Humor development of preschooler and elementary school children

The aim of this study is to investigate humor development of preschoolers and elementary school children according to the Theory of Humor Development of Paul E. McGhee. The research is conducted based on the principles of the case study which is one of the qualitative studies. A total of 101 children ages between 2 to 13 participated in this study. The data of study were collected through semi-constructed observation scales prepared by the researcher. In this research, a 5.01 minute-long video, which includes patterns from Paul E. McGhee's humor development theory, is used. Each group consists of three children and they watched the video at least twice. In the meantime, the reactions of children were recorded by researcher with a computer camera. Afterwards, observation recording sheets are filled according to the data collected from records. The data analyzed with two of qualitative research techniques which are descriptive analysis and content analysis. The results of the study indicate that while the minimum laughing reaction was seen at 2-year-old, 3-year-old and 4-year-old children, respectively. On the other hand, the maximum laughing reaction is seen at the stages of 2, 3 and, 4 in the group of 5-year-old children. 5th stage was observed in the group of children, from 11-year-old to 13-year-old. Besides the laughing reaction, the behaviors namely; clapping, hiding face with hands, frowning, leaning forward, leaning back, sticking out tongue and rising shoulder were noted. According to the findings of the research, children reacted by laughing most to the examples including visual and action scenes and they reacted by laughing least to the examples including verbal statements. Key Words: Humor development, incongruity theory, humor