Play Behavior Research Articles

The Rivers Under the Earth: Wilder's Psychoanalytic Primer for the Stage

Abstract One of Thornton Wilder's most famous acquaintances was Sigmund Freud. Allusions to Freud or psychoanalytical concepts can be found in Wilder's plays and novels up to the end of his career. Perhaps the work most indebted to Freud's theorizing about the human psyche and behavior is the little-known one-act play The Rivers Under the Earth, first published in The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume One, in 1997. The play depicts Wilder's typical nuclear family: a middle-class husband and wife with their teenage son and daughter. But in this play, Wilder goes beyond hints of the Oedipus and Electra complexes that appear in his more famous works to show his understanding of Freud's theory of the unconscious processes of the mind. During one night of the family's annual summer vacation, the parents realize the childhood events responsible for particular quirks of their son's and daughter's personality and actions. Thus, Wilder demonstrates what Freud called condensation and displacement, mental operations in which powerful repressed emotional experiences are associated with sensory phenomena or abstractions of them. Although scholars such as David Castronovo have noted Freudian influences in the one-act plays Wilder wrote in the late 1950s and early 1960s that were intended to be part of two seven-play cycles, The Seven Deadly Sins and The Seven Ages of Man, this article gives a more in-depth and technical reading of Wilder's dramatization of Freud's psychoanalytic theory of human behavior in the one-act play written during this same period.

Children and parents\u2019 perspectives of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ontario children\u2019s physical activity, play, and sport behaviours

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health measures have resulted in the closure of many physical activity-supporting facilities. This study examined Ontario parents’ and children’s perspectives of COVID-19’s impact on children’s physical activity behaviours, return to play/sport during COVID-19, as well as barriers/facilitators to getting active amid extended closures of physical activity venues.MethodsParents/guardians of children aged 12 years and under living in Ontario, Canada were invited to participate in an interview. 12 parent/guardian and 9 child interviews were conducted via Zoom between December 2020 – January 2021, were audio-recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Thematic content analysis was undertaken to identify pronounced themes.ResultsThemes for both parent and child interviews fell into one of three categories: 1) barriers and facilitators for getting children active amid COVID-19 closures of physical activity-supporting facilities; 2) changes in children’s activity levels; and, 3) perspectives on return to play/sport during and post-pandemic. Various subthemes were identified and varied between parents and children. The most common facilitator for dealing with children’s inactivity voiced by parents/guardians was getting active outdoors. Parents/guardians noted their willingness to have their children return to play/sport in the community once deemed safe by public health guidelines, and children’s willingness to return stemmed primarily from missing their friends and other important authority figures (e.g., coaches) and sporting events (e.g., tournaments).ConclusionsFindings from this study could inform families of feasible and realistic strategies for increasing children’s physical activity during community closures, while also providing public health experts with information regarding what supports, or infrastructure might be needed during future lockdown periods and/or pandemics.

Chronic exposure to ∆ 9-tetrahydrocannabinol in adolescence decreases social play behaviours.

Background: Cannabis use remains a major public health concern, and its use typically begins in adolescence. Chronic administration of ∆ 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive compound in cannabis, during adolescence can produce deficits in adult learning and memory, stress reactivity and anxiety. One possible mechanism behind the disruptions in adulthood from adolescent exposure to THC includes changes in social behaviours, such as social play, which has been shown to be critical to socio-cognitive development. Methods: Here, using an established animal model of adolescent THC exposure in male and female Long-Evans rats, we explored the effects of THC on play behaviour during the chronic administration period. Following puberty onset, as indicated by external changes to the genitalia, THC (5mg/kg) was administered for 14 days. Play behaviour was assessed seven days following the onset of the injection period at approximately 1 hour post treatment. The frequency of nape attacks, the likelihood and tactics of defensive behaviour, and pins were scored and analyzed. Results: THC exposure decreased playfulness in adolescent rats including the number of attacks, likelihood of defense and pins compared to control and vehicle treated rats. Conclusion: This suggests that THC suppresses both the attack and defense components of social play. This is an important finding because there is evidence that attack and defense may be mediated by different mechanisms. Furthermore, the effect of THC exposure decreasing playfulness occurred similarly in males and females.

