Poster #42 - Young children gravitate to real activities over pretend play

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Adults see pretend play as crucial to children’s development (Ginsburg, 2007; Parmar, Harkness, & Super, 2004), and Montessori preschool classrooms are sometimes criticized for not including pretend play (Kirkham & Kidd, 2015; Soundy, 2009). Yet given real and pretend versions of various activities (portrayed in a book), children said they would prefer to engage in the real version (Taggart, Heise, & Lillard, 2018). Here we asked if these expressed preferences align with children’s actual behavior, and whether Montessori preschool settings (which typically lack pretend play) are associated with different behavior.

In Study 1, 32 preschoolers were provided eight toys for pretending and their real equivalents during a 10-min free play session in the laboratory. After free play, children were shown a book portraying a real and pretend version of each activity and asked which they would rather do. Children spent significantly more time with the real materials (M = 296.05 sec, SD = 184.60) than the pretend toys (M = 186.20 sec, SD = 138.11), t(31) = 1.99, p = .014, Cohen’s d = 0.67, and in the book task, they chose pretend activities significantly less than would be expected by chance, t(31) = -7.13, p < .001, Cohen’s d = -1.26. Furthermore, time spent with pretend materials during free play predicted the number of pretend choices children made in the book, r(30) = .42, p = .016, suggesting a relation between book choices and actual behavior, at least in the laboratory.

Study 2 examined children’s preferences in a naturalistic setting. Four pretend play materials were introduced in a Montessori preschool classroom that had equivalent real activities to which the pretend activities could be compared (e.g., arranging flowers). Sixteen Montessori preschoolers were observed for two hours per week for eight weeks. On the first day, the new pretend materials elicited much exploration, but in the subsequent seven weeks, children spent considerably less time with pretend materials (see Figure 1). On average, in the last seven weeks, children spent 14.62 mins (SD = 12.59) with the pretend materials as compared to 36.38 min (SD = 47.41) with the real materials, t(15) = 1.90, p = .038, Cohen’s d = 0.63. Thus even outside the laboratory, children appear to be more interested in real than pretend activities.

Children’s behavior therefore does align with the reality preference expressed on the book task, both in the laboratory and in a preschool setting. Yet many adults encourage pretend play sometimes at the expense of engaging children in real activities (e.g., supply a pretend kitchen but fail to engage children in really cooking). Future research will examine the effects of engaging in pretend play versus real activities on children’s self-efficacy.

Authors

• Eren Fukuda, University of Virginia
  Presenting Author

• Jessica Taggart, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ian Becker, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Angeline Lillard, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author