My team developed the Early Humour Survey (2021) to determine when children first understand humour. We surveyed 219 parents of children from birth to 47 months. We found some children appreciate humour by one month, and children started to appreciate humour by two months on average. This is much younger than when children start to understand words, which begins as early as six months. Sharing humour with infants may then be one of the earliest ways to communicate with them. It is also a very happy, positive way to do so!
This was something that happened often, with most children having appreciated humour within the last two hours. This suggests parents share humour with their children throughout the day.
HOW CAN YOU LET CHILDREN KNOW YOU’RE JOKING?
From a young child’s point of view, a joke could be new information they need to learn, so giving them cues that you’re joking is important. Research confirms, unsurprisingly, that parents laugh and smile when they joke, and this helps children get the joke. Increasing eye contact and using infant-directed speech (higher, louder, slower) also help.
Finally, unlike with adults, it helps when you explain that you’re joking. You can do this with your voice, by saying the joke like it’s a question by making your pitch go up at the end of the sentence, showing you don’t believe what you’re saying. You can also explain that the joke isn’t true. For instance, if you joke by eating a banana with your ear, you can follow up by saying things like, ‘That’s not right’; ‘Should we eat bananas with our ears?’ and ‘How do we really eat bananas?’ You can also show them the correct act by, e.g., eating the banana properly. Our book-reading and play-based studies found parents give these types of cues when joking, leading toddlers to talk more, really engaging with the conversation.
WHEN DO CHILDREN FIRST MAKE JOKES?
We also asked the 219 parents who completed the Early Humour Survey when their child first joked. Children first joked at 11 months on average. Joking was very frequent, with most children having joked within the last three hours.
One question about children’s joking is whether they simply copy jokes, or can also invent jokes. If children copy jokes to a get a reaction, this suggests they might understand the social and emotional nature of joking. However, inventing jokes suggests they have a deep understanding of what makes a joke funny, and also shows they are creative individuals.
In one study, 113 parents of children from birth to 47 months gave information about whether their children copied or created their own novel jokes. We found half of children copied jokes in the first year. While most children from one year also copied jokes, around half of one-year-olds also invented jokes, while 80 per cent of two-year-olds, and all three-year-olds, did so. Observations of parents joking with their two- and three-year-olds gave more support to the idea that young children both copy and create novel jokes. Within ten minutes, two-year-olds copied three jokes on average, and invented two jokes. Three-year-olds were even more original, copying one and a half jokes on average, inventing five and a half jokes.
An experimental study gave us more confidence that two- and three-year-olds are original comedians. We told individual children six mislabelling jokes in a row, in which we called familiar objects, e.g., duck and spoon, silly words, e.g., ‘oogle boo’. Children then had a chance to copy the jokes. Then we made it trickier – we brought out six more familiar objects, and asked children to joke. However, this time, we didn’t tell them the joke first. They had to make up jokes on the spot. Children were very good at this task, mislabelling objects 50 per cent of the time. For instance, one child called a cup a ‘goojooboojoo’, which was not a word we said. It is also unlikely the child had ever heard anyone else call a cup this word in the past.
HOW DO CHILDREN LET YOU KNOW THEY ARE JOKING?
When a child makes a joke, how do we know they are joking instead of making a mistake? To find this out, we looked at the cues children gave when joking in the studies above. In our observational study, we found that when children joked, versus doing something normal, they smiled while looking at their parents more. The combination was important for children to show they were joking, and sharing their jokes. In both the observational and experimental studies, we also found children laughed more when they were joking, versus when they did something normal. So if children smile while making eye contact, or laugh, while doing something silly, they are probably joking.
WHAT TYPES OF HUMOUR DO CHILDREN UNDERSTANDEARLY ON?
When developing the Early Humour Survey, we reviewed existing research and identified 21 types of humour that emerge from infancy until 47 months. Reports from 671 parents showed all of these types of humour were understood by at least some children. In the first year, humour is very sensory based, starting with children appreciating auditory (funny noises and voices), tactile (tickling, chasing) and visual (peekaboo, funny faces, silly body actions) humour.
This makes sense as babies are still learning about their senses, and what is normal versus strange in this domain. Towards the end of the first year, babies find misusing objects funny, e.g., putting a shoe on your head. This reveals that by around eight months, babies understand something about their culture – how objects are supposed to be used.
One-year-olds’ humour reflects children’s social understanding. They like teasing, showing hidden body parts, scaring others and taboo topics, like farts and burps. One-year-olds also sometimes think pretending is funny, such as acting like an animal or another person.
Two-year-olds’ humour reflects their moral development. They find it funny to make fun of others, or to be aggressive, such as pushing people. As two-year-olds’ language abilities increase dramatically, it’s unsurprising that they start to appreciate language-based humour, including mislabelling with other words, e.g., calling a banana a ‘hat’; mislabelling with complete nonsense, e.g., calling a banana a ‘wagawoo’; and saying absurd things, e.g., ‘Dinosaurs eat the wall!’
By three years we see further development of moral and language understanding, with children challenging social rules to be funny, e.g., putting their feet on the table; and playing tricks on others. A very small percentage of children are reported to understand puns. These children might be precocious, or, alternatively, parents might think children are laughing at double meanings when they are really perceiving the joke as nonsensical.
HOW COULD HUMOUR BENEFIT CHILDREN EARLY ON?
In one study, we measured humour development and socio-cognitive development in 214 three- to 47-month-olds, and repeated the measures six months later. Socio-cognitive development involves understanding others’ minds, including emotions, intentions, knowledge and beliefs. We found humour development predicted socio-cognitive development six months later, but not the other way around. Humour might give young children the opportunity to practise understanding others’ minds in a fun way. To understand jokes, you must understand the joker intends to do something wrong, knows they are doing something wrong, and wants to share positive emotions as a result. When children share jokes, they must share their intentions, knowledge and emotions in the same way.
Humour may also help young children learn. Eighteen-month-olds were shown how to retrieve a toy in a novel way – using a rake. Half the children then saw the experimenter joke by throwing the object off the table and smiling. The other half didn’t. Toddlers who laughed at the joke were most likely to then learn to use the rake to retrieve the toy. There are a few reasons for this. First, humour creates positive emotions, which can lead to increased dopamine, which is important for learning. Additionally, doing something unusual may make toddlers pay attention, or motivate them.
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