Children get their sense of humour from their parents as a study has found babies as young as six months learn to laugh at the same thing as their mothers and fathers.
Researchers discovered that between the ages of six months and one year, small children learn what is absurdly funny by watching the reaction of their parents.
A study of 30 children carried out by Dr Gina Mireault of Johnson State College and Dr John Sparrow at the University of New Hampshire, in America, involved recording the reaction of babies watching normal and absurd events.
The project explored whether 6-month-olds look to their parents for emotional guidance during absurd events, a phenomenon known as 'social referencing'.
It is known that eight month old babies look to their parents to establish if a situation is threatening or to be feared but it was not known if social referencing ocurred earlier or in other situations.
Other research has found that 18-mon-old babies can make jokes with other toddlers before they can talk by making gestures, noises and shared play.
In the latest study, babies watched their parent react naturally to two ordinary events, looking at a picture book and being shown a small red foam ball.
The events were then changed so that they became absurd: The open picture book was bounced on the researcher’s head while she said, “Zoop, Zoop” and the foam ball was placed on the researcher’s nose while she poked it and said, “Beep, Beep”.
Parents were instructed to either stare at the researcher with an expressionless face or to point and laugh at her.
The study found that, although 6-month-old babies stared longer at the absurd events, showing that these were unfamiliar to them, their reactions to the events did not depend on their parents’ reactions.
However, babies watched their parents closely when they laughed. The combination of paying close attention to absurd events and to others laughing at those events might explain how babies develop the sophisticated sense of humour they possess at 12 months, the researchers said.
By their first birthdays, infants laughed at the absurd events, even when their parents remained expressionless.
Dr Mireault said: "By 12 months, infants seem to have had just enough life experience to make up their own minds – at least about what is absurdly funny.”