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From Egocentric to Cooperative Play in Young Children
From Egocentric to Cooperative Play in Young Children A Normative Study
Mary F. Whiteside, Ph.D., Fred Busch, Ph.D., and Thomas Horner, M.S.
Abstract. A naturalistic observational study was made of the recorded positive peer interactions in normal nursery school children aged I to 5 years. Six stages were described and assessed in regard to their interrelations with and contributions to the child's developing object relationships. Dimensions considered to be primary referents to the child's increasing internalization of self and object representations were: (I) the degree of interest expressed in the other child; (2) the degree to which the other child was allowed to influence his partner; and (3) the child's developing ego capacities.
With the increasing interest in the development of object relations, psychoanalytic theorists have tended to focus much of their attention on early family relations, especially those between mother and child. The extension of relationships outside the family into the world of peer interactions has been acknowledged as important, particularly when the child's failure to relate to peers signals developmental difficulties. However, because the role of peers has been viewed as being of secondary importance to the parental influences on the child, their critical impact upon the normal development of object relations has not been sufficiently discussed. The interactional task which the child must master with peers is different from that with adults in that peers provide unique avenues of gratification and a willingness to act in ways adults have long abandoned. At the same time peer interactions are particularly challenging because children are unpredictable, unskilled in providing strucThe authors are all associated with the Children's Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan Medical Cenler, Ann Arbor, Michigan. The project was made possible Iry the cooperation of the Child Psychoanalytic Study Program, Director: Humberto Nagera, M.D., of the Children's Psychiatric Hospital, whose support is gratq"ully achnowledged. Our thanhs also for their assistance to Mrs. Anita Miller, Brent Willoch, M.A., Miss Judith McKnight, and Miss Cecily Legg. Reprint' may be requested from Dr. WhiteJide, Children's Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, M148104.
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ture for a continuing interaction, and unlikely to take others into account. Nevertheless, the normal development of peer interactions reflects advancements in the same areas which are integral to development of other object relationships: the gradual integration and differentiation of internalized representations of self and object, increased ego capacities, changes in direction of libidinal satisfactions, and increasing store of environmental learning. Observations of the progression of early peer interactions from the virtual ignoring of other children to complex, mutually satisfying cooperation which provides the basis for friendship offer an especially rich opportunity to delineate the child's social capacities through each phase and to refine further our theoretical conceptualization of object relationship development. This sequence of development, along with those factors involved in its unfolding, is the main focus of our study. The psychoanalytic literature is surprisingly sparse in its review of the factors involved in this crucial development in object relationships. In fact, we have found only two psychoanalytic writers (Peller, 1954; A. Freud, 1965) who have attempted to put peer interactions within a developmental context. Peller (1954), in her discussion of the interdependence of libidinal and ego development in children's play, emphasizes that preoedipal play reflects only one relationship, i.e., that to the toddler's mother. Similarly, A. Freud (1965) sees the child as essentially asocial until the "helpmate" stage, only "enduring" contact with persons other than the mother. Achievement of the level of object constancy is seen as necessary before the child can separate from the mother in a way that allows him to reach out to new people. Although both authors discuss the interrelations between id and ego factors in the movement toward companionship, their explication does not exhaust the possible contributions of structural determinants in this process. Our own observations of children playing together led us to believe that the stages described by A. Freud (1965) can be usefully elaborated in two ways. First, there is a need to acknowledge and to put into developmental context very early interest in other children seen at times when the child is not separated from his mother. This interest in other children occurs as early as the first year and develops alongside the child's mastery of the more basic task of consolidation of object constancy. Secondly, we found it necessary to subdivide the stages in order to reflect in more detail the child's developing internalization of self and object representations. In pursuing the developmental psychology literature, we found a
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surpnsmg paucity of studies exploring developmental factors in early peer interactions. Although those studies done remain entirely on a descriptive level, interesting normative guidelines emerge. A number of studies show that between the ages of 2 and 5 years, there is a dramatic increase in the number of interactions between children, accompanied by a decrease in dependent contacts with adults (Raph et aI., 1968; Heathers, 1955; Stith and Connor, 1962). Furthermore, there are clear indications that during this time period interactions between children move from relatively simple forms of relating (looking, parallel play) to much more complex forms involving reciprocal interactions (Parten, 1932; Washburn and Hilgard, 1934; Barnes, 1971). While early cooperative interactions between younger children have been noted, upon closer observation these usually turn out to be of an egocentric nature (Isaacs, 1933; Murphy, 1937). Piaget (1945) views this egocentricity as reflecting the child's level of cognitive development at that stage. He regards the appearance of collective symbolism, sometime after the age of 4, as a necessary transition from egocentricism to reciprocity. The role of a child's feeling about himself in affecting the degree of responsiveness to another's needs is noted both by Murphy
(1937) and by Ames (1952). Murphy observed that variations in a child's level of egocentricity are related both to the situation with which he must cope and to fluctuations in his positive self-feeling. Ames suggests that her observations of children's verbalizations and "sociality" from age 18 months through 5 years reflect progressive consolidation and strengthening of the child's sense of self. However, in her discussion she confounds the concept of a sense of self, referring to internalized self representations (which one would expect to become progressively more differentiated and consolidated), with the equally important concept of feelings about self. In sum, it is well established that cooperative interchanges among children do not suddenly emerge, but rather are the result of a series of steps in a complex interplay of many developmental factors, taking place slowly over time. Consideration of this development within the broader context of maturing object relationships entails analysis not only of the achievement of lasting attachments to primary objects, carrying with it positive feelings about self, the expectation of gratifying contacts with others, and the ability to master disappointments, but also of the development of increasingly complex cognitive skills, successful development of ego capacities, and the resultant differentiation and consolidation of self and object mental representational structures.
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In the belief that the developmental sequence of early peer interactions could be more fully delineated along these lines, we undertook a program of systematic observations within the normal toddler and nursery school programs of the Child Psychoanalytic Study Program at Children's Psychiatric Hospital. We studied the positive peer interactions which occurred when the children were in small groups with a minimum of adult structuring, covering the age span in which peer relationships became gradually more important. Through concomitant study group discussions we organized our observations under categories representing stages which we believed reflected distinct changes in the child's developing object relationships. The following represents our definitions of each stage with a delineation of the typical patterns of interaction seen. METHOD
Subjects
Th.e children studied were from four normal toddler and nursery school classes. The population was an .educationally skewed one, with a large percentage of families having at least one member associated with a large university as an educator, researcher, or graduate student. The toddler program consisted of two separate groups of children each with 6 children. The junior toddlers, 2 girls and 4 boys, ranged in age from 1;3 to 1;8 years at the time the study began. The senior toddler group, also 2 girls and 4 boys, ranged in age from 2 to 2;7 years. The toddlers came with their mothers twice a week for I Y2 hours. The groups were offered as an opportunity for parents to have their children meet and play with other children, while also giving the parents an opportunity to exchange ideas and frustrations around raising a toddler-aged child. A staff member functioned in the group as a facilitator whenever needed by children or parents. The nursery school program consisted of two groups of children, with 10 children in each group. Each group met five times a week for 2Y2 hours. The morning nursery consisted of children who were 3 to 3Y2 years of age at the beginning of the study, 5 girls and 5 boys. The afternoon nursery included children who were 4 to 4Y2 years of age, 5 girls and 5 boys. Each nursery class had two teachers, and the classes functioned with a program typical of an individually oriented nursery school program. All the parents who brought their children to the program were aware of the fact that while we were offering a service to families in the community, we
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using the groups for research and
Procedure
To minimize our effect on the flow of children's behavior and to be free to follow sequences of behavior uninterrupted, we defined the observational role in the toddler and nursery groups as that of nonparticipant observers, that is, we participated as little as possible in the active functioning of the groups, and attempted to keep to an observer model as strictly as possible. Except for the final observational stage, the task we set ourselves was to obtain a descriptive narrative of the events in the sequence they occurred, including a detailed account of the verbal and nonverbal behavior of an individual child as well as all of his interactions with others in the room and as many of the contextual events as possible. Notes were taken during observation periods, and detailed accounts were dictated immediately afterward. Impressions and interpretations of the behavior were included after the descriptive account. For approximately 10 months, 6 Y2-hour observations were made per week in the toddler and nursery groups by five observers. Weekly meetings of the research group were devoted to discussions of the observations in terms of methodological and content issues. As the focus of the project narrowed, the method of observation shifted from (I) the recording of critical incidents (50 Y2-hour observations) in which the observer recorded all incidents of peer interaction occurring in the group during an observation period; through (2) 70 observations of 5 minutes each, in which individual children were chosen randomly, followed for 5 minutes, and the behavior used to define a category system representing the range of peer interactions; to (3) coding (75 observations) in which we continued to observe randomly individual children for 5-minute periods, but the observations were broken into 3D-second intervals and the observations coded according to the category system that had been developed in the previous observational period. I In sum, the observational data gathered in the first two phases were used to delineate the unfolding stages of interactive play in the age range studied and to formulate what we felt were a few of the critical underlying dimensions necessary for the observed sequence to occur. The third stage constituted simply a more rigorous check on our impressions of the sequential appearance of stages and on the frequency distribution of behavior from various stages at a given I
Reliabilily figures for coding and observalions are presenled in Whileside (1975).
