An experimental study of humour in children

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to find out the relation of a child's mental development to his sense of humour, or in other words, to find out the effect of age on the child's appreciation of different types of humour. In the first part of the research, various views of philosophers and psychologists were considered. The general emotional, intellectual and social characteristics of the period ranging from five to ten years was discussed. Corresponding to the stages in the mental development of the child, five types of humour were chosen, these were to be related to age and intelligence. The different types were Authority, Deflation, Discomfort of others, Incongruity, fantastic and human oadities. Thirty pictures were chosen, six of each of the five types. Subjects - The set of 30 funny pictures was shown to 72 children of a private school. There were 12 children in each age group, six boys and six girls. Half of those of each were of high i.q. above 120 and half below 120. They ranked the pictures according to how funny they were. Analysis of variance was done on the scores obtained. Results - Of the different types of humour used in this study. The most popular types were: incongruity, authority deflation and oddity of human behaviour. Discomfort of others as a type was more popular with children of lower intelligence. Fantastic pictures were liked more by the younger children. Except for one type there was no distinct sex difference in the liking for the different types of humour. The types of pictures which are popular vary with age. There was a significant effect of age for the different types of humour used in this research. The results justify to a certain extent the conclusion that a child's sense of humour is closely related to his mental development.