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Social Facilitation of Laughter and Smiles in Preschool Children

Caspar Addyman1, Charlotte Fogelquist2, Lenka Levakova2

  • 1Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom.

Frontiers in Psychology
|July 13, 2018
PubMed

Insights

Preschool children laugh and smile significantly more when watching videos with peers compared to watching alone. This suggests laughter and smiles are social signals, not just reactions to humor.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Social Neuroscience
  • Early Childhood Education

Background:

  • Limited understanding of social influences on preschool children's laughter.
  • Laughter and smiling are key social communication behaviors in early development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how the presence of peers affects laughter and smiling in preschool children.
  • To determine if social context influences responses to humor in young children.

Main Methods:

  • Observational study of 20 preschool children (31-49 months) watching cartoons.
  • Comparison of laughter and smiling behaviors in individual, paired, and group viewing conditions.
  • Analysis of laughter frequency and smiling duration in response to humorous stimuli.

Main Results:

  • Children exhibited significantly more laughter (8x) and smiles (3x) in social viewing conditions (pairs, groups) than when viewing alone.
  • No significant difference in laughter or smiles was observed between viewing in pairs versus larger groups.
  • Subjective ratings of funniness did not correlate with group size.

Conclusions:

  • The presence of even one peer dramatically increases laughter and smiling in preschool children.
  • Laughter and smiles in young children appear to function primarily as flexible social signals.
  • Findings challenge the notion of laughter as a purely reflexive response to humor, highlighting its social communicative role.

Keywords:
humorlaughterpeer groupspreschoolerssmiles

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