A Review of Research on Teasing and Issues for the Future

In this paper, I reviewed research on teasing and related behaviors, and identified two components that are common to the conceptions of teasing in the previous research: provocativeness and playfulness. Therefore, I defined teasing as "a provocation accompanied by playful off-record markers". Research on off-record markers and theory of mind has suggested that cognitive abilities of children who are targets of teasing are important for interpreting teasing. In addition, observations of mother-infant interactions implied that the interpretation of teasing depends on the relationship between a teaser and a target. With regarded to contexts in which teasing behavior is likely to be taken, research on social interactions has revealed that teasing is often related with situations of norm deviations or interpersonal conflicts. Although it is not clear whether there is a causal relation, this may suggest that teasing potentially functions as controlling others' behaviors and coordinating the social relationship. However, there have been no studies that directly examined the functions of teasing in social interactions, and the connections of teasing with relationship between a teaser and a target. Because dynamic and frequent changes of peer relationship are characteristic of early childhood, attention should be paid to social interactions in early childhood, which would lead to new findings about teasing