Story
These quotes are listed alphabetically by author and then date published. They are included here because, in my opinion, they can spark important reflection. Click on a quote image for further discussion.
Alex Gillespie Enrico Gnaulati Temple Grandin Stanley I. Greenspan Paul E. McGhee Barry M. Prizant
Stuart G. Shanker Steve Silberman
PAUL E. MCGHEE - Continued...
”Children must understand the real order of things before incongruities and exaggerations become a source of pleasure. The incongruous events are enjoyed precisely because they are known to be at odds with reality.”
McGhee, Paul E. (1979) Humor. W. H. Freeman and Company: San Francisco, California. p. 56.
”An additional element must be present before the fantasy assimilation of incongruous events can be perceived as being funny: the crucial element of play or playfulness. The child who is in a playful frame of mind when attending to incongruous events at the fantasy level is not concerned with exploring the world of fantasy: rather, the prime focus is on acknowledging (to oneself or to others) the impossibility or absurdity of the events imagined.”
McGhee, Paul E. (1979) Humor. W. H. Freeman and Company: San Francisco, California. pp. 60-61.
”It is only after the child learns the properties of the object and becomes less curious about it, that play activities are likely to begin.”
McGhee, Paul E. (1979) Humor. W. H. Freeman and Company: San Francisco, California. p. 62.
”As soon as underlying maturational processes permit a child to represent the world by images and to freely manipulate those images, the child will perceive hiumor from time to time.”
McGhee, Paul E. (1979) Humor. W. H. Freeman and Company: San Francisco, California. p. 64.
”Although impossible or absurd make-believe creations may be enjoyed alone, the enjoyment is increased by sharing it.”
McGhee, Paul E. (1979) Humor. W. H. Freeman and Company: San Francisco, California. p. 65.
”Any given object may have numerous features that the child might utiliize to create incongruous action-object-image juxtapositions. With increasing age, the child becomes dissatisfied with one-dimensional incongruities and strives for more complexity in humor by either distorting several properties of an object simultaneously or drawing on more abstract features of the object.”
McGhee, Paul E. (1979) Humor. W. H. Freeman and Company: San Francisco, California. p. 68.
”More often than not, the one-and-a-half to two-year-old will direct incongruous actions toward objects that have some similarity to the appropriate object. From the second year on, there is a decreasing reliance on such resemblances in make-believe play, regardless of whether the play is of an exploratory or humorous nature.”
McGhee, Paul E. (1979) Humor. W. H. Freeman and Company: San Francisco, California. p. 68.
”Physical activity may occur, but it is not central to Stage 2 humor. The verbal statement alone creates the incongruity and leads to laughter. This marks the first step in the child's humor toward increased abstraction, which continues to increase as new cognitive abilities are acquired during childhood and adolescence.”
McGhee, Paul E. (1979) Humor. W. H. Freeman and Company: San Francisco, California. p. 69.
”Stage 1 humor does not simply disappear, however, as the capacity for Stage 2 forms of incongruity is established. Rather, everyday humor experiences are composed of various combinations of Stage 1 and Stage 2 incongruities. Some may be purely one or the other, but most are likely to consist of both discrepant actions toward objects and inaccurate descriptions of those actions or objects.”
McGhee, Paul E. (1979) Humor. W. H. Freeman and Company: San Francisco, California. p. 69.
