part of the book series: Educating the Young Child ((EDYC,volume 15))

Abstract

The humor styles approach assumes that humor can be adaptive and maladaptive, with four main styles of humor reflecting how we use humor in every-day life: Affiliative, Self-enhancing, Self-defeating, and Aggressive. Through a series of studies, the adult HSQ was first adapted for children aged 11–16 years and then for younger children aged 8–11 years. In this chapter, the development of the HSQ-Y will first be described. This will include studies involving paired interviews with younger children to explore their understanding of humor styles as well as experimental work to examine children’s perceptions of other children using the different styles of humor. Building on this work we will discuss the findings of a study to examine the longitudinal associations between humor styles in younger children and aspects of their psychosocial adjustment. We will finish by presenting some preliminary work involving an innovative educational intervention which attempts to raise children’s awareness of the different styles of humor.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, UK

    Lucy Amelia James & Claire Louise Fox

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  1. Lucy Amelia James
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  2. Claire Louise Fox
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Correspondence to Lucy Amelia James .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Eleni Loizou

  2. Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Susan L. Recchia

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James, L.A., Fox, C.L. (2019). Humor Styles in Younger Children. In: Loizou, E., Recchia, S.L. (eds) Research on Young Children’s Humor. Educating the Young Child, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15202-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15202-4_4

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