Humor and development: a review

Humor is conceptualized as both a cognitive and an affective process. At th e same time, it is considered to be an everyday social phenomena and is a s ignificant part of the human condition from the early childhood to the old age. The development of humor production as well as humor comprehension and appreciation are outlined and discussed with a special focus on riddles an d jokes. Humor comprehension develops in parallel with growing cognitive an d language skills during childhood, while its content is mostly influenced by social and cultural factors. Humor contents are also related to developm ental themes or tasks, i.e., to obedience among 3-year-olds, sexuality amon g adolescents, marriage among young adults and loss among older adults. Bes ides the above mentioned understanding of humor, a further approach is desc ribed which refers to humor as an attitude related to strains. Humorous res ponses when confronted with troubles are discussed as a skill often associa ted with high social competence. Children and adolescents who are able to c reate humor even if their concerns are in question seem more likely to solv e their conflicts with peers in a socially acceptable manner. In sum, humor proves to be a personal resource throughout the life span supporting the e veryday coping with easy and difficult tasks.