Role of peers and play

Play is sometimes seen as a "waste of time" in a pre-school program. It is often defined as the time when children are not "learning." But according to developmental psychologists, this perception is wrong.

Psychologists believe that play is an important tool for helping young children develop motor skills, a sense of morality and even "theory of mind" - that is, the ability to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own.

The nature of play changes over time and reflects a child’s development. Piaget and Vygotsky studied play as a means of understanding a child’s cognitive development.

According to Piaget, play develops in line with the stages of cognitive development. In the sensorimotor stage a child’s play is dominated by practice play. Practice play is the practice of some useful behaviour out of its usual context. It involves the repetition of skills that have already been mastered. Mental practice is also a form of play. For example, toddlers often ask, “Why?” to practice question asking. Not that they really want an answer.

Practice play is based on imitation. Through this, the child learns. But it does not always mean that the child understands. For example, a typical joke for a 3-year-old would be:

John: Knock, knock.
Mom: Who’s there?
John: John
Mom: John who?
John: John Crane! Hahaahahahaha.

Clearly, the child has understood the format of the joke but doesn’t understand how language play works.

Symbolic play develops at around two years old and marks the beginning of representational thought through the use of substitute objects or actions. These are “pretending” behaviours. Symbolic play emerges with the development of language.

Symbolic play

Piaget separated symbolic play into different stages.

Stage 1: (Ages 2 - 4) Children imitate the actions of others. For example, they pretend to be on the phone.

Stage 2: (Ages 4 - 7) Dramatic play becomes increasingly more accurate and complex. The play is characterized by orderliness (things must go in specific places), an exact imitation of reality (you have to have a ticket to get on our bus!) and adopting roles (dividing a group of children into who will be the father, mother, sister, dog).

Stage 3: (Ages 7 - 12) Story lines are more predominant in play. Play can be picked up where it was left off before as though it is a continual story. Roles are more reality-based.

Finally, the child begins to be primarily interested in games with rules around age 7. This final stage is characterized by competition between individuals which is regulated by a cultural code or a temporary mutually agreed-upon set of rules. The development of play is additive and not a replacement. In fact, children often engage in more than one type of play during a single episode of play.

ATL: Reflection

Think back to when you were a young child at school. Write a description of a "play experience" that you remember. After you have written the description, consider the following questions.

1. Why do you consider this a "play experience?" What is it that defines this activity as "play?"

2. What skills (if any) do you think that you learned from this experience?

This reflection asks to think about the meaning of the word "play." Like many constructs in psychology, there is no one standard definition. Having students discuss their definitions is a good way for them to think more deeply about what the necessary (and unnecessary) components of the definition should be.

Some definitions to work with include:

Summing up the formal characteristic of play, we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside 'ordinary' life as being 'not serious' but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings that tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress the difference from the common world by disguise or other means. Johan Huizinga (1944)

Any purposeful mental or physical activity performed either individually or group-wise in leisure time or at work for enjoyment, relaxation, and satisfaction of real-time or long-term needs. Susanna Millar

Play is freely chosen, personally directed, intrinsically motivated behaviour that actively engages the child. The National Playing Fields Association

When discussing play, you may want to ask if this is a behaviour solely seen in humans? This article by the BBC may be of interest. There is an interesting link in that article to an article on snowboarding crows. Unfortunately, the video link is broken, but you can see another example here.

2. This is a very open question in which students will give their own thoughts on what they think that they learned.

ATL: Research

According to Healthofchildren.com, “Play is the work of children. It consists of those activities performed for self-amusement that have behavioral, social, and psychomotor rewards. It is child-directed, and the rewards come from within the individual child; it is enjoyable and spontaneous.”

Take a look for other definitions of "play" online. Which aspects of the definition above do you think are important for a definition of play? What might you challenge? As a class, try to write an "updated" definition of play based on your findings.

This activity is an extension of the activity above. Many students challenge the idea that the activity is "child-directed." They think that a child can definitely be engaged in play when it is adult-directed. There is also the question of whether children's play has the goal of "self-amusement" or if there may be other goals inherent to some forms of play.

