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The house of make-believe: Play and the developing imagination
JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 13, 473-477 (1992)
B o o k Review
Imaginative Play Throughout the Lifespan SINGER, D.G., & SINGER, J.L. The House of Make-Believe: Play and the Developing Imagination. Cambridge,/VIA: Harvard University Press, 1990. Reviewed by Carollee Howes, University of California, Los
Angeles In The House of Make-Believe: Play and the Developing Imagination, Dorothy and Jerome Singer explore the origins and development across the lifespan of imaginative play. This book is a rare combination of delightful anecdotes, reminiscences, and a broad and detailed literature review of scientific studies. The Singers have drawn material from an impressive array of fields--anthropology, sociology, psychiatry, and psychology--to form an integrative model of the development of imaginative play. One of the many strengths of the book is the formation of links between early social play and games, friendships, daydreams, and imaginative activities in adolescence and adulthood. This book is divided into 11 discrete chapters. The first chapter provides a charming and insightful content analysis of autobiographies and biographies of famous writers, artists, and scientists focusing on themes of fantasy and creativity. A theoretical chapter places imaginative play in the context of cognitive-affective psychology. Four of the remaining chapters are devoted to particular developmental periods--infancy, preschool, middle childhood and adolescence, and adulthood. Three chapters discuss special topics in imaginative play. One of these chapters focuses on imaginary playmates and imaginary worlds, a second on relations between cognitive and affective development and imaginative play, and a third on plays as therapy. Finally, two chapters are concerned with the contexts of imaginary play: play environments and television-viewing. The autobiographical and biographical data in this book are presented as clinical data and as illustrative stories to support and confirm the Singers' thesis that make-believe and imaginative behaviors form an important and underlying element of human development. They serve well to point out the lifespan nature of imaginary play. For example, an autobiography and a biography of Edith Wharton describe her childhood love of a secret place in her family home where she would go to dream and fantasize with her life-long love of "making up stories." Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Carollee Howes, GraduateSchool of Education, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Universityof California, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1521. 473
474
HOWES
The book is a model for lifespan developmental psychology. One of the guiding principles of developmental psychology is that some phenomena or constructs assume different forms, but maintain continuity of function across developmental periods. To study such phenomena requires not only establishing that there is continuity across time, but that the way you have selected to measure the phenomena at each time point is valid. The Singers, in The House of MakeBelieve, have met each of these criteria. Evidence is provided through careful examination of the cognitive, affective, and social strands that comprise imaginative play, as well as through a remarkable number of short- and long-term longitudinal studies for the continuity of imaginative play through infant, toddler, preschool, middle childhood, and adolescent periods of development. Simultaneously, within each developmentally focused chapter, the Singers map out relations between the form of imaginative play representative of the period and other developmental domains. The Singers use a broad definition of imaginative play--the moving away in perception and thought, and at times in action, from the concrete to the possible. This definition encompasses the sensory motor play of infants, the language play and beginnings of symbolic play of toddlers, the elaborate pretend play of preschoolers, imaginary playmates and imaginary worlds of middle childhood and preadolescence, and adolescent and adult daydreams and fantasy thinking. By using such a broad definition, the Singers are open to the criticism that they have simply redefined a number of developmental phenomena as imaginary play. The Singers do not attempt to refute this critique empirically. Rather, they have relied on their own work, some of it unpublished, and have reviewed a vast array of work from several disciplines. Thus, the strength of their argument lies within the persuasiveness of the review. The book is extremely well written and thus the argument is extremely persuasive. However, I would be better persuaded if the Singers had posed alternative hypotheses and the evidence to accept or discount them. I would also have been better persuaded if more details of empirical studies had been presented. There is a tendency, and one that Singers occasionally fall into, for believers in play to be crusaders and true believers. This is especially true in the applied area of early childhood education where you are either for play or for academics. I can imagine that the crusaders for play will find much to like in this book. While I believe that play does belong in the classroom, I also believe that we need more carefully executed empirical studies to support this belief system. The Singers have only taken us part of the way in this direction. A strength of The House of Make-Believe is that a single developmental phenomena is placed within a comprehensive view of development. Pretend play has traditionally been studied by researchers whose primary fields of concentration are cognitive development, social development, and affective development. At various times imaginative play has been seen as belonging to one of these
IMAGINATIVE PLAYTHROUGHOUTTHE LIFESPAN
475