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age. Evidence for the ordering of stages came from (1) the age at which a behavior was first seen in a child's repertoire of social skills and (2) the changing proportions of category frequency for the different age groups. Each child engaged in a wide variety of interactive behaviors in anyone observational period. Among these interactions were a high frequency of encounters at the levels comfortably mastered, and a few encounters reflecting the highest level his current skills allowed. Thus, a stage does not mean that the child acted only on that level, but rather that the proportion of time spent in earlier forms of interaction decreases. Although for the group as a whole one would be able to place normative chronological age expectations on the achievement of a given stage, within the group the developmental variation was very striking. For each child it was clear that the level of peer interactions observed reflected his development along a number of dimensions. If he had not mastered early developmental tasks, he was not able to interact with peers at the expected level.
STAGES OF INTERACTIVE PLAY
Solitary PLay In our observations of the youngest group of children, we noted that the predominant form of play was solitary play. These were periods in which the child was totally absorbed in his own activities with objects and positive interactions were primarily with ~is mother. As illustrated in the following, the child could be totally oblivious to other children. He protected his own property and occasionally rejected peaceful initiations from peers. Jason (I ;6) is sitting on the rug by himself engrossed in piling up blocks. Charles (1 ;8) and Sally (1 ;9) are running around the room. As Charles runs across the rug, he falls headlong over Jason, rolls over, and then continues the running game. Jason, in spite of quite a severe bump, makes no acknowledgment of Charles's presence and continues working in an absorbed manner. Similar to A. Freud's (1965) stage I, the child acts entirely in his own self-interest and reacts to other children's overtures as interruptions. The child's own initiations are very transient and are primarily play-object oriented. He will simply take what he wants from another with no concern as to the other's reactions. Typically,
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the activity engaged in bears no relation or resemblance to the ongoing activities of the children in the surrounding area. It is important to note, however, that engagement in solitary play does not in itself indicate anything about the child's level of ability to interact with others. Children of all ages devote some portion of their time to solitary pursuits. However, the proportion of time spent in this manner decreases markedly as the child begins to develop interests in peers. For example, in our final period of observation we found that the 2-year-old group of children (age range 1; 11 to 2;8) spent 43 percent of the observed time in solitary play, while the 4-year-old group (age range 4 to 4; 11) spent only 24 percent of their time in this manner. Looking
Although solitary play was the predominant form of play in the toddler group, we were also struck by the young toddler's high interest in other toddlers, manifested by intent looking. (In our behavioral description we distinguished between brief glances elicited by, for example, loud noises or changes in activities, and extended watching of other children for periods of at least 5 to 10 seconds.) Looking occurred 19 percent of the observed time in the 2-yearold group. While at times the interest was focused on the play object held by the other child, frequently we felt that looking manifested interest in a peer as another individual who was different and at times more interesting than his toy. In this context we note that Eckerman and Rheingold (1974), working in an experimental situation with 10-month-old infants, were able to demonstrate that infants preferred exploration of an unfamiliar person to that of an unfamiliar toy. In contrast to immediate physical contact with the toy, their response to the person was primarily visual regard and smiling. Such looking was frequent in all of our youngest toddlers, and at times was accompanied by social smiling. However, as illustrated in the following example, this first step in expression of interest was limited to merely looking until the child had achieved the capacity to engage in more meaningful and substantial interaction via advanced skills. Jason (l ;9) is moving a car up and down the slide, making happy noises. Saul (1 ;6) walks over and stands watching him, also making noises as if he were enjoying himself. Cindy (I ;6) comes up, watches a minute and pats her hands on top of the slide with a smile. At this point, another child wants to slide down, so Jason's mother intervenes, moving him away.
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This early mode of expression of interest quite likely serves a function as an important source of information about peers and also must help in mastery of initial anxiety over coming closer, becoming more directly involved. As Murphy (1962) has pointed out, looking commonly is an important adaptive response to a new situation. For many children it may comprise an important prerequisite to direct involvement. We have noticed that the frequency of looking is much higher early in group formation, that is, during the initial sessions when other children are strangers, unknown and unpredictable. Thereafter the frequency decreases as the children become more familiar with one another, the teacher, and the setup of the room itself. As with solitary play, it is important to note that looking occurs at all the ages observed by us. Confirming this, both Whiteside (1972) and Moeller (1974), when following individual children, ages 3 to 5 in the nursery school setting, found looking to be the most frequent single behavior for all the children sampled. For the older children, watching another child indicated definite interest, and often preceded direct involvement with or imitation of the other's activity. The range of kinds of looking included serious and intent watching and at other times included clearly vicarious participation (although with no direct involvement) accompanied by smiles, giggles, crying, shouts of encouragement, directions, and so on. When the ability to engage in more complex interactions developed in the older children, looking served an introductory, orienting phase, incorporated into an elaborate interactive sequence. Yet, even with the older children, when the threat of direct involvement was too great, they again retreated to a more distanced participation from the sidelines. Parallel Play
The third stage is that of parallel play, in which the child's activity is influenced by others around him, yet there is no direct interaction between the child and other children. Parten's (1932) definition of parallel play continues to be useful in describing behavior typical of this stage. It is quite likely that the child moves to parallel play after there have been periods of increasing proximity to another child. In our sample, brief episodes of parallel play were seen as early as age I Y2. However, parallel play did not occur frequently until the end of the children's second year. As with looking, the child is not directly interacting with the other, but there is no longer a psychological distance between them. There seems to be a feeling of "playing together" or "being beside" accompanying the
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similarity of actIvIty and the physical closeness. Direct acknowledgment of involvement can be seen either in an invitation to play together or, as in the following example, in the occasional exclusion of another child from their activity. David (2;2) and Sam (l; 10) are sitting at the table making the farm animals move around in and out of the barn. Each has his own door and there is no interaction, but also neither interferes with the other. Douglas (I ;4) walks up to the table and David moves the barn away from him, but continues to keep it in a place so that Sam may continue playing. Dou~las wanders away and the two boys continue playing with the anImals. In parallel play, the child can carryon with his own ideas and fantasy activity, projecting onto play materials without interference and with no demands to accommodate to another's wishes or demands. He does not have to acknowledge any difference in perspective between himself and his partner. From this point of view, he may see them as doing exactly the same thing. Such closeness without coordination is seen in the following example. Bill (2; II) sat on the 0001' beginning to work on a puzzle brought to him by his mother. Linda (2;5) sat down beside him, and both of them put in pieces. They did not exchange verbalizations nor consult each other on how to solve the puzzle. Instead, the pieces were placed in randomly, and at times each would rearrange what the other had done in trying to solve the puzzle. Linda, suddenly distracted by some other children in the hallway, got up and ran to watch them. Bill continued to work on the puzzle by himself.