Influence of a Socially Assistive Robot on Physical Activity, Social Play Behavior, and Toy-Use Behaviors of Children in a Free Play Environment: A Within-Subjects Study.

Background: Play is critical for children’s physical, cognitive, and social development. Technology-based toys like robots are especially of interest to children. This pilot study explores the affordances of the play area provided by developmentally appropriate toys and a mobile socially assistive robot (SAR). The objective of this study is to assess the role of the SAR on physical activity, play behavior, and toy-use behavior of children during free play. Methods: Six children (5 females, Mage = 3.6 ± 1.9 years) participated in the majority of our pilot study’s seven 30-minute-long weekly play sessions (4 baseline and 3 intervention). During baseline sessions, the SAR was powered off. During intervention sessions, the SAR was teleoperated to move in the play area and offered rewards of lights, sounds, and bubbles to children. Thirty-minute videos of the play sessions were annotated using a momentary time sampling observation system. Mean percentage of time spent in behaviors of interest in baseline and intervention sessions were calculated. Paired-Wilcoxon signed rank tests were conducted to assess differences between baseline and intervention sessions. Results: There was a significant increase in children’s standing (∼15%; Z = −2.09; p = 0.037) and a tendency for less time sitting (∼19%; Z = −1.89; p = 0.059) in the intervention phase as compared to the baseline phase. There was also a significant decrease (∼4.5%, Z = −2.70; p = 0.007) in peer interaction play and a tendency for greater (∼4.5%, Z = −1.89; p = 0.059) interaction with adults in the intervention phase as compared to the baseline phase. There was a significant increase in children’s interaction with the robot (∼11.5%, Z = −2.52; p = 0.012) in the intervention phase as compared to the baseline phase. Conclusion: These results may indicate that a mobile SAR provides affordances through rewards that elicit children’s interaction with the SAR and more time standing in free play. This pilot study lays a foundation for exploring the role of SARs in inclusive play environments for children with and without mobility disabilities in real-world settings like day-care centers and preschools.

Development of gaming practices in popular science text

The popular science text is described by the author in the context of competition with other media products: films, TV series, video games. Under these conditions, a popular science text acquires new communication characteristics, one of which is a play. The concept of play is viewed through the prism of Johan Huizinga’s work «Homo Ludens, a Study of the Play Element in Culture». The work highlights the main features of play. There are four such characteristics: a play brings pleasure, provides for the presence of special (play) behavior and establishes order, and is also characterized through the tension that arises in the process of playing activity. The play brings pleasure to the player, which in a popular science text is realized through the comprehension of new knowledge, as well as through the awareness of the abundance of sences and interpretations of the text, «flickering of meanings», realized with the help of metaphors. Play behavior is a «play with the addressee»: the use of professional vocabulary allows a reader to identify himself with a researcher. A special playful order is achieved through the use of special narrative schemes that makes it possible to avoid automatism in perception and help to assimilate the content of the text in the most productive way. The tension inherent to any play is interpreted as an intellectual tension associated with the comprehension of new sences, and as an emotional tension, which is achieved via the use of means of artistic expression and strengthens the reader’s emotional involvement in the events described in the text. Each statement is illustrated by examples from popular science works presented in the Russian book market. The author comes to the conclusion that modern popular science texts demonstrate a new property – a playful beginning.

Sex-specific effects of neonatal progestin receptor antagonism on juvenile social play behavior in rats

Developing mammals are exposed to progesterone through several sources; however, the role of progesterone in early development is not well understood. Males express more progestin receptors (PRs) than females within several brain regions during early postnatal life, suggesting that PRs may be important for the organization of the sex differences in the brain and behavior. Indeed, previous studies showed cognitive impairments in male rats treated neonatally with a PR antagonist. In the present study, we examined the role of PRs in organizing juvenile behaviors. Social play behavior and social discrimination were examined in juvenile male and female rats that had been treated with CDB, a PR antagonist, during the first week of postnatal life. Interestingly, neonatal PR antagonism altered different juvenile behaviors in males and females. A transient disruption in PR signaling during development had no effect on social discrimination but increased play initiation and pins in females. These data suggest that PRs play an important role in the organization of sex differences in some social behaviors.