fields and it is rare for researchers to acknowledge that the phenomena might just well be studied through the lens of another area. In contrast, the Singers have drawn literature from all three areas to form an integrative theory of the development of imaginative play. Despite this broad conceptualization of imaginative play within the context of cognitive, social, and affective development, the Singers view the phenomena as essentially a solitary or individual activity of the child or adult. Recent work on mother-child, sibling, and peer social pretend play suggests that the content as well as the structure of social pretend is constructed as a social activity. In this view the play partners share their nonliteral meanings and negotiate the form and content of the play. Within the Singer model, there appears to be much imaginative activity that is never shared and instead, social pretend play almost appears as a collective monologue. Each engages in internal imaginative play that is not necessarily shared with others. For example (p. 203), in one anecdote, a child sets up a fun house for his friends and then imagines that he is in an amusement park watching them. In this example there is no sense of a shared or collective fantasy. This distinction between imaginative play as a social or solitary activity is not a trivial one. In my own work I have considered the capacity to exchange pretend roles, to form shared meta-cognitions about pretend play, and to maintain complex shared pretend play as a marker of social competence with peers. The key to competence is the capacity to communicate a fantasy to another and to modify the personal fantasy in order to create a shared fantasy. We find that preschool children who engage in this shared and complex pretend play also receive high scores on other measures of social competence. Within our developmental psychology research tradition there is increasing concern for the child rejected by peers. Rejected children appear at risk for a later number of social problems including school failure and dropout, delinquency, and mental health problems. Rubin and Lollis (1988) have suggested that one of the pathways toward peer rejection is withdrawal from the peer group. If children as preschoolers or young elementary school students withdraw from peers they are likely to miss out on learning some of the social skills, for example, teasing, conflict resolution, and group entry strategies, that are unique to and learned within peer interaction. Without these skills these children may end up being rejected by peers. I suspect that for some children a rich solitary fantasy life may predispose them towards withdrawing from peers. Internal fantasies may be more interesting than struggling to integrate these fantasies with the more mundane fantasies of others. Alternately, a child who withdraws from the sometimes rough and unpleasant world of peers may find solitary fantasy a positive alternative. As researchers, teachers, and clinicians, we are challenged to find the appropriate interventions in these cases. For some children faced with difficult peer groups,
476
HOWES
social withdrawal and solitary fantasy may be a good coping strategy. Adults may need to help other children learn ways of communicating and modifying their individual fantasies in order to become part of the social group. The Singers have not limited themselves to viewing imaginative play through a European-American perspective or through research based on white, middleclass, American samples. Instead, their data base is broad and includes materials from diverse cultures and social classes. For example, the Singers find commonalities between the finger plays and simple toys of the New Zealand Maori and European and American rhymes and marble games. This broad and diverse perspective is particularly impressive due to the lack of readily available crosscultural and cross-class studies of the development of play. I have only one criticism of this vast array of diverse references. The references are found in notes rather than APA style, requiring the reader to constantly move back and forth between the text and the notes. A final strength of The House of Make-Believe is in the chapters on application. Child-care teachers and providers, elementary school teachers, and therapists would all find useful suggestions within this book. Many of the teachers we encounter in our studies in child-care settings appear to believe that pretend play is an important part of child development but that it is independent of adult activity. We rarely observe teachers setting the stage for play by providing materials or suggestions. We almost never see teachers entering into the child's world of make-believe. Integrating materials such as those provided by the Singers into teacher training programs would be advantageous. Some of the suggestions for creating an environment for imaginative play will be familiar to students of pretend play. For example, the Singers review studies that suggest that reading to children and controlling their television watching is linked to the development of imagination. However, the basis of the Singers' chapter on application is Carl Rodger's theory of constructive creativity. This will be more novel for readers. The Singers review studies suggesting that an important aspect of enhancing imaginary play is providing psychological safety and psychological freedom for the child. Finally, the Singers suggest that adults must first feel comfortable about their own fantasy skills before they attempt to engage in make-believe with a child. Certainly, it is difficult to argue against any of these suggestions. I can imagine that any family or child-care arrangement would benefit from adults enacting these recommendations. However, the emphasis on adult-child interaction is consistent with the Singers' emphasis on the individual child rather than on shared fantasy among children. It is consistent with this point of view that the Singers explicitly discuss and in very positive terms, home schooling as a means of enhancing imaginative behavior free from outside pressures. In The House of Make-Believe the Singers have not only generated basic theory and research but have also begun the task of translating theory into practice. The book is dense and at times makes complex reading. However, the
IMAGINATIVE PLAYTHROUGHOUTTHE LIFESPAN
477
diverse array o f material and the wonderful tone o f the book will keep the reader fascinated.
REFERENCE Rubin, K., & Lollis, S. (1988). Origins and consequences of social withdrawal. In J. Belsky & T. Nezwarski (Eds.), Clinical implications of attachment (pp. 219-252). Hillsdale~ NJ: Erlbaum.