In parallel play the necessity for skills such as delay of gratification, inhibition of one's own wishes, and realistic assessment of the other's needs is limited. The child can share materials as long as they are plentiful enough for both children to have what they want. He can be helpful only to the extent that his own experience is directly transferable to the other's situation. For example, one child may give another a glass of water for his paint brush once he has his own glass filled. However, within these constraints the child can still be "with" the other child. The limitations of the contact are clearly elucidated when there is any demand for more direct exchange. This is likely to lead to a breaking off of parallel activity, especially among younger, less socially mature toddlers. Without such interferences the "togetherness" may continue for extended periods of time, depending qn
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the child's ability to sustain attention and the strength of his interest in the task. Fleeting Contact
Muchmore direct, yet limited by its brevity, is the stage of fleeting contact. These contacts contain a clear invitation to interaction, yet as interactions they are not sustained beyond one- or two-step exchanges. The following example illustrates a desire to do something together on the part of both children, which neither can sustain. Steven (I ;9) is standing at the table looking at a book. Laura (I ;8) comes up and hands him a pan, saying, "Steve." He takes the pan and bangs it on the table. Laura goes back to the sink. Steven follows her and puts the pan in the sink, standing beside her. They both pretend to drink out of the sink. Laura makes a noise, looking at him, and holds up the teapot for him to drink. Steven, however, does not respond to her, takes the pan, and goes to the mirror to look at himself. Laura then runs across the room. Such brief interactions were seen as early as age I Y2 in our sample, but remain infrequent until the beginning of the children's third year. Common overtures include giving something to another, briefly showing off, and "pseudoadult" overtures which are imitative of familiar exchanges with adults. Often the activities are of the nature of simultaneous or sequentially imitative exchanges of affectively charged body actions, reflecting the toddler's investment in action for its own sake as well as immediate discharge of impulse into action. For example, two children might exchange grimaces, repeatedly dissolving into peals of laughter; one child may hand a series of plates to the other to drop on the floor, and so on. Whereas looking and parallel play indicate social interests which are not yet amplified by active involvement, fleeting contacts comprise the first instances in which the child actively seeks involvement with peers. However, the brevity of the interaction precludes much influence on the child's actions or perceptions by the other. In these contacts, after making the overture, the child acts as though he as yet has no conceptualization of a reciprocal response. He does not respond to the other child's reactions as if he understood the message and its relation to the other's different perspective; moreover, he is not yet able to handle a response which he does not expect. Frequently the interest in the other is also flee-
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ting-a brief contact is sufficient. Repetitive sequences require no accommodation to the other, yet allow the pleasure of doing something together. Reciprocal exchange requires more complex representations of se1f-interacting-with-other than the toddler has yet achieved. On the other hand, we would not describe these fleeting interchanges as ones in which the other child is treated as a lifeless object, as in the second stage described by A. Freud (1965), despite the fact that the contacts are determined by seemingly momentary whims, with little expectation of response from others. Rather, we view these contacts as indications of active interest in others carried to the limit of the child's current capabilities. Rigid Contact
As fleeting contacts recur, there emerges a capacity for more sustained interaction, a capacity which reflects a growing interest in and need for peer involvement. In rigid contacts we see sustained activity between two children which is reciprocal to the extent that both are necessary in order to continue the activity. This is in contrast to parallel play, in which the activity is carried out sufficiently by only one child. However, the reciprocity is limited to task demands. In this sense, rigid contact is similar to the egocentric contact described by Isaacs (1933) and the helpmate stage described by A. Freud (1965). In our sample, we first observed incidents of rigid contact originated by a few nursery children in the first half of their third year. In rigid contact the child desires the other child's participation in a defined manner for which inanimate objects will not serve. The interaction is structured so that only particular aspects of the partner are responded to and allowed to influence the child's own activity. Insertion of too much input from the partner is actively resisted. If the activity itself ends, or if the other child does not go along (either because of alternative wishes or because of protests), the interaction is significantly interrupted or ceases. At this stage, the children find it hard to share and are only beginning to take turns spontaneously. They lack the skills both to solve their altercations and to maintain the other's attention when it begins to flag. The following examples illustrate the very domineering, controlling quality of the leader's stance, the inability to tolerate alternative suggestions, but also the complexity of the activity which can be sustained if the leader's ideas are followed. At Daniel's (4; I) invitation, Sylvia (3;3) begins chasing him around the wooden steps. Soon Jerry (3;7) joins them, all laugh-
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ing uproariously. Jerry grabs Daniel's shirt, saying, "I got you." Daniel answers, "No, only girls are supposed to get boys." They again begin running around the stairs until Daniel yells, "Stop! Stop! I'm the one in front!" Jerry says he can get in front of him. Daniel does not reply to this, except to say to Sylvia authoritatively, "Come on." She begins again to chase him around. As the play continues, when Sylvia begins to run aimlessly, Daniel quickly and firmly stops her and explains that she is supposed to chase him. When Jerry yells, "Stop!" or "Go!" Daniel ignores him, continuing to make sure he is in front and Sylvia is chasing him. Maryann (5; 1) has organized a game of musical chairs in which she lines up three other girls, and has them march behind her around some chairs. When she says, "Stop!" all are supposed to run for the chairs, sit down, and then wait for orders to begin again. After several rounds of this game, Cathy (4; 11) says, "Who wants to play something else? How about Cinderella?" A second girl says, "Yes," and Cathy immediately asks who wants to be the stepsisters. Maryann angrily protests and tries to get the girIs back mto the musical chairs game. When no one follows her orders, she stamps furiously out of the" room and sulks for several minutes. Interactions characterized by rigid contact allow the child to take hold of an interaction in a fashion not attained at the level of fleeting contacts. In rigid contacts the child is able to insert the other or himself into an interaction so that it may continue. His conception of the necessary interlocking roles is realistic, but the script is predetermined, allowing no flexibility or compromise. Accommodation of self to the other occurs only within a narrowly defined sphere. The child only minimally considers the other's point of view, essentially imposing his own ideas and fantasies onto the situation, but doing so in a manner which includes direct interaction. Plans are usually simple, consisting of familiar repetitive elements, easy to initiate and easy to coordinate. The need for control and the investment in maintaining the narcissistic stance are evident in the fury and disappointment expressed when the game is broken off. In sum, when entering rigid contact interactions, the child adheres to his own ideas about how the game or activity should proceed. He does not accommodate to the other's deviations because there remains inadequate conceptualization of the other's autonomy. The other is still an object engaged to fill narcissistic needs. Nevertheless, the wish to be with another child represents a partial shedding of the narcissistic position, and development
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seems to await the capacity to handle the complex exchanges required for sustained and reciprocal interaction. Associative Play
In associative play, the need to maintain control over the other child recedes and interest in the other predominates over interest in the activity per se. A Aexibility and decreasing protectiveness arise with a more secure self-structure. However, extensive reciprocity-acknowledgment of the other's needs and perspectiveremains limited even in interactions which are sustained for long periods of time. In interactions characterized as associative, two children play together with a general agreement (often tacit) as to goal or theme, but each follows primarily his own ideas, wishes, and rules. The other child is included and pathways continually cross, but there never occurs a working out of common ground rules, nor is there adherence to any mutually based script. One will modify what he is doing enough to sustain the interaction (e.g., borrowing, suggesting substitute objects, paying attention to the other's ideas or objections, asking permission, taking turns, sharing); however, the other's ideas are typically responded to in an associative manner, serving as a trigger for the child's own fantasy elaborations. Thus, inclusion of the other is frequently very agreeable yet not always "realistic" or "logical." In our sample, we observed children just beginning to participate in joint fantasy play around age 3 Y2. After age 4, extended associative play sequences predominated during free play time. Rigid contact fantasy play may be repetitive and simple in its plan; in associative play, by contrast, we see an imaginative story or role construction which is vivid and elaborated. This level of interaction has an outward appearance of cooperation and is often initially labeled as cooperative. More careful scrutiny of the interaction reveals that the degree of influence that one child exerts on the other with respect to making modifications in the other's activity is fairly low. There is a giving and receiving of directions, but this occurs with little in the way of relevant exactness or discrimination as to whether the child can hear or is paying attention to him. For example, one child may say, "Put the baby there"-with no indication of what "baby" refers to, no specification of "there," and an ignoring of the fact that the other child is halfway across the room. At the same time, the investment in the other's participation is very high. The threat, "You can't be my friend," can incite a great deal of anguish, crying, withdrawal, or furious counterthreat.
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During associative play, other children sometimes wander in and out of the play organization, a factor which illustrates the high degree of flexibility in the participants, and the lack of a consistent group structure. The geographic boundaries of the activity expand and shrink as the play changes complexion. Yet the communications between participants remain internally consistent with the common game; the participants do retain a visible (albeit loose) cohesiveness as the play proceeds. At this stage, the child possesses a sense of confidence with respect to novel acts that occur, and is able to express his ideas about what is going on. The child begins to learn how to keep the interactions going, awkwardly at first in terms of the logic of the transitions, yet persistently introducing new thematic material or reemphasizing old thematic material in an attempt to "keep things going." The following examples illustrate both the looseness of the logical connections between actions and the high investment in staying together. Donald (4;3) and Susan (4;6) are standing together at the sink. Donald has a rhinoceros and lion; Susan, a zebra and a giraffe. As they move the animals around in the sink, Susan says, "He wants to take a bath." Donald answers, "He can swim over to your house," and pushes his animals across the sink. "Here's your house," he says, as he lifts the animals into the second sink where the faucet is dripping. Susan follows and says, "He's thirsty," holding her animals' mouths to the drip. Donald says, "They only have little mouths so they have to drink this way," demonstrating another way to drink. Susan says, "We just ate dinner at your house." Donald answers, "You can sleep over at my house." Susan continues, "We're going to sleep. I'm going to get a cover." She walks around Donald and ~ets some paper towels. Donald follows, "We need a cover too, ' and gets some towels for himself. They put the towels over the animals lying on the counter. Their play continues in the same vein for over 10 minutes. Rick (3;7) watched Donald (4;3) go down the slide, then threw his two guns down, saying, "My gun fell in the water." He slid down, retrieved them, then watched Donald shooting into the mirror. Rick followed him, looking into the mirror, laughing excitedly and talking about guns falling in the water. Donald dropped his gun, and Rick imitated. After retrieving their guns, they began climbing up the slide. Rick climbed in front of Donald in such a way that Donald was pushed off. Donald laughed, saying that Rick had pushed him into the water. Rick said something to Marvin, standing near, implying that he and Donald
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were quite a unit. Once on the top of the slide, Donald began talking to the mirror again, and began kicking the guns off the jungle gym into the "water." Rick picked up the guns and returned them to Donald until the play was interrupted by Rick hurting himself sliding down the slide. Out of associative play emerges quasi friendship. Because of the primary interest in being with other children, preferences may crystallize so that two "friends" may stay together despite shifts in activities. They seek each other out and follow each other, although the level of interaction at any given moment may be at any of the levels described thus far. The important element, which has been absent previously, is that over time the child sustains contact with another specific child. It is a step toward the transition to a level where self-interests are balanced by object interests. Cooperative Play
In truly cooperative play, there exists on the part of the partICIpants agreement upon a shared goal and a pursuit of that goal in an interdependent fashion. Division of labor occurs, and the activity of one complements the other's. In cooperative play, the child's needs and wish for interaction with the other are blended with a new ability to coordinate plans and accommodate to deviations which arise within the interaction. In games, the rules are mutually accepted, and they maintain an objective quality beyond the immediate situation. Conversations are sustained, reciprocal, and have importance in their own right, independent of activity with objects. In our sample, incidents of cooperative play were just beginning to emerge as the child approached 5 years of age. Children playing cooperatively do not blithely accept idiosyncratic rules of action from their comrades; instead, there is a sense of objective order (whether reality-based or not) which must be attended to, and which is open to definition, argument, and revision. In addition, to a limited extent there is empathy for and attention paid to the other's point of view, feelings, and needs. At the same time, these characteristics are recognized as different from one's own. With increased abilities to delay, remember, predict, and understand realistic causal connections, the child is able to formulate a plan and communicate it to the others. As the plan unfolds, there is a checking of perceptions and a modification of actions for the mutual goal. Satisfaction is gained from the end product, rather than in action for its own sake.