It is pretty much impossible to prove that play actually causes learning or development rather than that play is the result of development - requiring and reflecting the child's existing skills. For example, there is a correlation between a delay in language development and a delay in symbolic play, but the relationship between the two variables is not clear. Psychologists argue, however, that taking on different roles allows children the unique opportunity to learn social skills such as communication, problem-solving, and empathy (Hughes, 1999). It is most likely that the relationship is bidirectional - language development leads to symbolic play and symbolic play leads to further language development.

Research in psychology: Russ, Robins, and Christiano (2010)

Psychologists distinguish between two types of problems - convergent and divergent. A convergent problem has a single correct solution or answer. A divergent problem has many different potential solutions. Some research suggests that the way children play may contribute to their ability to solve divergent problems.

Pepler and Ross (1981) wanted to see if the type of play that children engage in would affect their problem-solving strategies. The sample comprised 72 children from three day-care centers in southern Ontario. The children were equally divided by sex and age. They were randomly allocated to one of three conditions. Some children were given materials for convergent play (puzzle pieces). Other kids were given materials for divergent play (blocks). A researcher read a story to the third group, which served as a control.

Kids were given time to play and then were tested on their ability to solve problems. One of the tests that the children were given presented them with two sets of three figures (vehicles and random shapes) and were asked, to tell or show the experimenter as many ways as possible that one might play with the figures. The mean score for the number of potential uses for the figures is seen in the following table.

Convergent play	Divergent play	Control
46	59	32

A limitation of the study is that the children were assessed on their problem solving almost immediately after completing their play experience. In addition, the children were randomly allocated to conditions that may not have reflected their usual play routines - therefore, dispositional factors cannot be ruled out. Russ, Robins, and Christiano (2010) decided to address those limitations in their own study.

The researchers carried out a longitudinal study to see if the ability to pretend-play in 6 and 7-year-old children would predict divergent thinking over a four-year period. The sample of 31 children was observed as first and second graders to measure their level of pretend play. The children also took a test of divergent thinking - similar to the one done by Pepler and Ross.

Four years later, the children were again observed and the same test was given, but adjusted for age appropriateness. As predicted, the quality of imagination in early play predicted divergent thinking over time, independent of IQ. Early divergent-thinking scores were predictive of later divergent-thinking scores.

Culture and play

Jared Diamond has written about the cultural differences in play in hunter-gatherer societies in his book The World Until Yesterday. Since these societies tend to be small, all children form a single multi-age playgroup of both sexes. Although the play serves as fun, it serves a clear function of letting children practice things that they will later have to do as adults. Among the Dani people of New Guinea, these activities include fighting battles with grass spears, building huts, creating gardens and dragging a flower attached to a string, as if it were a pig. The Nuer children of Sudan have most of their games about cattle. Children build cattle enclosures out of sand and create small mud cattle. This shows that regardless of the culture, play is an important part of their social development.

However, Diamond writes that a regular feature of the games of hunter-gatherers is the lack of competitions or contests, compared to many games in developed societies that involve keeping score or identifying a winner. Games often involve sharing and discourage contests. This could be a reflection of the harsh environment which demands a more collectivistic approach to life.

A typical game played by Kaulong children in New Britain demonstrates this type of play. Anthropologist Jane Goodale (not the primatologist) gave the children bananas so that every child could have a banana. Instead of the children having a contest of getting the best banana or competing to get the most bananas, every child took a single banana. Each child then cut his/her banana in half, eating half and then giving the other half to another child. Then they took that half and cut it in half and repeated the process. They did this until they simply had stubs, laughing all the way. This demonstrates the types of sharing behaviour which are necessary for such hunter-gatherer societies. (Diamond, p 91)

A final comparison that Diamond makes is the function of toys. American society produces a lot of “educational toys.” In contrast, traditional societies have few or no toys. Toys that do exist are made by the child or the parents. Play activities are preparing them for “real life.” So, they pretend to hunt, which eventually they will actually do. Play and education are integrally linked in traditional societies. Diamond writes that his New Guinean friends “were astonished that American children need specified places, times and instructions in order to learn how to meet and play with each other." (p 207).

