Play Flashcards
Week 7 (22 cards)
What are the 3 ways Smith categorised play? What are the details of each?
Functional approach: what is the purpose of play
* No obvious goal, distinguishes from goal-oriented behaviour, benefits in childhood suggests function
Structural approach: examines play behaviour and how they are sequenced
* Often signalled by behavioural cues, approach often too descriptive rather than explanatory
Criteria based approach
* 5 key criteria
What are the 5 key criteria of the criteria based categorisation of play?
Intrinsically motivated
Non-literal
Positive effect
Flexible
Means/ends
What are the 6 types of play? What is an example of each?
Social contingency play: peek-a-boo (enjoyment in response to others)
Sensorimotor play: banging/dropping blocks
Object play: lego (link to building fine motor skills)
Language play: babbling
Physical activity play: running, chasing (exercise and rough-and-tumble play)
Fantasy or pretend play: pretending a banana is a telephone
What is pretend play?
Symbolic representational behaviour where knowledge of reality must be suspended, requires a capacity for meta-representation
What are the cross-cultural effects of pretend play content? What are 2 examples of studies showing this?
Universal across cultures but content and amount varies
Content: differences depend on values and practices of adult community and ecology
Haight et al. (1999)
* US children = more fantasy themes (e.g. superheroes)
* Taiwanese children = social routines and proper conduct themes
Farver (1999)
* Anglo-US = fantasy, danger
* Korean-US = family roles
Gosso et al. (2007)
* High SES Brazillian children play includes fantasy themes (e.g. witches, mermaids) but not low SES or native hunter-gatherers – availability of fantasy-based themes and props?
* Hunter-gatherer’s play more mirrored adult roles e.g. woman gather and men hunt
What are the cross-cultural effects of pretend play frequency? What is an examples of this?
Universal across cultures but content and amount varies
Frequency: varies with parental attitudes and engagement
Examples
Mayan parents admonish children for pretending – children don’t stop it just becomes a secret activity
Carlson et al. (1998)
* Old and new order mennonite and non-mennonite teachers (religious vs non-religious)
* Attitudes towards pretend play differ
* Teachers attitudes to play influenced imaginativeness of children’s play at recess (e.g. old order less imaginative, more reality based)
What are the benefits of pretend play?
Function: provides children with an especially framed situation whereby they can learn important cognitive skills
Positive developmental outcomes
* Socio-cognitive development: perspective taking, language, executive function
* Social development: greater popularity, cooperative
* Creativity
List the 6 key issues in pretend play?
Social referencing
Intention reading
Quarantine and pretend worlds
Pretend play as symbolic
Pretend play and social cognition
Pretend play and creativity
What is social referencing, why is it important in play and what is a study showing the development of social referencing?
What
Using another person’s response to an ambiguous situation as a guide for one’s own response
Important
Required in play because acts of pretence are ambiguous and children use behaviour to engage in play
Study
Visual cliff experiment: 12MO capable of social referencing
What is intention reading, its importance in play and a study showing this development?
What
Understanding what another person intends to do
Important
Intention reading is important to understanding pretence due to pretend acts often including something left out of the scene that must be filled in by the child
Study
Harris & Kavanagh (1993)
* 2YO (but not 1YO) children wipe “wet pig” when experimenter accidentally spills pretend tea on one of 2 pigs
Tomasello (1999)
* 18MO can identify intended reference in ambiguous context using function/gesture of an object
What is quarantining real and pretend worlds, why is it important to pretend play and what is a study showing this skill?
What
Understanding what is part of the real vs pretend world when engaging in and interpreting pretence
Importance
To fail to do so could be at best confusing and at worst disastrous – can see falsely categorised fake object show up in nightmares/fears etc.
Study
Syllogistic reasoning (Vygotsky): can perform type of reasoning when prefaced with pretend play element - Suggests that pretence is a realm in which children begin to engage in logical thinking
Harris et al. (1991)
* Preschool children avoid a box after having imagined it contained a scary creature
* Why? Children are notoriously bad at monitoring the source or their emotions; high emotional intensity may lead to loss of fantasy/reality
Why is pretend play thought to be symbolic?
To understand and engage in pretence children must appreciate that:
* Real objects can represent other objects
* Real objects can have different functions
How does language relate to pretend play being symbolic? What study showed this relation?
3 stages of development: 12-14MO, 14-16MO, 19-21MO
Language also symbolic
McCune (1995)
* Pretend play closely related to language development
* Object substitution -> first words (12-14MO)
* combined pretend (same action directed at different people e.g. drinking from a cup by person and doll) -> first word combinations 14-16MO
* Hierarchical pretend (planned intentional sequences of pretence e.g. making tea and drinking it) -> productive syntax 19-21MO
What have studies on narrative language shown about the influence of it (and play overall) on child development?