B o o k Review
Imaginative Play Throughout the Lifespan SINGER, D.G., & SINGER, J.L. The House of Make-Believe: Play and the Developing Imagination. Cambridge,/VIA: Harvard University Press, 1990. Reviewed by Carollee Howes, University of California, Los
Angeles In The House of Make-Believe: Play and the Developing Imagination, Dorothy and Jerome Singer explore the origins and development across the lifespan of imaginative play. This book is a rare combination of delightful anecdotes, reminiscences, and a broad and detailed literature review of scientific studies. The Singers have drawn material from an impressive array of fields--anthropology, sociology, psychiatry, and psychology--to form an integrative model of the development of imaginative play. One of the many strengths of the book is the formation of links between early social play and games, friendships, daydreams, and imaginative activities in adolescence and adulthood. This book is divided into 11 discrete chapters. The first chapter provides a charming and insightful content analysis of autobiographies and biographies of famous writers, artists, and scientists focusing on themes of fantasy and creativity. A theoretical chapter places imaginative play in the context of cognitive-affective psychology. Four of the remaining chapters are devoted to particular developmental periods--infancy, preschool, middle childhood and adolescence, and adulthood. Three chapters discuss special topics in imaginative play. One of these chapters focuses on imaginary playmates and imaginary worlds, a second on relations between cognitive and affective development and imaginative play, and a third on plays as therapy. Finally, two chapters are concerned with the contexts of imaginary play: play environments and television-viewing. The autobiographical and biographical data in this book are presented as clinical data and as illustrative stories to support and confirm the Singers' thesis that make-believe and imaginative behaviors form an important and underlying element of human development. They serve well to point out the lifespan nature of imaginary play. For example, an autobiography and a biography of Edith Wharton describe her childhood love of a secret place in her family home where she would go to dream and fantasize with her life-long love of "making up stories." Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Carollee Howes, GraduateSchool of Education, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Universityof California, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1521. 473
474
HOWES
The book is a model for lifespan developmental psychology. One of the guiding principles of developmental psychology is that some phenomena or constructs assume different forms, but maintain continuity of function across developmental periods. To study such phenomena requires not only establishing that there is continuity across time, but that the way you have selected to measure the phenomena at each time point is valid. The Singers, in The House of MakeBelieve, have met each of these criteria. Evidence is provided through careful examination of the cognitive, affective, and social strands that comprise imaginative play, as well as through a remarkable number of short- and long-term longitudinal studies for the continuity of imaginative play through infant, toddler, preschool, middle childhood, and adolescent periods of development. Simultaneously, within each developmentally focused chapter, the Singers map out relations between the form of imaginative play representative of the period and other developmental domains. The Singers use a broad definition of imaginative play--the moving away in perception and thought, and at times in action, from the concrete to the possible. This definition encompasses the sensory motor play of infants, the language play and beginnings of symbolic play of toddlers, the elaborate pretend play of preschoolers, imaginary playmates and imaginary worlds of middle childhood and preadolescence, and adolescent and adult daydreams and fantasy thinking. By using such a broad definition, the Singers are open to the criticism that they have simply redefined a number of developmental phenomena as imaginary play. The Singers do not attempt to refute this critique empirically. Rather, they have relied on their own work, some of it unpublished, and have reviewed a vast array of work from several disciplines. Thus, the strength of their argument lies within the persuasiveness of the review. The book is extremely well written and thus the argument is extremely persuasive. However, I would be better persuaded if the Singers had posed alternative hypotheses and the evidence to accept or discount them. I would also have been better persuaded if more details of empirical studies had been presented. There is a tendency, and one that Singers occasionally fall into, for believers in play to be crusaders and true believers. This is especially true in the applied area of early childhood education where you are either for play or for academics. I can imagine that the crusaders for play will find much to like in this book. While I believe that play does belong in the classroom, I also believe that we need more carefully executed empirical studies to support this belief system. The Singers have only taken us part of the way in this direction. A strength of The House of Make-Believe is that a single developmental phenomena is placed within a comprehensive view of development. Pretend play has traditionally been studied by researchers whose primary fields of concentration are cognitive development, social development, and affective development. At various times imaginative play has been seen as belonging to one of these
IMAGINATIVE PLAYTHROUGHOUTTHE LIFESPAN
475
