Play

Description

A Definition of Play

Gordon Burghardt:

A more fundamental problem I discovered was that there were no clear criteria for identifying play in animals other than an uncritical anthropomorphic extrapolation from human play coupled with leaky post-hoc “definitions”. As there was considerable ambiguity on what constitutes human play, the reed of humanity is not very strong against evolutionary currents. How then, can one identify play where it has not been thought to exist?

We may all agree on what is play in a dog or a monkey, but it turns out that we typically do so by identifying the behavior and its underlying emotion with our own assumed feelings when performing a similar behavior. But what about turtles, fish, frogs, insects, indeed the lizards and snakes that so fascinated me in elementary school down to the present day? If we want to determine how ancient play is in human behavior and psychology, it is imperative to find out if play is a recent evolutionary innovation, as championed by some writers, or if it also occurs in much older, more “primitive” animals.

To cut to the chase, after viewing many definitions, I came up with a set of five criteria, all of which must be met before we can confidently assume a behavior is play. These can be summarized in this sentence. Play is repeated behaviour that is incompletely functional in the context or at the age in which it is performed, and is initiated voluntarily when the animal (or person) is in a relaxed or low-stress setting. Initiated voluntarily could involve pleasure, fun, excitement, rewards, or other emotional attributes, of course, but these are not explicitly included since they may be hard to ascertain in animals we are less prone to view as similar to us such as turtles or fish.

With this set of criteria as a tool, we can see that much of our behavior from gourmet cooking to masturbation can be viewed as play. More importantly, applying the criteria allows us to see play in the behavior of many animals other than birds and placental mammals."

(https://iai.tv/articles/the-centrality-and-origins-of-play-auid-2095?utm_source=pocket_reader)

Examples

Gordon Burghardt:

"Many marsupials such as kangaroos, wallabies, Tasmanian devils, and wombats are playful, although as a group they have nowhere near the richness of playfulness one sees in dogs, monkeys, otters and other placental mammals. Even in the egg-laying monotremes, the duck-billed platypus seems to play. In fact, data strongly suggest that some animals from many other groups, including reptiles, fishes, insects, mollusks, and spiders can and do play.

Since this may seem a rather bold, if not unsettling, claim, here are a few examples. We studied the first Komodo dragon hatched in the Western World at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. This species is the largest lizard in the world and is a deadly carnivore, capable of hunting and eating deer and water buffalo. This lizard, when several years old, would explore objects such as old shoes, small boxes, even soft drink cans and grab and shake them like a dog with a slipper. And like the dog, the lizard would not try to eat the object. She would also engage in tug-of-war games with her favored keeper and remove handkerchief or notebooks from a keeper’s pocket and try to run away with them. This has been described independently in many dragons. A large adult Nile softshell turtle at the same zoo, given a basketball, repeatedly and for years, would bang it around his tank. A large Nile crocodile liked to chase and attack a large ball attached to a rope thrown around and pulled by a keeper outside his large naturalistic enclosure. Great white sharks will do something similar. Several species of fish push around balls and balance them on their snouts, knock around a bottom weighted thermometer, or cavort in bubbles in an airstream. A cichlid fish will engage in behavior with a larger less agile fish that looks, objectively, similar to what we would term teasing when seen in kids or even a dog. Immature spiders engage in mock courtship that actually enhances reproductive fitness in both sexes.

Play fighting is the well-studied type of play in animals and is the focus of literally hundreds of studies in laboratory rats. Comparable documented observations have been made of dart poison frogs, young turtles, some fishes, and also wasps. Octopuses have been documented performing complex manipulations with Lego blocks and using their water jet abilities to repeatedly “bounce” floating balls and even play splashing games with caregivers. Honey bees engage in practice take off behavior before their first successful flights. Freshwater stingrays are so attracted to balls that sink to the substrate that two will engage in a “game” of keep-away.

(https://iai.tv/articles/the-centrality-and-origins-of-play-auid-2095?utm_source=pocket_reader)

History

Where does play come from?

Gordon Burghardt:

"Play in non-human animals is generally categorized as locomotor play (jumping, leaping, twisting, swinging, running), object play (biting, mouthing, manipulating), and social play (chasing, wrestling). These are not completely independent as all three can occur at the same time when, for example, two dogs chase after an object, both grab it, and proceed to do a tug-of-war for possession.

Play has been recognized in non-human animals for many centuries, but the study of animal play, like so much animal behavior, really did not develop until after the writings of Charles Darwin and the rise of natural history, comparative psychology, and, in the early 20th century, ethology.