Costs and benefits of living in a vegetated, compared with non-vegetated, enclosure in male Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata).

Improving captive environments for primates has been an important tool to enhance animal welfare. One method has been to provide primates with naturalistic vegetated enclosures to promote species-specific behaviors, enhancing interactions with their social and natural environment, such as an increase in feeding, foraging, and positive social behaviors such as play. To investigate the benefits in which living in naturalistic environments promote general animal well-being, we observed immature and adult males living in two outdoor housed groups of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) in the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute (KUPRI), Inuyama, Japan, from June of 2015 until June 2016. One enclosure was naturally vegetated and the other was not. We recorded male activity budgets, affiliative (groom, play) behaviors, and rates of agonistic interactions. To examine health status, we recorded and compared coat conditions for both groups. We found that males in the vegetated enclosure spent more time in social play than males in the non-vegetated enclosure, while males in the non-vegetated enclosure displayed more stereotypic behaviors and agonistic interactions. We recorded better coat conditions in the vegetated enclosure males while rates of social grooming or self-grooming were no different between males in the two enclosures. The males in the vegetated enclosure did not have activity budgets more similar to their wild counterparts; but they spent more time in feeding-related activities and less time resting, which was more similar to their wild counterparts than males in the non-vegetated enclosure. Our findings suggest that individuals housed in naturalistic environments have significantly greater behavioral and physical markers of wellbeing than those housed in unnatural, large outdoor enclosures. Although we found that males in both types of enclosures overall had similar time budgets to males in the wild, the detailed behavioral and health results suggest that the welfare benefits to males were greater in the vegetated enclosure, compared with non-vegetated enclosures. Efforts to mimic more natural environments should promote the well-being of primates.

The effect of neuroimmune dysregulation on dopamine receptors and social play behaviors of male and female juvenile rats

The effect of neuroimmune dysregulation on dopamine receptors and social play behaviors of male and female juvenile rats

Mediating Effect of Fathers’ Parenting Behavior on the Relationship Between Young Children’s Temperament and Peer Play Behavior

Objectives: Understanding peer play behaviors in young children is crucial because children's personal characteristics influence their peer play behaviors. In this study, we investigated the relationship between children’s temperament (4 years old), fathers’ parenting behavior (5 years old), and peer play behavior (6 years old) using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Korean Children (PSKC). In addition, the mediating effect of fathers’ parenting behavior on the relationship between children’s temperament and peer play behavior was investigated.Methods: A total of 1,070 children and their fathers were extracted for analysis from the Korean Children's Panel Study (PSKC) 2012 (Year 5) to 2014 (Year 7). The correlations between the relevant variables and the mediating effects of fathers’ parenting behavior were analyzed using SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 25.0.Results: Correlation analysis showed that children’s emotionality and sociability were associated with fathers’ parenting behavior, whereas their sociality and activity were associated with their play disturbance. Next, there was no mediating effect of fathers’ warmth on the relationship between children’s temperament and children’s peer play interactions. The full mediating effects of the fathers’ control on the relationship between the child’s temperament (emotionality and sociability) and peer play behaviors such as disruption and disconnection were confirmed. Children’s activity had a direct effect on their peer play interaction and disruption.Conclusion: Peer play behavior revealed the importance of fathers’ controlling parenting behaviors and children’s temperament, especially in peer play disruption and disconnection. In particular, we confirmed the influence of father’s controlling parenting behavior on children’s sociability and emotionality temperament.