fields and it is rare for researchers to acknowledge that the phenomena might just well be studied through the lens of another area. In contrast, the Singers have drawn literature from all three areas to form an integrative theory of the development of imaginative play. Despite this broad conceptualization of imaginative play within the context of cognitive, social, and affective development, the Singers view the phenomena as essentially a solitary or individual activity of the child or adult. Recent work on mother-child, sibling, and peer social pretend play suggests that the content as well as the structure of social pretend is constructed as a social activity. In this view the play partners share their nonliteral meanings and negotiate the form and content of the play. Within the Singer model, there appears to be much imaginative activity that is never shared and instead, social pretend play almost appears as a collective monologue. Each engages in internal imaginative play that is not necessarily shared with others. For example (p. 203), in one anecdote, a child sets up a fun house for his friends and then imagines that he is in an amusement park watching them. In this example there is no sense of a shared or collective fantasy. This distinction between imaginative play as a social or solitary activity is not a trivial one. In my own work I have considered the capacity to exchange pretend roles, to form shared meta-cognitions about pretend play, and to maintain complex shared pretend play as a marker of social competence with peers. The key to competence is the capacity to communicate a fantasy to another and to modify the personal fantasy in order to create a shared fantasy. We find that preschool children who engage in this shared and complex pretend play also receive high scores on other measures of social competence. Within our developmental psychology research tradition there is increasing concern for the child rejected by peers. Rejected children appear at risk for a later number of social problems including school failure and dropout, delinquency, and mental health problems. Rubin and Lollis (1988) have suggested that one of the pathways toward peer rejection is withdrawal from the peer group. If children as preschoolers or young elementary school students withdraw from peers they are likely to miss out on learning some of the social skills, for example, teasing, conflict resolution, and group entry strategies, that are unique to and learned within peer interaction. Without these skills these children may end up being rejected by peers. I suspect that for some children a rich solitary fantasy life may predispose them towards withdrawing from peers. Internal fantasies may be more interesting than struggling to integrate these fantasies with the more mundane fantasies of others. Alternately, a child who withdraws from the sometimes rough and unpleasant world of peers may find solitary fantasy a positive alternative. As researchers, teachers, and clinicians, we are challenged to find the appropriate interventions in these cases. For some children faced with difficult peer groups,
476
HOWES
social withdrawal and solitary fantasy may be a good coping strategy. Adults may need to help other children learn ways of communicating and modifying their individual fantasies in order to become part of the social group. The Singers have not limited themselves to viewing imaginative play through a European-American perspective or through research based on white, middleclass, American samples. Instead, their data base is broad and includes materials from diverse cultures and social classes. For example, the Singers find commonalities between the finger plays and simple toys of the New Zealand Maori and European and American rhymes and marble games. This broad and diverse perspective is particularly impressive due to the lack of readily available crosscultural and cross-class studies of the development of play. I have only one criticism of this vast array of diverse references. The references are found in notes rather than APA style, requiring the reader to constantly move back and forth between the text and the notes. A final strength of The House of Make-Believe is in the chapters on application. Child-care teachers and providers, elementary school teachers, and therapists would all find useful suggestions within this book. Many of the teachers we encounter in our studies in child-care settings appear to believe that pretend play is an important part of child development but that it is independent of adult activity. We rarely observe teachers setting the stage for play by providing materials or suggestions. We almost never see teachers entering into the child's world of make-believe. Integrating materials such as those provided by the Singers into teacher training programs would be advantageous. Some of the suggestions for creating an environment for imaginative play will be familiar to students of pretend play. For example, the Singers review studies that suggest that reading to children and controlling their television watching is linked to the development of imagination. However, the basis of the Singers' chapter on application is Carl Rodger's theory of constructive creativity. This will be more novel for readers. The Singers review studies suggesting that an important aspect of enhancing imaginary play is providing psychological safety and psychological freedom for the child. Finally, the Singers suggest that adults must first feel comfortable about their own fantasy skills before they attempt to engage in make-believe with a child. Certainly, it is difficult to argue against any of these suggestions. I can imagine that any family or child-care arrangement would benefit from adults enacting these recommendations. However, the emphasis on adult-child interaction is consistent with the Singers' emphasis on the individual child rather than on shared fantasy among children. It is consistent with this point of view that the Singers explicitly discuss and in very positive terms, home schooling as a means of enhancing imaginative behavior free from outside pressures. In The House of Make-Believe the Singers have not only generated basic theory and research but have also begun the task of translating theory into practice. The book is dense and at times makes complex reading. However, the
IMAGINATIVE PLAYTHROUGHOUTTHE LIFESPAN
477
diverse array o f material and the wonderful tone o f the book will keep the reader fascinated.
REFERENCE Rubin, K., & Lollis, S. (1988). Origins and consequences of social withdrawal. In J. Belsky & T. Nezwarski (Eds.), Clinical implications of attachment (pp. 219-252). Hillsdale~ NJ: Erlbaum.