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The following examples illustrate the investment in logic and the intolerance of impulsive action and idiosyncratic fantasy, as well as the delay of immediate gratification while working together within agreed-upon rules. Leonard (4; 10), Ross (4; 11), and Joey (4;7) were playing war with small cowboy and Indian toys on a structure they had constructed from blocks. The structure had two ramps, one for Indians and one for cowboys, and the game prescribed different actions for the Indians and the cowboys. All three boys were playing different parts in the war, and all adhered to the rules. As they were playing, Joey made a horse jump up the ramp. Leonard said he could not do that because horses don't jump. Joey asserted they did, and a discussion ensued about whether or not there were jumping horses in fact. After a while, Arnold (4; 10) came up and asked if he could play. Leonard answered, "No, because you won't put them in the right places. You'll get silly and knock them down." Arnold promised not to do that, and was allowed to join. Later, Arnold told Leonard, as they were acting out a furious battle, "You gotta do the part of he's dead. Got to do the dead part or else he will still be alive." Leonard agreed to the logic of this and played out the part of the Indian being killed. Ross (4;8) and Joey (4;4) are in the play area putting their heads through cardboard spaceman suits. Leonard (4;7) joins them and asks Joey, "Do you want to build a rocket?" Ross says, "O.K.," and Joey goes along too. Joey then directs the others, "We will have to build a capsule. The rocket blasts off from the capsule, so we have to build a capsule." Leonard says, "What will we ride on?" Joey answers something. Leonard clarifies, "I mean a rocket." Joey says, "Oh," and begins piling up some blocks. Ross says, "That looks like a rocket." Leonard picks up a block and asks Joey where it should ~o. Joey shows him where to put it and corrects him when it isn't In exactly the right place. Ross sits on the blocks, and Joey gets into the block carrier which they have backed up against the block structure. Leonard puts on another cardboard spaceman suit, while Joey tells him to hurry up. Once Leonard also sits on the blocks, they "blast off" for the moon, with a great deal of screaming and laughter. In sum, when the child achieves the stage of cooperative play, he has made impressive gains. He has moved from treating other children as self-objects (Kohut, 1971), to understanding and allowing perception of them as persons in their own right. The need for coordination with others in achieving certain ends is perceived and
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highly desired. The skills necessary to work interdependently are beginning to mature. The dominance of fantasy and idiosyncratic thinking is receding. In their place is solid investment in reality and attention to logic. Group rules and structure are beginning to predominate; within them, the child is more confident of his own ability to achieve satisfaction and to weather rebuff in his actions with others. DISCUSSION
Although the description of the stages of early interactive play forms only the first step in placing peer interactions into developmental perspective, two general referents to the child's increasing internalization of self and object representations were used in our delineation of stages. First, we noted the degree and quality of interest expressed by the child in other children. As the child is able to move from his totally narcissistic stance, increased interest is manifested in gradually more active involvement with others. At first this involvement presumes the presence of his mother and begins with interest at a distance; later it slowly progresses to physical closeness and "playing together." Direct exchange initially is brief, highly controlled, and occurs around play objects or activities engaged in for their own sake. We suggest that with increasing consolidation of the self, the child becomes more flexible in allowing his stance to be challenged, acknowledges differences in others, and begins to show investment in a specific other. Interaction with peers begins to supersede interest in the activity or play object per se. In Kohut's (1971) terms, early in the sequence the child treats his peers as "self-objects"-that is, he responds to the other child only in a way which fulfills his own needs. Although there is an acknowledgment of separateness, the child places his own definition on the situation and resists any obstacles to the carrying out of his desires. If necessary, he will abandon contact rather than give up what he wants. Through subsequent stages there is a gradual diminishing of this narcissistic stance, coinciding with increasingly complex realistic perception of the other and increasing investment in him. A second dimension, we believe, reflects both increased security stemming from consolidation of the self and a more realistic differentiation of the self from others-that is, the degree to which the real qualities of the peer are allowed to influence the child. At first, influence by the other child is minimal. The activities of two children playing together may be similar, but any intrusion into the
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child's fantasy leads to a breaking off of the activity. He has neither the conceptual skills nor the tolerance of what is experienced as an incursion by the partner to handle the challenge. Gradually, the realistic assessment of the peer widens in scope and the child is more able and willing to acknowledge his perspective. He can make compromises in order to maintain what is an increasingly important contact with peers. He begins to capitalize upon the inclusion of the other child in order to sustain more complex activities. As cooperation emerges, the child begins to take into account not only the necessity of complementarity of views between his partner and himself, but also an independent objective order-reality constraints which limit the freewheeling expression of associative fantasies. Essential to the unfolding of this sequence is the normal development of ego capacities. In order to include another in the performance of an activity the child must be able to delay gratification, to inhibit his own wishes, and to communicate clearly. Extended reciprocal interactions require the conceptual skills for the visualization of complementarity, memory, understanding of causal connections, and a realistic assessment of the characteristics of both the partner and the task. In addition, increased attention span, frustration tolerance, complexity of fantasy elaboration, investment in reality, ability to learn from experience, and so on, all clearly contribute to the cognitive tools necessary for the child's movement toward more complex peer interactions. Where the involvement dimension speaks to what the child wishes to do with others, ego skills influence what he is able to do with them. 2 It is clear even from the descriptive data that a careful assessment of a child's stage of peer interactions provides valuable information about his level of object relationships. This was particularly interesting when we contrasted the fairly complex interactions of a young toddler with his mother or teacher with the simple, brief contacts sustained with other toddlers. The contrast highlights not only the extra libidinal investment in mother, but also the extensive degree to which an adult adds structure, predictability, and continuity to an interaction with a child. In order to sustain more than brief contacts, the adults fill in the gaps of a continuing interaction that a child cannot yet provide alone. They interpret the child's unclear directives, give simple, repetitive, clear responses geared to the toddler's level of understanding, vary their actions to sustain easily diverted attention and interest, anticipate and avoid obstacles 2 We elsewhere have explored in greater detail the role of structural factors, cognitive and narcissistic development (Horner ct aI., 1975).
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to continuing the activity, and so on. When the interaction is between peers, both the child's limitations and his growing skills become much more evident. Not only is such assessment of the level of peer interactions useful theoretically, but it also has potential practicality as a diagnostic clue in such settings as nursery schools and day care centers. Here, early detection of potential disturbance can be extremely beneficial in facilitating preventive intervention. Although the stages described are only a small part of the child's growth toward mature object relationships and lasting intimacy, the mastery of this developmental task in the first 5 years is critical if the child is to be able to utilize peer contacts in a gratifying and growth-producing way during latency. While it is important to note the reliance upon development along a number of different dimensions for progress in peer relationships, it is also critical to record the substantial impetus to developing object relationship abilities and ego capacities which is gained from the increasing push for involvement with peers. SUMMARY
Naturalistic observation techniques were used to record the positive peer interactions in four nursery school groups. The subjects were 14 girls and 18 boys whose ages ranged from I to 5 years. Six stages in the development of cooperative play were described and discussed in terms of the degree of interest expressed in the other child, the degree to which the other child was allowed to influence his partner, and the development of ego capacities. The value of including assessment of a child's level of peer interactions in the delineation of developing object relationships was emphasized.
REFERENCES AMES, L. B. (1952), The sense of self of nursery school children as manifested by their verbal behavior.]. Gmd. Psychol.. 81: 193-232. BARNES, K. E. (1971), Preschool play norms. Droelpm. Psychol., 5:99-103. ECKERMAN, C. O. & RHEtNGOLD, H. L. (1974), Infants' exploratory responses to toys and people. Droelpm. Psychol., 10:255-259. FREUD, A. (1965), Normality and Pathology in Childhood. New York: International Universities Press. HEATHERS, G. (1955), Emotional dependence and independence in nursery school play.]. Gmet. Psychol., 87:37-57. HORNER, T. M., WHITESIDE, M. F., & BUSCH, F. (1975). The mutual inHuences of the positive cohesive self, mental representational structures, and interactive behavior in the child's involvement with peers. Int. Rev. Psychoanal. (in press).
