The Developmental Characteristics Of Children's Sense Of Humor And Its Relationship With Parents' Sense Of Humor And Family Intimacy

A sense of humour is an important positive psychological quality.Infant humor has an important adaptive role for infants and young children.Laughing infants have stronger body energy and a higher chance of survival.Young children are a key stage in developing a sense of humor.In the face of infants and young children,caregivers often use the humorous way that infants and young children appreciate to communicate with infants and toddlers(Addyman & Addyman,2014).In this study,505 children aged 3 to 5 years old in two kindergartens in Foshan City were studied to explore the developmental characteristics of children's sense of humor,and whether the sense of humor of children was influenced by parents' sense of humor and family intimacy.The measurement tools were " 3-5 year old children's sense of humor teacher assessment questionnaire" compiled by Liu Wen and Zou Lina(2007)," Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale" compiled by Powell and Thorson translated by Wang Zhengguang in 1993,and " Faces II-CV Family Intimacy and Adaptability Scale" compiled by Olson et al.in 1982.The data were analyzed and processed using SPSS 22.0 software.The research results are as follows:1.The sense of humor of young children is generally developing steadily with age;humorous understanding does not develop significantly during childhood;Among children aged 3-5,5 is the fast growing age of children's humor.2.There is a significant gender difference in humor response and total humor,and boys are significantly higher than girls.There is no significant gender difference in the dimensions of humor and humor creation.It shows that the boy's sense of humor is stronger than that of the girl overall.3.The interaction between gender and age in children's sense of humor is not significant,indicating that both boys and girls follow the same development trajectory.4.Children's total scores of humor,humorous coping and humor creation have significant unique and only one-child differences.The scores of only children are significantly higher than those of non-only children.There is no significant single birth or non-only difference in the dimension of humor understanding.It shows that the overall sense of humor of the only child is stronger than that of the non-only child.5.Parents' perception of humor dimension and total score is significantly positively correlated with children's sense of humor,and the degree of correlation is moderately low.6.Family intimacy has a significant positive correlation with the humor response of young children and the total score of children's humor.The degree of correlation is moderately low.The results of this study have deepened the theoretical understanding of the characteristics of children's humor development,and can provide parents and kindergarten teachers with early education advice to cultivate children's sense of humor.