Relations between Fantasy Orientation, Pretense and Parental Attitudes in Preschool Children

Fantasy orientation (FO) refers to the individual differences to the extent that children prefer pretend activities over real ones. In the current study, the relations between children’s FO, pretend play, and parental attitudes towards child's play were examined. Seventy-eight 3- to 4- year-old children and their parents participated in the study. FO was assessed with child interviews and parent questionnaires. Several behavioral tasks were administered to measure pretend play. The parents also completed a questionnaire about their attitudes towards child’s play behavior. The results showed that there are gender differences in children’s FO: Boys preferred real games, thoughts, and activities more often than the pretend ones. However, girls’ pretend and real preferences did not differ. Yet, overall, girls preferred more pretend games, thoughts, and activities and were more fantasy-oriented compared to the boys. Children’s pretend play was not associated with parental attitudes towards play behavior. However, there were associations between pretend play and FO: The amount of time spent pretend playing was correlated with children’s FO. Further, parents’ positive attitudes regarding pretense predicted higher FO in children. Also, only for boys, parents’ stance on the educational value of pretend play predicted higher FO. The findings and implications are discussed.

Young children’s play during a time of social distancing

ABSTRACT Through a 48-item questionnaire shared via social media, 546 participants from 47 American States reported on their children’s (ages 0–8) play activities during early social distancing efforts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Results from the questionnaire indicate participants took social distancing guidelines seriously by keeping children at home and away from other children during the period of social distancing, thus affecting play behaviours. The study’s findings are significant in that they document some parents’ perspectives of their children’s play during a unique period in American history. The authors discuss implications for parent and child play behaviours including the need for more unstructured play time, realities of parents working from home with children present, and the effects of children having a lack of access to peers to play with for sociodramatic and symbolic play. Recommendations for future research are provided.

Self-regulation and play: how children’s play directed with executive function and emotion regulation

ABSTRACT The associations of children’s play behaviour to their emotional regulation, executive functioning were examined in this study. Teachers rated children’s play behaviour, emotional regulation and executive functioning. The study sample comprised 127 (Mage in months = 60.685, SD = 9.563; 64 girls) Turkish children who continued formal education in the preschools. The data is gathering by information survey, CHEXI, ERC, and Play Behaviour Scale. The results suggest that children’s reticence behaviour, solidarity play, and social play are moderated by executive function and emotion regulation. Furthermore, there are several meaningful associations between each play behaviour and emotion regulation and executive function. Lastly, there are significant differences in children’s executive function, parellal play, and rough and tumble play in terms of their sex.

Early life adoption shows rearing environment supersedes transgenerational effects of paternal stress on aggressive temperament in the offspring

Prenatal experience and transgenerational influences are increasingly recognized as critical for defining the socio-emotional system, through the development of social competences and of their underlying neural circuitries. Here, we used an established rat model of social stress resulting from male partner aggression induced by peripubertal (P28-42) exposure to unpredictable fearful experiences. Using this model, we aimed to first, characterize adult emotionality in terms of the breadth of the socio-emotional symptoms and second, to determine the relative impact of prenatal vs postnatal influences. For this purpose, male offspring of pairs comprising a control or a peripubertally stressed male were cross-fostered at birth and tested at adulthood on a series of socio-emotional tests. In the offspring of peripubertally stressed males, the expected antisocial phenotype was observed, as manifested by increased aggression towards a female partner and a threatening intruder, accompanied by lower sociability. This negative outcome was yet accompanied by better social memory as well as enhanced active coping, based on more swimming and longer latency to immobility in the forced swim test, and less immobility in the shock probe test. Furthermore, the cross-fostering manipulation revealed that these adult behaviors were largely influenced by the post- but not the prenatal environment, an observation contrasting with both pre- and postnatal effects on attacks during juvenile play behavior. Adult aggression, other active coping behaviors, and social memory were determined by the predominance at this developmental stage of postnatal over prenatal influences. Together, our data highlight the relative persistence of early life influences.

How Do the Children Play? The Influence of Playground Type on Children's Play Styles.

Using a mixed-method design, the aims of the current study were to develop an in-depth understanding of (1) children’s social play behaviors on school and community playgrounds, (2) the duration with which children play within varying social play categories, and (3) assessing children’s perspectives of playground activities, their peer relationships, and recommendations for new playgrounds. Six participants were observed for five 30-min observations on a school playground and for five 30-min observations on a community playground. Participants were also interviewed about their experiences and preferences on school and community playgrounds. The direct observation results support and extend previous work, indicating that children’s play skill competence varies by setting. Children demonstrated higher levels of associative and cooperative play on the school playground, but higher levels of solitary and parallel play on the community playground. This difference in play styles by playground appears to be a function of available play partners and is explained by the interview data, which found that children are not comfortable playing with children they do not know.

