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Research on Young Children’s Humor pp 61–79Cite as

The Development of 3 to 5-Year-Old-Children’s Sense of Humor and the Relationships Among Children’s Temperament and Parents’ Humor Style in China

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Part of the book series: Educating the Young Child ((EDYC,volume 15))

Abstract

Sense of humor refers to a stable personality characteristic or individual differences in a psychological variable. Using a combination of a questionnaire and a task, this study focused on understanding young children’s gender and age characteristics as factors in the development of their sense of humor and also explored the influences of child temperament and the humor style of children’s parents on the children’s sense of humor. The research was conducted with 110 preschool children aged 3–5 years old in a northern city in China. Three experimental tasks of different difficulties were used to observe the tendencies of the children’s reaction to humor sensory stimuli. The results of the study revealed a significant difference by age in humor development. The age of 4 was a turning point for children’s development of the sense of humor. There was no overall difference in gender for 3 to 5-year-old children’s sense of humor; however, an interaction between gender and age was evident. There were close relationships among 3 to 5-year-old children’s humor development, their temperament and their parents’ humor styles. Children’s age, temperament reaction, activity, inhibition, and parents’ affiliative humor style partially predicted the development of preschool children’s sense of humor.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China

    Wen Liu

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  1. Wen Liu
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Eleni Loizou

  2. Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Susan L. Recchia

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Special thanks to Dr. Doris Bergen for her devoting to this chapter.

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Liu, W. (2019). The Development of 3 to 5-Year-Old-Children’s Sense of Humor and the Relationships Among Children’s Temperament and Parents’ Humor Style in China. In: Loizou, E., Recchia, S.L. (eds) Research on Young Children’s Humor. Educating the Young Child, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15202-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15202-4_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15201-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15202-4

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

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