Poster #195 - Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? Humor, Intentionality, and Possibility in Children

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

The appreciation of humor requires the ability to recognize incongruities, distinguish fantasy from reality, and understand intention (Airenti, 2016; Hoicka, Butcher, Malla & Harris, 2017). Thus, studying children’s humor can provide insight into their cognitive development. We probed two facets of children’s humor: (1) the role of essential attributes in humor-based intentions, and (2) the role of possibility in humor responses. Regarding the first, we assessed children’s understanding that whereas jokes tend to involve violation of an essential attribute, mistakes typically involve a non-essential or mundane violation. Regarding the second, we assessed the role of possibility in children’s humor, hypothesizing that both improbable and impossible outcomes would be judged as funnier than mundane ones, and that outcomes that deviated slightly from the norm (i.e., improbable events) would be funnier than outcomes that violated causal rules (i.e., impossible events).
To examine the role of essential attributes, we presented 43 6- and 8-year-olds with four vignettes in which two children were drawing pictures. Participants were told that one child always plays jokes and the other always makes mistakes. One drawing featured a “mundane error”, in which the integrity of the whole remained intact (e.g., a sandwich without crust is still a sandwich), and the other featured an “essential error”, where the integrity of the situation was compromised (e.g., a sandwich without bread is no longer a sandwich). Participants were told to match the final drawings to the children.
We found that both 6- (64.5%) and 8-year-olds (82.3%) more often paired the joking child with the essential omission than with the mundane one, at levels that were significantly greater than chance. However, this effect was significantly stronger in 8-year-olds (see Figure 1).
To examine the role of possibility, the same participants were told a create-your-own-adventure story that detailed a child’s day. At six points in the story, participants chose what happened next; each choice featured two of three levels of possibility – realistic (things that typically happen in real life), improbable (things that are less likely but could happen in real life), and impossible (things that could not happen in real life; Shtulman & Carey, 2007). Participants were instructed to choose the outcome that would make a puppet laugh, indirectly encouraging them to choose what they found the funniest.
Results showed that both 6- and 8-year olds considered both improbable and impossible events funnier than realistic events, at levels greater than chance. Six-year-olds also chose impossible events significantly more often than improbable events, but 8-year-olds’ responses on these trials did not differ from chance (Table 1).
Our findings regarding children’s understanding of the difference between jokes and mistakes indicate that children understand the subtle but complex interplay between intentions and essences that forms the basis of humor. This understanding appears to develop between 6 and 8 years of age. Our second set of findings illuminates children’s understanding of the role of possibility in humor; we are continuing to explore the age differences we found on the improbable-impossible comparison by including 4-year-olds in our sample.

Authors

• Jacqueline D. Woolley, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Caroline Elise Miller, University of Texas
  Presenting Author