Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: The scientific interest for play began in the 20th century, which largely determined the direction of research.As Erikson (1950Erikson ( /2002) ) writes, these theories are partial due to the cultural context.If we take a look at the history of changes in the concept of childhood, it is clear that the sharp separation between childhood and adulthood is a new point of view originating in the 18th century.Earlier it was considered that the adults played games, which would now be considered childish, and that children only imitated adults (Ariés, 1987).Most of the 20th century theories, especially the psychological ones, approach play from a developmental perspective, and contain the statement that play is a children's characteristic.But the question remains whether play should be considered only a child feature?As Quine (1956( , as cited in Kiss, 2005) ) proposed, if we want to examine a concept, we should first look at how it is used in the everyday language.This method is called semantic ascent.Play appears in a lot of metaphors, e.g., play of light or play of colours.Gadamer (2003) concluded that we use the word play to describe a "to and fro" motion which doesn't have an aim.Three aspects are included in this simple statement: the "to and fro", which indicates repetition; the motion, that is, the activity; and the aimless nature.All Play, cognition and culture ORSOLYA PACHNERThe psychological theories of play are generally independent from each other.Since most of these were generated in the 20th century, some of them simultaneously, they mostly dealt with different aspects of play.In this paper we present what we consider are common points of these theories, which can be called the essence of play.We highlight one of the most prominent theories of play, Piaget's epistemological approach of cognitive development, and elaborate on how it relates to other psychological theories of play.Play, cognition, and culture appear as important aspects in all of these theories so possible connections between these concepts are discussed.Finally we emphasize the relevance of further research on the play in autism.
Author: Orsolya Pachner
Institution: University of Pecs
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2305347988