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This article includes comments on each contributing author’s article in this special issue of Humor. The articles represent an assessment of McGhee’s research, work on practical applications or influence in the following areas: 1) the development of children’s humor, 2) construction and validation of the Sense of Humor Scale (SHS), 3) usefulness of specific subscales of the SHS, including “playfulness” and “laughing at yourself,” 4) development and evaluation of the 7 Humor Habits Program—a training program for learning to use humor to cope with stress, 5) humor’s impact on physical health and emotional well being, 6) impact on the field of nursing, and 7) humor and the brain. McGhee provides here his response to each contributed article.

This article examines available (mainly anecdotal) evidence related to the experience of humor among chimpanzees and gorillas in the wild, in captivity and following systematic sign language training. Humor is defined as one form of symbolic play. Positive evidence of object permanence, cross-modal perception, deferred imitation and deception among chimpanzees and gorillas is used to document their cognitive capacity for humor. Playful teasing is proposed as the primordial form of humor among apes in the wild. This same form of humor is commonly found among signing apes, both in overt behavior and in signed communications. A second form of humor emerges in the context of captivity, consisting of throwing feces at human onlookers—who often respond to this with laughter. This early form of humor shows up in signing apes in the form of calling others “dirty,” a sign associated with feces. The diversity of forms of signing humor shown by apes is linked to McGhee, Paul E.Humor: Its origin and development. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman & Co, McGhee, Paul E.Understanding and promoting the development of children’s humor. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. model of humor development.

Thepresent article advances a model of humor development extending from late adolescence until about age 60. Previously advanced models of humor development during the preadolescent years are reviewed, and issues related to the proposal of models of adult humor development are discussed. The developmental model presented here drawsfrom a series of factor-analytic studies which document the importance of two principal humor-appreciation factors (nonsense and incongruity plus resolution), andfrom a broad range of data demonstrating age-related changes in personality measures closely associated with these two factors. Separate attention is given by the model to positive (funniness) and negative (aversiveness) aspects ofreactions to cartoons andjokes.

Cette etude traite des problemes methodologiques poses par les recherches inter-culturelles sur l'humour. L'A. presente un modele de developpement du sens de l'humour chez l'enfant et propose des hypotheses verifiables concernant les similitudes et differences existant dans l'humour enfantin. Il cherche a isoler les mecamsmes cognitifs qui jouent un role important dans le processus de la reaction d'humour et, parallelement, examine les caracteristiques specifiques des stimuli declenchant cette reaction. L'assimilation imaginaire d'information par l'enfant est supposee agir de facon primordiale dans l'humour qui, dans toutes les cultures, est base sur l'existence de contrastes dans le stimulus. Une attention particuliere est consacree aux elements de base permettant de prevoir les similitudes et differences de l'attitude des enfants a l'egard de l'humour dans diverses cultures.

Summary The importance of mastery in children's humor has been emphasized by many researchers and theorists. The present study tested the hypothesis that a high level of mastery over S's sex-role identity enhances the funniness of humor based on sex inappropriate behavior. Seventeen three- to five-year-old boys were tested on the It Scale and were shown drawings of children engaged in sex appropriate or inappropriate behavior whose outcome was either positive or negative. While inappropriate and negative outcomes were consistently seen as funnier than appropriate and positive ones, when inappropriate positive outcomes were pitted against appropriate negative ones, boys choosing the former as funnier than the latter had significantly higher sexrole identity scores. Support was claimed for the general role of mastery in children's humor.

College Ss were shown cartoons either alone with E or with 4 other Ss. While firstborns showed greater appreciation of humor in the group, later borns found the cartoons funnier in the individual condition. Overt signs of appreciation of humor are interpreted as resulting from firstborn Ss affiliative concerns and the lack of such concerns among later born Ss.