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ISAACS, S. (\ 933), Social Develotmumt in Young Children. New York: Harcourt, Brace. KOHUT, H. (1971), The Aoolysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press. MOELLER, T. P. (1974), Cooperative behaviors of four-year-old girls in a nursery school setting. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan. MURPHY, L. B. (1937), Social Behavior and Child Personality. New York: Columbia University Press. - - - (1962), The Widening World of Childhood. New York: Basic Books. PARTEN, M. B. (1932), Social participation among pre-school children.]. Almonn. Psychol., 27:243-269.
PELLER, L. E. (1954), Libidinal phases, ego development, and play. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 9: 178-198. PIAGET, J. (1945), Play, Dream-I, and Imitation in Childhood. New York: Norton, 1951. RAPH, J. B., THOMAS, A., CHESS, S., & KORN, S. J. (\ 968), The inHuence of nursery school on social interactions. Amer.]. Orthopsychiat., 38: 144-152. STITH, M., & CONNOR, R. (1962), Dependency and helpfulness in young children. Child Develpm., 33: 15-20. WASHBURN, R. W. & HILGARD, J. R. (1934), A quantitative clinical method of recording the social behavior of young children.]. Genet. Psychol., 45:390-405. WHITESIDE, M. F. (1972), An analysis of teacher-child interactions in the nursery school setting. Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, University Microfilms, No. 72-29, 235. - - - (\ 975), Activity level, maturity, and the development of peer interactions in nursery school (submitted for publication).
Mary F. Whiteside, Ph.D., Fred Busch, Ph.D., and Thomas Horner, M.S.
Abstract. A naturalistic observational study was made of the recorded positive peer interactions in normal nursery school children aged I to 5 years. Six stages were described and assessed in regard to their interrelations with and contributions to the child's developing object relationships. Dimensions considered to be primary referents to the child's increasing internalization of self and object representations were: (I) the degree of interest expressed in the other child; (2) the degree to which the other child was allowed to influence his partner; and (3) the child's developing ego capacities.
With the increasing interest in the development of object relations, psychoanalytic theorists have tended to focus much of their attention on early family relations, especially those between mother and child. The extension of relationships outside the family into the world of peer interactions has been acknowledged as important, particularly when the child's failure to relate to peers signals developmental difficulties. However, because the role of peers has been viewed as being of secondary importance to the parental influences on the child, their critical impact upon the normal development of object relations has not been sufficiently discussed. The interactional task which the child must master with peers is different from that with adults in that peers provide unique avenues of gratification and a willingness to act in ways adults have long abandoned. At the same time peer interactions are particularly challenging because children are unpredictable, unskilled in providing strucThe authors are all associated with the Children's Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan Medical Cenler, Ann Arbor, Michigan. The project was made possible Iry the cooperation of the Child Psychoanalytic Study Program, Director: Humberto Nagera, M.D., of the Children's Psychiatric Hospital, whose support is gratq"ully achnowledged. Our thanhs also for their assistance to Mrs. Anita Miller, Brent Willoch, M.A., Miss Judith McKnight, and Miss Cecily Legg. Reprint' may be requested from Dr. WhiteJide, Children's Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, M148104.
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ture for a continuing interaction, and unlikely to take others into account. Nevertheless, the normal development of peer interactions reflects advancements in the same areas which are integral to development of other object relationships: the gradual integration and differentiation of internalized representations of self and object, increased ego capacities, changes in direction of libidinal satisfactions, and increasing store of environmental learning. Observations of the progression of early peer interactions from the virtual ignoring of other children to complex, mutually satisfying cooperation which provides the basis for friendship offer an especially rich opportunity to delineate the child's social capacities through each phase and to refine further our theoretical conceptualization of object relationship development. This sequence of development, along with those factors involved in its unfolding, is the main focus of our study. The psychoanalytic literature is surprisingly sparse in its review of the factors involved in this crucial development in object relationships. In fact, we have found only two psychoanalytic writers (Peller, 1954; A. Freud, 1965) who have attempted to put peer interactions within a developmental context. Peller (1954), in her discussion of the interdependence of libidinal and ego development in children's play, emphasizes that preoedipal play reflects only one relationship, i.e., that to the toddler's mother. Similarly, A. Freud (1965) sees the child as essentially asocial until the "helpmate" stage, only "enduring" contact with persons other than the mother. Achievement of the level of object constancy is seen as necessary before the child can separate from the mother in a way that allows him to reach out to new people. Although both authors discuss the interrelations between id and ego factors in the movement toward companionship, their explication does not exhaust the possible contributions of structural determinants in this process. Our own observations of children playing together led us to believe that the stages described by A. Freud (1965) can be usefully elaborated in two ways. First, there is a need to acknowledge and to put into developmental context very early interest in other children seen at times when the child is not separated from his mother. This interest in other children occurs as early as the first year and develops alongside the child's mastery of the more basic task of consolidation of object constancy. Secondly, we found it necessary to subdivide the stages in order to reflect in more detail the child's developing internalization of self and object representations. In pursuing the developmental psychology literature, we found a
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surpnsmg paucity of studies exploring developmental factors in early peer interactions. Although those studies done remain entirely on a descriptive level, interesting normative guidelines emerge. A number of studies show that between the ages of 2 and 5 years, there is a dramatic increase in the number of interactions between children, accompanied by a decrease in dependent contacts with adults (Raph et aI., 1968; Heathers, 1955; Stith and Connor, 1962). Furthermore, there are clear indications that during this time period interactions between children move from relatively simple forms of relating (looking, parallel play) to much more complex forms involving reciprocal interactions (Parten, 1932; Washburn and Hilgard, 1934; Barnes, 1971). While early cooperative interactions between younger children have been noted, upon closer observation these usually turn out to be of an egocentric nature (Isaacs, 1933; Murphy, 1937). Piaget (1945) views this egocentricity as reflecting the child's level of cognitive development at that stage. He regards the appearance of collective symbolism, sometime after the age of 4, as a necessary transition from egocentricism to reciprocity. The role of a child's feeling about himself in affecting the degree of responsiveness to another's needs is noted both by Murphy
(1937) and by Ames (1952). Murphy observed that variations in a child's level of egocentricity are related both to the situation with which he must cope and to fluctuations in his positive self-feeling. Ames suggests that her observations of children's verbalizations and "sociality" from age 18 months through 5 years reflect progressive consolidation and strengthening of the child's sense of self. However, in her discussion she confounds the concept of a sense of self, referring to internalized self representations (which one would expect to become progressively more differentiated and consolidated), with the equally important concept of feelings about self. In sum, it is well established that cooperative interchanges among children do not suddenly emerge, but rather are the result of a series of steps in a complex interplay of many developmental factors, taking place slowly over time. Consideration of this development within the broader context of maturing object relationships entails analysis not only of the achievement of lasting attachments to primary objects, carrying with it positive feelings about self, the expectation of gratifying contacts with others, and the ability to master disappointments, but also of the development of increasingly complex cognitive skills, successful development of ego capacities, and the resultant differentiation and consolidation of self and object mental representational structures.
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In the belief that the developmental sequence of early peer interactions could be more fully delineated along these lines, we undertook a program of systematic observations within the normal toddler and nursery school programs of the Child Psychoanalytic Study Program at Children's Psychiatric Hospital. We studied the positive peer interactions which occurred when the children were in small groups with a minimum of adult structuring, covering the age span in which peer relationships became gradually more important. Through concomitant study group discussions we organized our observations under categories representing stages which we believed reflected distinct changes in the child's developing object relationships. The following represents our definitions of each stage with a delineation of the typical patterns of interaction seen. METHOD
Subjects
Th.e children studied were from four normal toddler and nursery school classes. The population was an .educationally skewed one, with a large percentage of families having at least one member associated with a large university as an educator, researcher, or graduate student. The toddler program consisted of two separate groups of children each with 6 children. The junior toddlers, 2 girls and 4 boys, ranged in age from 1;3 to 1;8 years at the time the study began. The senior toddler group, also 2 girls and 4 boys, ranged in age from 2 to 2;7 years. The toddlers came with their mothers twice a week for I Y2 hours. The groups were offered as an opportunity for parents to have their children meet and play with other children, while also giving the parents an opportunity to exchange ideas and frustrations around raising a toddler-aged child. A staff member functioned in the group as a facilitator whenever needed by children or parents. The nursery school program consisted of two groups of children, with 10 children in each group. Each group met five times a week for 2Y2 hours. The morning nursery consisted of children who were 3 to 3Y2 years of age at the beginning of the study, 5 girls and 5 boys. The afternoon nursery included children who were 4 to 4Y2 years of age, 5 girls and 5 boys. Each nursery class had two teachers, and the classes functioned with a program typical of an individually oriented nursery school program. All the parents who brought their children to the program were aware of the fact that while we were offering a service to families in the community, we
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using the groups for research and
Procedure
To minimize our effect on the flow of children's behavior and to be free to follow sequences of behavior uninterrupted, we defined the observational role in the toddler and nursery groups as that of nonparticipant observers, that is, we participated as little as possible in the active functioning of the groups, and attempted to keep to an observer model as strictly as possible. Except for the final observational stage, the task we set ourselves was to obtain a descriptive narrative of the events in the sequence they occurred, including a detailed account of the verbal and nonverbal behavior of an individual child as well as all of his interactions with others in the room and as many of the contextual events as possible. Notes were taken during observation periods, and detailed accounts were dictated immediately afterward. Impressions and interpretations of the behavior were included after the descriptive account. For approximately 10 months, 6 Y2-hour observations were made per week in the toddler and nursery groups by five observers. Weekly meetings of the research group were devoted to discussions of the observations in terms of methodological and content issues. As the focus of the project narrowed, the method of observation shifted from (I) the recording of critical incidents (50 Y2-hour observations) in which the observer recorded all incidents of peer interaction occurring in the group during an observation period; through (2) 70 observations of 5 minutes each, in which individual children were chosen randomly, followed for 5 minutes, and the behavior used to define a category system representing the range of peer interactions; to (3) coding (75 observations) in which we continued to observe randomly individual children for 5-minute periods, but the observations were broken into 3D-second intervals and the observations coded according to the category system that had been developed in the previous observational period. I In sum, the observational data gathered in the first two phases were used to delineate the unfolding stages of interactive play in the age range studied and to formulate what we felt were a few of the critical underlying dimensions necessary for the observed sequence to occur. The third stage constituted simply a more rigorous check on our impressions of the sequential appearance of stages and on the frequency distribution of behavior from various stages at a given I
Reliabilily figures for coding and observalions are presenled in Whileside (1975).