While some early authorities claimed that play occurred in a wide variety of animals, even crabs, ants, and fish, these were based on anecdotal evidence in the days before film and video documentation. With the rise of experimental psychology, play soon became identified as a phenomenon largely limited to humans and other “intelligent” mammals such as monkeys, apes, dogs, and cats. Behaviorists often viewed play as a subjective and anthropomorphic concept. By early in the 20th century play was viewed by many, especially educators, as existing in order to aid animals in learning how to survive in adulthood. Indeed, the view of Karl Groos, that play is a necessary means for animals to develop and perfect their instinctive behavior (finding food, fighting conspecifics, repulsing predators, courting and mating, building nests, etc.) became the major theoretical assumption. Associated with this was the position that the benefits of play are delayed until adulthood. Although play may appear to be fun or enjoyable, that was not where its meaning was to be sought.

Although there were some alternatives to this “play as practice for the future” view, such as those of the Freudians (e.g., Winnicott), the claim that play is linked to intelligence, large brains, and prolonged parental care seemed to support the practice-delayed benefits notion. True play was most common, if not exclusively, to be found in “higher” mammals. Other species’ playlike behavior was largely dismissed as misidentified or misfiring “instincts.” Even the acceptance of play in birds was suspect in authoritative writings into the 1980s. Robert Fagen, in his seminal 1981 volume on the biology of animal play, concluded that play occurred in some birds, but remained skeptical of play in non-warmblooded animals. He did advocate the view that play may have immediate benefits for animals, not just benefits delayed until adulthood and serious tasks in life. For example, he promoted the idea that juvenile play is important in the development of muscles, coordination, and physiological performance in general.

The problem remained, however, that none of these benefits, immediate or delayed, had any careful experimental support in either human or nonhuman animals of any species. It could be that the meaning of play lies elsewhere than in a stark utilitarianism or obvious appearing functionalism (play fighting leads to better fighting, play with objects in cats leads to better hunting ability, play with dolls leads to better mothering, etc.)."

(https://iai.tv/articles/the-centrality-and-origins-of-play-auid-2095?utm_source=pocket_reader)

The origins of play

Gordon Burghardt:

"As diverse as these examples are, it is important to note that most species in these and other groups have not been recorded as playing, nor do they all play in the same way or to the same extent. Social, locomotor, and object play are all very much found in humans and all primates. Other types of human play, such as construction, social-dramatic, language, pretense, and games are certainly more complicated, but rudimentary versions of all may be found in other species as well. The main point is that from an evolutionary perspective, play has originated numerous times in animals throughout evolutionary history and has altered course in many ways, even in the most playful mammals. Thus, adult play in monkeys can differ in type and amount dramatically even in closely related species. Furthermore, sex differences are pronounced in many species and these may themselves be related to evolutionary history and behavioral ecology including mating systems, foraging and fighting modes, type of predators and other dangers, amount and extent of parental care and protection, and so on. Thus, a satisfactory play ecology of humans needs to accommodate the basic evolved psychology of our species. Unlike many phenomena studied by evolutionary psychologists, however, play taps into ancient behavioral systems that manifest themselves in many species.

Another point derived from comparative studies is that the importance of play and its role in an animal’s life and development may differ greatly, even at the simple level of its causal mechanisms and developmental consequences. Such differences can even occur in the same species. I had difficulty handling such differences conceptually and theoretically until I realized that the mechanisms and consequences of play can be categorized into three groups, though, of course, in reality a continuum most likely exists. Thus, we can have primary process play that is somewhat atavistic and due to boredom, low behavioral thresholds, immature behavior, excess metabolic energy, and other factors with no necessary current or long-term effects, good or ill. Then, secondary process play can help maintain the condition of the animal physiologically, behaviorally, and perceptually. For example, physical exercise may be necessary for maintaining cardiovascular functioning and body flexibility, and mental games may aid in slowing the effects of senile dementia. Finally, there is tertiary process play that may be crucial for reaching developmental milestones, cognitive accomplishments, social skills, physical abilities, and creativity. The problem is that we do not yet know which play in human or non-human animals rightfully falls under which rubric and at which times in life. Nor do we know what specific consequences there are to different kinds of play. Do play fighting and competitive games foster war and aggression or a sense of fairness and the necessity of rule following? Such questions may not be easy to answer, but the field needs to keep an open mind on them and help provide answers and not accept assertions that fit our respective ideologies."

(https://iai.tv/articles/the-centrality-and-origins-of-play-auid-2095?utm_source=pocket_reader)