Rebecca A. Dore

The Impact of Pretend Play on Children's Development: A Review of the Evidence

Pretend play has been claimed to be crucial to childrens healthy development. Here we examine evidence for this position versus 2 alternatives: Pretend play is 1 of many routes to positive developments (equifinality), and pretend play is an epiphenomenon of other factors that drive development. Evidence from several domains is considered. For language, narrative, and emotion regulation, the research conducted to date is consistent with all 3 positions but insufficient to draw conclusions. For executive function and social skills, existing research leans against the crucial causal position but is insufficient to differentiate the other 2. For reasoning, equifinality is definitely supported, ruling out a crucially causal position but still leaving open the possibility that pretend play is epiphenomenal. For problem solving, there is no compelling evidence that pretend play helps or is even a correlate. For creativity, intelligence, conservation, and theory of mind, inconsistent correlational results from sound studies and nonreplication with masked experimenters are problematic for a causal position, and some good studies favor an epiphenomenon position in which child, adult, and environment characteristics that go along with play are the true causal agents. We end by considering epiphenomenalism more deeply and discussing implications for preschool settings and further research in this domain. Our take-away message is that existing evidence does not support strong causal claims about the unique importance of pretend play for development and that much more and better research is essential for clarifying its possible role.

Children's racial bias in perceptions of others' pain

Previous research indicates that American adults, both Black and White, assume a priori that Black people feel less pain than do White people (Trawalter, Hoffman, & Waytz, 2012, PLoS One, 7[11], 1-8). The present work investigates when in development this bias emerges. Five-, 7-, and 10-year-olds first rated the amount of pain they themselves would feel in 10 situations such as biting their tongue or hitting their head. They then rated the amount of pain they believed two other children - a Black child and a White child, matched to the childs gender - would feel in response to the same events. We found that by age 7, children show a weak racial bias and that by age 10, they show a strong and reliable racial bias. Consistent with research on adults, this bias was not moderated by race-related attitudes or interracial contact. This finding is important because knowing the age of emergence can inform the timing of interventions to prevent this bias.

Do children learn from pretense

Pretend play presents an interesting puzzle. Children generally must keep pretense separate from reality or else pretend would confuse their real-world representations. Children spend a great deal of time pretending, and so failing to take any information from pretend scenarios would present a lost opportunity; however, little research has investigated whether it is possible or efficient for children to learn new information they encounter during pretend play. In two tightly controlled studies using blind testers, we taught children information of two types (labels and object functions) in a pretend or real context. Children learned the novel functions in the pretend condition, and they inferred that the novel object would be similar in appearance to the substitute used to represent it during pretense. These findings coincide with other recent work suggesting that children can learn new information in pretense contexts that they can then apply to the real world, although this learning may differ in important ways from learning in real contexts.

A Social Values Analysis of Parental Decision Making

ABSTRACT Social values theory was used to examine how parents make decisions for their adolescent children. Social values theory states that decision making for others is based on the social value of an action, leading to a norm for how to decide for others, whereas self decisions are influenced by a number of additional factors. Consistent with a risk-aversion norm, in hypothetical health and safety scenarios parents made more risk-averse decisions for their adolescent children than for themselves. Further, the level of risk and inconvenience affected self decisions more than decisions for ones child. A second study showed that the norm was stronger for decisions for ones child than for oneself and more related to parents’ decisions for their child than for themselves. In sum, parents’ decisions for their children seem to be largely determined by a norm stating how they are supposed to decide, at least in the domain of health and safety. Implications for both the judgment and decision making and parenting literatures are discussed.

Do Children Prefer Mentalistic Descriptions

ABSTRACT Against a long tradition of childhood realism (Piaget, 1929), A. S. Lillard and J. H. Flavell (1990) found that 3-year-olds prefer to characterize people by their mental states (beliefs, desires, emotions) than by their visible behaviors. In this exploratory study, we extend this finding to a new cohort of 3-year-olds, examine how these preferences change from 3–4 years, and explore relationships with theory of mind and parental mind-mindedness. The results showed a developmental change and a possible cohort difference: at 3 years, children in the sample preferred behavioral descriptions, although by 4 years of age, they preferred mentalistic ones. Interestingly, mentalistic preferences were unrelated to theory of mind or parental mind-mindedness, concurrently or over time. Perspective-taking skills at 3 years, however, predicted an increase in mentalistic responses from 3 years to 4 years. Possible explanations for each finding are discussed.

Concepts and Theories, Methods and Reasons: Why Do the Children (Pretend) Play? Reply to Weisberg, Hirsh-Pasek, and Golinkoff (2013); Bergen (2013); and Walker and Gopnik (2013).