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age. Evidence for the ordering of stages came from (1) the age at which a behavior was first seen in a child's repertoire of social skills and (2) the changing proportions of category frequency for the different age groups. Each child engaged in a wide variety of interactive behaviors in anyone observational period. Among these interactions were a high frequency of encounters at the levels comfortably mastered, and a few encounters reflecting the highest level his current skills allowed. Thus, a stage does not mean that the child acted only on that level, but rather that the proportion of time spent in earlier forms of interaction decreases. Although for the group as a whole one would be able to place normative chronological age expectations on the achievement of a given stage, within the group the developmental variation was very striking. For each child it was clear that the level of peer interactions observed reflected his development along a number of dimensions. If he had not mastered early developmental tasks, he was not able to interact with peers at the expected level.
STAGES OF INTERACTIVE PLAY
Solitary PLay In our observations of the youngest group of children, we noted that the predominant form of play was solitary play. These were periods in which the child was totally absorbed in his own activities with objects and positive interactions were primarily with ~is mother. As illustrated in the following, the child could be totally oblivious to other children. He protected his own property and occasionally rejected peaceful initiations from peers. Jason (I ;6) is sitting on the rug by himself engrossed in piling up blocks. Charles (1 ;8) and Sally (1 ;9) are running around the room. As Charles runs across the rug, he falls headlong over Jason, rolls over, and then continues the running game. Jason, in spite of quite a severe bump, makes no acknowledgment of Charles's presence and continues working in an absorbed manner. Similar to A. Freud's (1965) stage I, the child acts entirely in his own self-interest and reacts to other children's overtures as interruptions. The child's own initiations are very transient and are primarily play-object oriented. He will simply take what he wants from another with no concern as to the other's reactions. Typically,
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the activity engaged in bears no relation or resemblance to the ongoing activities of the children in the surrounding area. It is important to note, however, that engagement in solitary play does not in itself indicate anything about the child's level of ability to interact with others. Children of all ages devote some portion of their time to solitary pursuits. However, the proportion of time spent in this manner decreases markedly as the child begins to develop interests in peers. For example, in our final period of observation we found that the 2-year-old group of children (age range 1; 11 to 2;8) spent 43 percent of the observed time in solitary play, while the 4-year-old group (age range 4 to 4; 11) spent only 24 percent of their time in this manner. Looking
Although solitary play was the predominant form of play in the toddler group, we were also struck by the young toddler's high interest in other toddlers, manifested by intent looking. (In our behavioral description we distinguished between brief glances elicited by, for example, loud noises or changes in activities, and extended watching of other children for periods of at least 5 to 10 seconds.) Looking occurred 19 percent of the observed time in the 2-yearold group. While at times the interest was focused on the play object held by the other child, frequently we felt that looking manifested interest in a peer as another individual who was different and at times more interesting than his toy. In this context we note that Eckerman and Rheingold (1974), working in an experimental situation with 10-month-old infants, were able to demonstrate that infants preferred exploration of an unfamiliar person to that of an unfamiliar toy. In contrast to immediate physical contact with the toy, their response to the person was primarily visual regard and smiling. Such looking was frequent in all of our youngest toddlers, and at times was accompanied by social smiling. However, as illustrated in the following example, this first step in expression of interest was limited to merely looking until the child had achieved the capacity to engage in more meaningful and substantial interaction via advanced skills. Jason (l ;9) is moving a car up and down the slide, making happy noises. Saul (1 ;6) walks over and stands watching him, also making noises as if he were enjoying himself. Cindy (I ;6) comes up, watches a minute and pats her hands on top of the slide with a smile. At this point, another child wants to slide down, so Jason's mother intervenes, moving him away.
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This early mode of expression of interest quite likely serves a function as an important source of information about peers and also must help in mastery of initial anxiety over coming closer, becoming more directly involved. As Murphy (1962) has pointed out, looking commonly is an important adaptive response to a new situation. For many children it may comprise an important prerequisite to direct involvement. We have noticed that the frequency of looking is much higher early in group formation, that is, during the initial sessions when other children are strangers, unknown and unpredictable. Thereafter the frequency decreases as the children become more familiar with one another, the teacher, and the setup of the room itself. As with solitary play, it is important to note that looking occurs at all the ages observed by us. Confirming this, both Whiteside (1972) and Moeller (1974), when following individual children, ages 3 to 5 in the nursery school setting, found looking to be the most frequent single behavior for all the children sampled. For the older children, watching another child indicated definite interest, and often preceded direct involvement with or imitation of the other's activity. The range of kinds of looking included serious and intent watching and at other times included clearly vicarious participation (although with no direct involvement) accompanied by smiles, giggles, crying, shouts of encouragement, directions, and so on. When the ability to engage in more complex interactions developed in the older children, looking served an introductory, orienting phase, incorporated into an elaborate interactive sequence. Yet, even with the older children, when the threat of direct involvement was too great, they again retreated to a more distanced participation from the sidelines. Parallel Play
The third stage is that of parallel play, in which the child's activity is influenced by others around him, yet there is no direct interaction between the child and other children. Parten's (1932) definition of parallel play continues to be useful in describing behavior typical of this stage. It is quite likely that the child moves to parallel play after there have been periods of increasing proximity to another child. In our sample, brief episodes of parallel play were seen as early as age I Y2. However, parallel play did not occur frequently until the end of the children's second year. As with looking, the child is not directly interacting with the other, but there is no longer a psychological distance between them. There seems to be a feeling of "playing together" or "being beside" accompanying the
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similarity of actIvIty and the physical closeness. Direct acknowledgment of involvement can be seen either in an invitation to play together or, as in the following example, in the occasional exclusion of another child from their activity. David (2;2) and Sam (l; 10) are sitting at the table making the farm animals move around in and out of the barn. Each has his own door and there is no interaction, but also neither interferes with the other. Douglas (I ;4) walks up to the table and David moves the barn away from him, but continues to keep it in a place so that Sam may continue playing. Dou~las wanders away and the two boys continue playing with the anImals. In parallel play, the child can carryon with his own ideas and fantasy activity, projecting onto play materials without interference and with no demands to accommodate to another's wishes or demands. He does not have to acknowledge any difference in perspective between himself and his partner. From this point of view, he may see them as doing exactly the same thing. Such closeness without coordination is seen in the following example. Bill (2; II) sat on the 0001' beginning to work on a puzzle brought to him by his mother. Linda (2;5) sat down beside him, and both of them put in pieces. They did not exchange verbalizations nor consult each other on how to solve the puzzle. Instead, the pieces were placed in randomly, and at times each would rearrange what the other had done in trying to solve the puzzle. Linda, suddenly distracted by some other children in the hallway, got up and ran to watch them. Bill continued to work on the puzzle by himself.