Indoor play during a global pandemic: commonalities and diversities during a unique snapshot in time

ABSTRACT The first case of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was diagnosed in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and the outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020. By the end of March 2020, 136 countries had positive COVID-19 cases. Meanwhile, in response to the virus, countries instigated various forms of ‘lock-downs’ and social distancing measures. Globally, children and adolescents could not meet and play or hang out with their friends as they did pre-pandemic. These changes essentially drove children (4–18 years) indoors for their play and recreation needs, instigating significant changes in the lives and day-to-day routines of children almost simultaneously in and across national borders. To understand the impact of these changes to children's play worlds and friendship groups, an online questionnaire was developed for children and parents and rolled out in Ireland, Italy, the United States, and England during the summer of 2020 following ethical approvals. The questionnaire consisted of qualitative (open ended) and quantitative (closed) questions, and this paper focuses on the changes to children's (4–18 years) indoor play. We found that the various ‘lock-downs’ and social distancing measures created largely similar impacts on play behaviors and activities in each developed country, irrespective of culture, the globally did indeed become ‘local’. Moreover, playing in ‘safe settings’ such as the home environment, may have helped to build resilience and to enhance protective factors in children's lives as opposed to a demonstration of global homogeneity [merriam-webster.com]. The impact of ‘lock-downs’ may counter-intuitively have reduced opportunities for cooperative play and parents' mediation of play due to increased parental responsibilities (working from home, home schooling) which reduced the time available to spend with children in non-school activities, including play.

Crazy Funny: Popular Black Satire and The Methods of MadnessLaughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

Crazy Funny: Popular Black Satire and The Methods of MadnessLaughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

The Routledge Comedy Studies Reader

The Routledge Comedy Studies Reader

The Routledge Comedy Studies Reader

The Routledge Comedy Studies Reader

Crazy Funny: Popular Black Satire and The Methods of MadnessLaughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

Crazy Funny: Popular Black Satire and The Methods of MadnessLaughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

Who Plays With Whom: Farrowing Environment Influences Isolation of Foster Piglets in Play

Cross fostering piglets is a common management practise in the pig industry to manage large and heterogeneous litters, whereby piglets are moved from their biological litter to be reared by another sow. At present research has focused on immediate survival consequences and time of cross fostering, with little attention given to positive aspects of welfare such as social affiliations and the potential for positive interactions for these piglets such as play behaviour. The focus of our study was purely observational to record behaviour of piglets reared in either impoverished (farrowing crates) or enriched neonatal environments (PigSAFE pens) where fostering was practised as part of normal husbandry routines to promote piglet survival. We employed social network analysis to understand more about the behaviour of foster piglets in these environments and their acceptance into their new litter. In line with previous work, piglets exposed to enriched neonatal farrowing pens demonstrated more play behaviour than piglets reared in farrowing crates. We showed that pen piglets received and initiated more play invitations (higher degree centrality) than piglets in crates. We also found effects of cross fostering irrespective of neonatal environment. Non-foster piglets received and initiated more play behaviours (higher degree centrality) 2–3 weeks post-farrowing compared to piglets fostered into the litter and as such, fostered piglets remained isolated from play for the first few weeks of life. However, our data suggests this may be mitigated by neonatal environment; foster piglets reared in pens were better connected (betweenness centrality) within their foster litter than those fostered in crates. Our findings highlight the importance of the neonatal environment and its potential influence on the isolation of cross-fostered piglets and suggest that rearing in enriched neonatal environments may help mitigate against social isolation in early life of cross-fostered piglets, having obvious immediate, and long-term consequences for piglet welfare and behaviour. We also highlight the importance and application of methodologies such as social network analysis, for gaining more insight and understanding about the sociality of animal behaviour and its potential for measuring indicators of positive welfare, thus highlighting its application for veterinary science and animal behaviour and welfare research.