We greatly appreciate the astute comments on Lillard et al. (2013) and the opportunity to reply. Here we point out the importance of keeping conceptual distinctions clear regarding play, pretend play, and exploration. We also discuss methodological issues with play research. We end with speculation that if pretend play did not emerge because it was naturally selected (due to helping causal reasoning or some other developmentally important skill), perhaps it emerged as a by-product of 2 other selected behaviors: play fighting and language.

Theory of Mind and Children’s Engagement in Fantasy Worlds

We examined the relationship between theory of mind (ToM) and engaging in fantasy worlds in a short-term longitudinal study. Engagement in fantasy worlds might advance ToM because engaging in alternative worlds is similar to imagining the world from others’ viewpoints. Fantasy might also be related to preference for describing others’ mental states. To test these theories, we examined relationships between preschoolers’ fantasy orientation, ToM, and preference for mentalistic descriptions. ToM and preference for mentalistic descriptions were measured at two time points, 7 months apart, allowing examination of change over time. None of the fantasy measures were related to preference for mentalistic descriptions, but three fantasy measures (child’s Fantasy Orientation Interview, parent-reported preference for fantasy media and games, and parent-reported belief in event-related fantasy entities) predicted improvement on ToM over the time period examined. Two of these three did not predict ToM concurrently, highlighting the importance of developmental study.

Where Learning Meets Creativity: The Promise of Guided Play

As the United States and other countries consider “educational reform,” the discussion appears to be primarily about fostering basic skills and content knowledge. Our contention is that this approach is not sufficient. Instead, we argue that for twenty-first century success, we must also foster creativity to prepare today’s children to excel and solve tomorrow’s problems. In this chapter, we offer a thought experiment on how our educational system could achieve these dual goals. We propose that the answer might come from a clearer definition of what creativity actually is and from our attempts to infuse creativity into our classrooms through a pedagogical approach that we call “guided play.”

Children Adopt the Traits of Characters in a Narrative

Adults adopt the traits of characters in narratives, but little is known about whether children do so. In Study 1, 7- and 10-year-olds () heard a 2.5-minute recording about a professor or cheerleader. Reporting higher engagement in the professor narrative related to more time playing with an analytical toy (a Rubik’s cube), whereas reporting higher engagement in the cheerleader narrative related to less time playing with Rubik’s cube. However, although children were randomly assigned to a narrative, within condition children may have had preexisting personality differences causing them both to become more engaged in that narrative and also to behave more like that character afterwards. To control for this possibility, in Study 2 children () were given perspective-taking or objective instructions. Interestingly, both instructions created higher engagement than in Study 1, resulting in main effects of narrative. Children in the professor condition, compared to those in the cheerleader condition, spent more time playing with Rubik’s cube and self-reported higher levels of professor-relevant characteristics (e.g., smart, good at teaching). These studies show that, by the elementary school years and particularly when highly engaged in a narrative, children adopt the traits of a narrative’s central character.

Developer meets developmentalist: improving industry–research partnerships in children’s educational technology

Today, fully 98% of children under eight have access to a mobile device at home (Rideout, 2017). Not surprisingly, researchers are increasingly interested in studying development in the context of these new technologies. But there are barriers, including the rapid pace of change and the expertise required to develop software to be used in research. We propose that successful partnerships between developmentalists and developers are crucial for rigorous research on children’s digital technology. We focus on the need for researchers to partner with developers during the research process. For example, researchers might want to create and test an educational game or evaluate how different game features might promote learning, both of which require industry partnership. Some categories of research, such as testing a commercial product or examining the impact of digital media on parent– child interactions, may not require developer input, but for any research questions, industry collaboration is vital. We provide guideposts for researchers interested in establishing research–industry partnerships based on lessons learned from our own experiences and from having one of our own (BV) join the educational technology world. These suggestions are followed by recommendations on how the field can foster stronger partnerships. When developing research–industry partnerships, researchers must understand the developer’s perspective. Though academics need developers for technical expertise in creating digital products for research, developers have fewer compelling reasons to partner with academics. The primary motivator for developers is to create a product that will be competitive in the marketplace. Accordingly, developmentalists can make themselves useful to developers by providing information about the effectiveness of their products. This useful information comes in two forms – evaluative research evaluates a commercially available product, while formative research helps developers build a product based on scientific evidence and test its efficacy. The reality however, is that data collection, especially with children, is a lengthy process. Even producing preliminary reports can occur on such an extended timeline that results are no longer helpful for improving or marketing the product. For example, in one of our collaborations, over a year passed between when we initially received the game and when we