In parallel play the necessity for skills such as delay of gratification, inhibition of one's own wishes, and realistic assessment of the other's needs is limited. The child can share materials as long as they are plentiful enough for both children to have what they want. He can be helpful only to the extent that his own experience is directly transferable to the other's situation. For example, one child may give another a glass of water for his paint brush once he has his own glass filled. However, within these constraints the child can still be "with" the other child. The limitations of the contact are clearly elucidated when there is any demand for more direct exchange. This is likely to lead to a breaking off of parallel activity, especially among younger, less socially mature toddlers. Without such interferences the "togetherness" may continue for extended periods of time, depending qn
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the child's ability to sustain attention and the strength of his interest in the task. Fleeting Contact
Muchmore direct, yet limited by its brevity, is the stage of fleeting contact. These contacts contain a clear invitation to interaction, yet as interactions they are not sustained beyond one- or two-step exchanges. The following example illustrates a desire to do something together on the part of both children, which neither can sustain. Steven (I ;9) is standing at the table looking at a book. Laura (I ;8) comes up and hands him a pan, saying, "Steve." He takes the pan and bangs it on the table. Laura goes back to the sink. Steven follows her and puts the pan in the sink, standing beside her. They both pretend to drink out of the sink. Laura makes a noise, looking at him, and holds up the teapot for him to drink. Steven, however, does not respond to her, takes the pan, and goes to the mirror to look at himself. Laura then runs across the room. Such brief interactions were seen as early as age I Y2 in our sample, but remain infrequent until the beginning of the children's third year. Common overtures include giving something to another, briefly showing off, and "pseudoadult" overtures which are imitative of familiar exchanges with adults. Often the activities are of the nature of simultaneous or sequentially imitative exchanges of affectively charged body actions, reflecting the toddler's investment in action for its own sake as well as immediate discharge of impulse into action. For example, two children might exchange grimaces, repeatedly dissolving into peals of laughter; one child may hand a series of plates to the other to drop on the floor, and so on. Whereas looking and parallel play indicate social interests which are not yet amplified by active involvement, fleeting contacts comprise the first instances in which the child actively seeks involvement with peers. However, the brevity of the interaction precludes much influence on the child's actions or perceptions by the other. In these contacts, after making the overture, the child acts as though he as yet has no conceptualization of a reciprocal response. He does not respond to the other child's reactions as if he understood the message and its relation to the other's different perspective; moreover, he is not yet able to handle a response which he does not expect. Frequently the interest in the other is also flee-
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ting-a brief contact is sufficient. Repetitive sequences require no accommodation to the other, yet allow the pleasure of doing something together. Reciprocal exchange requires more complex representations of se1f-interacting-with-other than the toddler has yet achieved. On the other hand, we would not describe these fleeting interchanges as ones in which the other child is treated as a lifeless object, as in the second stage described by A. Freud (1965), despite the fact that the contacts are determined by seemingly momentary whims, with little expectation of response from others. Rather, we view these contacts as indications of active interest in others carried to the limit of the child's current capabilities. Rigid Contact
As fleeting contacts recur, there emerges a capacity for more sustained interaction, a capacity which reflects a growing interest in and need for peer involvement. In rigid contacts we see sustained activity between two children which is reciprocal to the extent that both are necessary in order to continue the activity. This is in contrast to parallel play, in which the activity is carried out sufficiently by only one child. However, the reciprocity is limited to task demands. In this sense, rigid contact is similar to the egocentric contact described by Isaacs (1933) and the helpmate stage described by A. Freud (1965). In our sample, we first observed incidents of rigid contact originated by a few nursery children in the first half of their third year. In rigid contact the child desires the other child's participation in a defined manner for which inanimate objects will not serve. The interaction is structured so that only particular aspects of the partner are responded to and allowed to influence the child's own activity. Insertion of too much input from the partner is actively resisted. If the activity itself ends, or if the other child does not go along (either because of alternative wishes or because of protests), the interaction is significantly interrupted or ceases. At this stage, the children find it hard to share and are only beginning to take turns spontaneously. They lack the skills both to solve their altercations and to maintain the other's attention when it begins to flag. The following examples illustrate the very domineering, controlling quality of the leader's stance, the inability to tolerate alternative suggestions, but also the complexity of the activity which can be sustained if the leader's ideas are followed. At Daniel's (4; I) invitation, Sylvia (3;3) begins chasing him around the wooden steps. Soon Jerry (3;7) joins them, all laugh-
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ing uproariously. Jerry grabs Daniel's shirt, saying, "I got you." Daniel answers, "No, only girls are supposed to get boys." They again begin running around the stairs until Daniel yells, "Stop! Stop! I'm the one in front!" Jerry says he can get in front of him. Daniel does not reply to this, except to say to Sylvia authoritatively, "Come on." She begins again to chase him around. As the play continues, when Sylvia begins to run aimlessly, Daniel quickly and firmly stops her and explains that she is supposed to chase him. When Jerry yells, "Stop!" or "Go!" Daniel ignores him, continuing to make sure he is in front and Sylvia is chasing him. Maryann (5; 1) has organized a game of musical chairs in which she lines up three other girls, and has them march behind her around some chairs. When she says, "Stop!" all are supposed to run for the chairs, sit down, and then wait for orders to begin again. After several rounds of this game, Cathy (4; 11) says, "Who wants to play something else? How about Cinderella?" A second girl says, "Yes," and Cathy immediately asks who wants to be the stepsisters. Maryann angrily protests and tries to get the girIs back mto the musical chairs game. When no one follows her orders, she stamps furiously out of the" room and sulks for several minutes. Interactions characterized by rigid contact allow the child to take hold of an interaction in a fashion not attained at the level of fleeting contacts. In rigid contacts the child is able to insert the other or himself into an interaction so that it may continue. His conception of the necessary interlocking roles is realistic, but the script is predetermined, allowing no flexibility or compromise. Accommodation of self to the other occurs only within a narrowly defined sphere. The child only minimally considers the other's point of view, essentially imposing his own ideas and fantasies onto the situation, but doing so in a manner which includes direct interaction. Plans are usually simple, consisting of familiar repetitive elements, easy to initiate and easy to coordinate. The need for control and the investment in maintaining the narcissistic stance are evident in the fury and disappointment expressed when the game is broken off. In sum, when entering rigid contact interactions, the child adheres to his own ideas about how the game or activity should proceed. He does not accommodate to the other's deviations because there remains inadequate conceptualization of the other's autonomy. The other is still an object engaged to fill narcissistic needs. Nevertheless, the wish to be with another child represents a partial shedding of the narcissistic position, and development
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seems to await the capacity to handle the complex exchanges required for sustained and reciprocal interaction. Associative Play
In associative play, the need to maintain control over the other child recedes and interest in the other predominates over interest in the activity per se. A Aexibility and decreasing protectiveness arise with a more secure self-structure. However, extensive reciprocity-acknowledgment of the other's needs and perspectiveremains limited even in interactions which are sustained for long periods of time. In interactions characterized as associative, two children play together with a general agreement (often tacit) as to goal or theme, but each follows primarily his own ideas, wishes, and rules. The other child is included and pathways continually cross, but there never occurs a working out of common ground rules, nor is there adherence to any mutually based script. One will modify what he is doing enough to sustain the interaction (e.g., borrowing, suggesting substitute objects, paying attention to the other's ideas or objections, asking permission, taking turns, sharing); however, the other's ideas are typically responded to in an associative manner, serving as a trigger for the child's own fantasy elaborations. Thus, inclusion of the other is frequently very agreeable yet not always "realistic" or "logical." In our sample, we observed children just beginning to participate in joint fantasy play around age 3 Y2. After age 4, extended associative play sequences predominated during free play time. Rigid contact fantasy play may be repetitive and simple in its plan; in associative play, by contrast, we see an imaginative story or role construction which is vivid and elaborated. This level of interaction has an outward appearance of cooperation and is often initially labeled as cooperative. More careful scrutiny of the interaction reveals that the degree of influence that one child exerts on the other with respect to making modifications in the other's activity is fairly low. There is a giving and receiving of directions, but this occurs with little in the way of relevant exactness or discrimination as to whether the child can hear or is paying attention to him. For example, one child may say, "Put the baby there"-with no indication of what "baby" refers to, no specification of "there," and an ignoring of the fact that the other child is halfway across the room. At the same time, the investment in the other's participation is very high. The threat, "You can't be my friend," can incite a great deal of anguish, crying, withdrawal, or furious counterthreat.
