WHAT’S FUNNY?: DEVELOPING HUMOR AND THEORY OF MIND
Abstract
The main goal of the present study was to investigate the relationship between theory of mind development and humor appreciation. Forty-one children between 4 and 11 years of age participated (Mage = 7 years and 11 months, SD = 23.8 months) and they were grouped according to their performance in four false belief tasks. Children listened to three jokes and read three comic strips, all directed to children, and were asked to rate how funny each joke/comic strip was. Analyses revealed a significant correlation between performance in the false belief tasks and joke ratings. Children who had a more sophisticated theory of mind (G2 and G3) attributed better ratings of selected jokes than children who failed in first order false belief tasks. No significant differences were found among theory of mind groups regarding the comic strips’ ratings. Results corroborate the proposal that humor is a good indicator of social cognitive development and they point to a promising line of investigation in Developmental Psychology.Downloads
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