ATL: Thinking critically

There has also been research that shows that perhaps the type of play that children engage in is not as important as one would think. A lot of parents feel that the use of modern technologies may hurt a child's development by denying them "normal play." Take a look at this study. What do you think? Does it support or refute the idea that technology and less free play may hurt a child's development? Be able to support your answer.

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The study appears to indicate that imagination has increased over the 23 years of the study. The study, however, does not look specifically at the role of technology on play, but rather overall play and imagination. Russ argues that computers may play a role in increasing imagination, but the study is a single study and the results are simply correlational - so it is difficult to reach any definitive conclusions about the relationship between computer use and imagination.

The counterargument

From all the research above, one would think that this is an open and shut case of cause and effect. It appears that pay is really important in a child's development of creativity, cognition, and self-esteem. Well, maybe not so fast...

Lillard et al (2013) reviewed 150 studies on pretend play conducted over the last 50 years. She and her colleagues concluded that there is no clear evidence that pretend play leads to creativity, problem-solving, intelligence, or emotional regulation. Most of the studies had serious methodological flaws and had failed to be replicated. She argues that although researchers might want to believe that play is important, researchers may be seeing a causal link that just isn't there.

Instead, what she found was that many of the studies were highly directive, telling the children which toys to play with and how. Real pretend play is often spontaneous and develops over time. When children play in groups, it is often the relationships within that group that may affect the pretend play.

The role of peers

Play can have a positive and a negative social influence on children. A child's sociometric status (Coie & Dodge, 1988) in play can have a significant effect on the child's academic performance as well. The following chart looks at four classifications of children and how these classifications typically affect their social and cognitive development.

Status

Characteristics

Outcomes

Accepted

Physically attractive

Interacts positively and cooperatively

Good at negotiation and compromise

Adjust behaviour to join in play

High sociability

Good cognitive skills

Academic success

Better adjusted as adults

Rejected aggressive

Aggressive, disruptive or uncooperative

Poor emotional control

Poor perspective-taking skills; lacks play etiquette

Unaware that they are disliked.

Poor school performance

Longer term behavioural and emotional maladjustment

Problems in relationships.

Rejected withdrawn

Passive, timid or socially awkward

Hold negative expectations of others

Does not approach peers for play

Aware that they are disliked

Low self-esteem

Poor school achievement

Social anxiety and/or depression

Neglected

Socially inept

Plays alone

Prefers to be alone

Not always disadvantaged

Can make some friends

More prone to loneliness and depression

The classifications here were done through a series of observations of classroom environments. We will see how the role of peers plays an important role in gender roles later in the unit. We will also see that having a strong peer group is a protective factor and plays an important role in resilience.

ATL: Thinking about research

The following questions were provided by Virginia Shrader, Beijing National Day School.

1. What were the research method, design, and aim of Pepler & Ross (1981)?

The study was a counterbalanced field experiment. The aim was to examine the potential role of different play situations and on subsequent problem-solving. The design was an independent samples design.

2. You will see that there is a difference in the age of the children in the studies by Pepler and Ross (1981) and Russ, Robins, and Christiano (2010)? Thinking about Piaget's theory of cognitive development, how might this difference play a role in the findings of the study?

At the ages of 6 - 7, children move from the preoperational stage to the concrete operational stage. In the latter stage, children can focus on more aspects of a problem or situation at a time (decentration). They also begin to understand concepts of conservation, the relationship between part and whole, and become less egocentric. This may have played a role in both how they approached the games and the development of their problem-solving strategies.

3. What cultural factors could have influenced the Coie & Dodge (1988) study results?

The study is done in Western society where friendship and rejection is done on a personal level. This ignores the importance of family status and cultural in-group identity may have on friendships. The question can be raised whether the notion of emotional intimacy, that is so characteristic especially for adolescent friendships in Western cultures, is typical for other types of societies. In subsistence economies, where the distribution of resources is not guaranteed, the help of others is needed and friendships are more instrumental.

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