3 studies listed
Trionfi & Reese (2009): Narrative (story-telling)
* Narratives are the height of spoken language
* Children with imaginary companions (ICs) produced better quality past-event narratives and narrative re-telling suggests IC children have better narrative scripts
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Stagnitti et al. (2016)
* Compared narrative language of children exposed to different environments
* Play-based learning improves play and narrative language better than traditional classrooms
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Baumer et al. (2005)
* found playworld intervention resulted in significant growth in natural competence compared to control group
How are ToM and pretend play related and what studies have shown this relationship?
Astington & Jenkins (1995)
* Children who pass ToM tasks attempt to negotiate ambiguity associated with potential divergent beliefs
* Play might provide children with context to discover and manipulate these ambiguities (but direction of effect unclear – correlational not causational)
Taylor & Carlson (1997)
* 4YO high-fantasy children passed ToM tasks at a greater rate than low fantasy children
What are the 2 main theories of how social cognition is influenced by pretend play? Explain the concepts of each.
Meta-representation
* engaging in pretend play involves entertaining ideas distinct from reality; this understanding could be applied elsewhere e.g. cognitive process
* Representation of fantasy world as distinct from reality may lead to insight that each person represents reality (based on experience)
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Role-taking
* frequent practice at role playing may result in children learning to represent another’s perspective ie. embodied process
* Practice at putting themselves in others’ shoes leads children to do so more often when interpreting behaviour
Why did Goldstein et all (2009) think that actors would have advanced ToM and empathy skills? What were the findings of this study?
Why
* Acting is an advanced form of pretend play
* Role-playing, which must be convincing enough for audience
* Stanislavski method (method acting)
Findings
* Actors scored higher on Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (ToM) than did non-actors
* RMET: about emotion reading not ToM
What did findings in future studies into the potential relationship between ToM/empathy and acting in children show?
Correlational (not causational) relationship between play/pretend scores and ToM
What have studies shown about the relationship between pretend play and creativity? Describe one of these studies.
Overall found that ICs = higher creativity (adults and children), creative writers had ICs, learning environments influenced by these findings, improved EF in high fantasy kids
Hoff (2005)
* Found that children with ICs scored higher on involvement in creative activities and hobbies (e.g. drawing, writing stories) and unusual uses test: everyday object given to adult/child and asked to list all possible uses they can think of for that object (children better than adults)
Kidd et al. (2010)
* Adults who had ICs as children score higher on creativity
Taylor et al. (2003)
* 92% of the 50 creative writers reported experiencing the illusion of independent agency
* Independent agency: when characters they’re writing about take on their own agency – not directing them as a writing you’re just following them on
* Higher than normal incidence of childhood ICs - 5 still had IC from childhood
Kirkham & Kidd (2017)
* Same play based benefit for creativity when looking at learning environments
* Steiner foster pretence and teach through the medium of pretence = highest creativity score
* Montessori more functional learning – less play orientated = lowest creativity score
* Traditional learning method slightly higher creativity than Montessori but lower than Steiner scores
* Task: child given piece of paper with 3 lines on it then asked to fill it in – scored based on drawing and story given around the drawing and how far it is from reality - Montessori and Traditional drawings more closely resemble reality with objects drawn
Thibodeau et al. (2016)
* Improved executive functioning in fantasy play group, particularly for children who were highly engaged in the fantasy play
Therefore: pretend play is important for cognitive development too
How do modern toys influence pretend play and subsequent child development?
- modern toys fill gaps where children would usually use imagination
- open-ended toys better for play
- fewer toys led to better focus to explore and play more creatively
What are Grusec & Lytton’s 4 types of play?
Functional (2-3YO)
* Simple repetitive muscle movements performed with or without an object, such as shaking a rattle, jumping up and down or bouncing a ball
Constructive (3-4YO)
* Involves the manipulation of objects with the intention of constructing something, such as a cut and paste activity
Pretend/Symbolic (6-7YO)
* Involves letting an object or person symbolise a thing it is not, e.g. each from toy crockery
Games with rules (10-11YO)
* Children play games with rules e.g. hide and seek
What are Wyver & Spence’s 5 social modes of play?
Solitary play: activities pursured alone
Onlooker play: children observing play of peers
Parallel play: children pursue similar activities without interacting
Associative play: children share ideas and materials in pursuit of a common goal
Cooperative play: each child assigned specific roles in pursuit of a common goal