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During associative play, other children sometimes wander in and out of the play organization, a factor which illustrates the high degree of flexibility in the participants, and the lack of a consistent group structure. The geographic boundaries of the activity expand and shrink as the play changes complexion. Yet the communications between participants remain internally consistent with the common game; the participants do retain a visible (albeit loose) cohesiveness as the play proceeds. At this stage, the child possesses a sense of confidence with respect to novel acts that occur, and is able to express his ideas about what is going on. The child begins to learn how to keep the interactions going, awkwardly at first in terms of the logic of the transitions, yet persistently introducing new thematic material or reemphasizing old thematic material in an attempt to "keep things going." The following examples illustrate both the looseness of the logical connections between actions and the high investment in staying together. Donald (4;3) and Susan (4;6) are standing together at the sink. Donald has a rhinoceros and lion; Susan, a zebra and a giraffe. As they move the animals around in the sink, Susan says, "He wants to take a bath." Donald answers, "He can swim over to your house," and pushes his animals across the sink. "Here's your house," he says, as he lifts the animals into the second sink where the faucet is dripping. Susan follows and says, "He's thirsty," holding her animals' mouths to the drip. Donald says, "They only have little mouths so they have to drink this way," demonstrating another way to drink. Susan says, "We just ate dinner at your house." Donald answers, "You can sleep over at my house." Susan continues, "We're going to sleep. I'm going to get a cover." She walks around Donald and ~ets some paper towels. Donald follows, "We need a cover too, ' and gets some towels for himself. They put the towels over the animals lying on the counter. Their play continues in the same vein for over 10 minutes. Rick (3;7) watched Donald (4;3) go down the slide, then threw his two guns down, saying, "My gun fell in the water." He slid down, retrieved them, then watched Donald shooting into the mirror. Rick followed him, looking into the mirror, laughing excitedly and talking about guns falling in the water. Donald dropped his gun, and Rick imitated. After retrieving their guns, they began climbing up the slide. Rick climbed in front of Donald in such a way that Donald was pushed off. Donald laughed, saying that Rick had pushed him into the water. Rick said something to Marvin, standing near, implying that he and Donald
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were quite a unit. Once on the top of the slide, Donald began talking to the mirror again, and began kicking the guns off the jungle gym into the "water." Rick picked up the guns and returned them to Donald until the play was interrupted by Rick hurting himself sliding down the slide. Out of associative play emerges quasi friendship. Because of the primary interest in being with other children, preferences may crystallize so that two "friends" may stay together despite shifts in activities. They seek each other out and follow each other, although the level of interaction at any given moment may be at any of the levels described thus far. The important element, which has been absent previously, is that over time the child sustains contact with another specific child. It is a step toward the transition to a level where self-interests are balanced by object interests. Cooperative Play
In truly cooperative play, there exists on the part of the partICIpants agreement upon a shared goal and a pursuit of that goal in an interdependent fashion. Division of labor occurs, and the activity of one complements the other's. In cooperative play, the child's needs and wish for interaction with the other are blended with a new ability to coordinate plans and accommodate to deviations which arise within the interaction. In games, the rules are mutually accepted, and they maintain an objective quality beyond the immediate situation. Conversations are sustained, reciprocal, and have importance in their own right, independent of activity with objects. In our sample, incidents of cooperative play were just beginning to emerge as the child approached 5 years of age. Children playing cooperatively do not blithely accept idiosyncratic rules of action from their comrades; instead, there is a sense of objective order (whether reality-based or not) which must be attended to, and which is open to definition, argument, and revision. In addition, to a limited extent there is empathy for and attention paid to the other's point of view, feelings, and needs. At the same time, these characteristics are recognized as different from one's own. With increased abilities to delay, remember, predict, and understand realistic causal connections, the child is able to formulate a plan and communicate it to the others. As the plan unfolds, there is a checking of perceptions and a modification of actions for the mutual goal. Satisfaction is gained from the end product, rather than in action for its own sake.
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The following examples illustrate the investment in logic and the intolerance of impulsive action and idiosyncratic fantasy, as well as the delay of immediate gratification while working together within agreed-upon rules. Leonard (4; 10), Ross (4; 11), and Joey (4;7) were playing war with small cowboy and Indian toys on a structure they had constructed from blocks. The structure had two ramps, one for Indians and one for cowboys, and the game prescribed different actions for the Indians and the cowboys. All three boys were playing different parts in the war, and all adhered to the rules. As they were playing, Joey made a horse jump up the ramp. Leonard said he could not do that because horses don't jump. Joey asserted they did, and a discussion ensued about whether or not there were jumping horses in fact. After a while, Arnold (4; 10) came up and asked if he could play. Leonard answered, "No, because you won't put them in the right places. You'll get silly and knock them down." Arnold promised not to do that, and was allowed to join. Later, Arnold told Leonard, as they were acting out a furious battle, "You gotta do the part of he's dead. Got to do the dead part or else he will still be alive." Leonard agreed to the logic of this and played out the part of the Indian being killed. Ross (4;8) and Joey (4;4) are in the play area putting their heads through cardboard spaceman suits. Leonard (4;7) joins them and asks Joey, "Do you want to build a rocket?" Ross says, "O.K.," and Joey goes along too. Joey then directs the others, "We will have to build a capsule. The rocket blasts off from the capsule, so we have to build a capsule." Leonard says, "What will we ride on?" Joey answers something. Leonard clarifies, "I mean a rocket." Joey says, "Oh," and begins piling up some blocks. Ross says, "That looks like a rocket." Leonard picks up a block and asks Joey where it should ~o. Joey shows him where to put it and corrects him when it isn't In exactly the right place. Ross sits on the blocks, and Joey gets into the block carrier which they have backed up against the block structure. Leonard puts on another cardboard spaceman suit, while Joey tells him to hurry up. Once Leonard also sits on the blocks, they "blast off" for the moon, with a great deal of screaming and laughter. In sum, when the child achieves the stage of cooperative play, he has made impressive gains. He has moved from treating other children as self-objects (Kohut, 1971), to understanding and allowing perception of them as persons in their own right. The need for coordination with others in achieving certain ends is perceived and
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highly desired. The skills necessary to work interdependently are beginning to mature. The dominance of fantasy and idiosyncratic thinking is receding. In their place is solid investment in reality and attention to logic. Group rules and structure are beginning to predominate; within them, the child is more confident of his own ability to achieve satisfaction and to weather rebuff in his actions with others. DISCUSSION
Although the description of the stages of early interactive play forms only the first step in placing peer interactions into developmental perspective, two general referents to the child's increasing internalization of self and object representations were used in our delineation of stages. First, we noted the degree and quality of interest expressed by the child in other children. As the child is able to move from his totally narcissistic stance, increased interest is manifested in gradually more active involvement with others. At first this involvement presumes the presence of his mother and begins with interest at a distance; later it slowly progresses to physical closeness and "playing together." Direct exchange initially is brief, highly controlled, and occurs around play objects or activities engaged in for their own sake. We suggest that with increasing consolidation of the self, the child becomes more flexible in allowing his stance to be challenged, acknowledges differences in others, and begins to show investment in a specific other. Interaction with peers begins to supersede interest in the activity or play object per se. In Kohut's (1971) terms, early in the sequence the child treats his peers as "self-objects"-that is, he responds to the other child only in a way which fulfills his own needs. Although there is an acknowledgment of separateness, the child places his own definition on the situation and resists any obstacles to the carrying out of his desires. If necessary, he will abandon contact rather than give up what he wants. Through subsequent stages there is a gradual diminishing of this narcissistic stance, coinciding with increasingly complex realistic perception of the other and increasing investment in him. A second dimension, we believe, reflects both increased security stemming from consolidation of the self and a more realistic differentiation of the self from others-that is, the degree to which the real qualities of the peer are allowed to influence the child. At first, influence by the other child is minimal. The activities of two children playing together may be similar, but any intrusion into the
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child's fantasy leads to a breaking off of the activity. He has neither the conceptual skills nor the tolerance of what is experienced as an incursion by the partner to handle the challenge. Gradually, the realistic assessment of the peer widens in scope and the child is more able and willing to acknowledge his perspective. He can make compromises in order to maintain what is an increasingly important contact with peers. He begins to capitalize upon the inclusion of the other child in order to sustain more complex activities. As cooperation emerges, the child begins to take into account not only the necessity of complementarity of views between his partner and himself, but also an independent objective order-reality constraints which limit the freewheeling expression of associative fantasies. Essential to the unfolding of this sequence is the normal development of ego capacities. In order to include another in the performance of an activity the child must be able to delay gratification, to inhibit his own wishes, and to communicate clearly. Extended reciprocal interactions require the conceptual skills for the visualization of complementarity, memory, understanding of causal connections, and a realistic assessment of the characteristics of both the partner and the task. In addition, increased attention span, frustration tolerance, complexity of fantasy elaboration, investment in reality, ability to learn from experience, and so on, all clearly contribute to the cognitive tools necessary for the child's movement toward more complex peer interactions. Where the involvement dimension speaks to what the child wishes to do with others, ego skills influence what he is able to do with them. 2 It is clear even from the descriptive data that a careful assessment of a child's stage of peer interactions provides valuable information about his level of object relationships. This was particularly interesting when we contrasted the fairly complex interactions of a young toddler with his mother or teacher with the simple, brief contacts sustained with other toddlers. The contrast highlights not only the extra libidinal investment in mother, but also the extensive degree to which an adult adds structure, predictability, and continuity to an interaction with a child. In order to sustain more than brief contacts, the adults fill in the gaps of a continuing interaction that a child cannot yet provide alone. They interpret the child's unclear directives, give simple, repetitive, clear responses geared to the toddler's level of understanding, vary their actions to sustain easily diverted attention and interest, anticipate and avoid obstacles 2 We elsewhere have explored in greater detail the role of structural factors, cognitive and narcissistic development (Horner ct aI., 1975).
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to continuing the activity, and so on. When the interaction is between peers, both the child's limitations and his growing skills become much more evident. Not only is such assessment of the level of peer interactions useful theoretically, but it also has potential practicality as a diagnostic clue in such settings as nursery schools and day care centers. Here, early detection of potential disturbance can be extremely beneficial in facilitating preventive intervention. Although the stages described are only a small part of the child's growth toward mature object relationships and lasting intimacy, the mastery of this developmental task in the first 5 years is critical if the child is to be able to utilize peer contacts in a gratifying and growth-producing way during latency. While it is important to note the reliance upon development along a number of different dimensions for progress in peer relationships, it is also critical to record the substantial impetus to developing object relationship abilities and ego capacities which is gained from the increasing push for involvement with peers. SUMMARY
Naturalistic observation techniques were used to record the positive peer interactions in four nursery school groups. The subjects were 14 girls and 18 boys whose ages ranged from I to 5 years. Six stages in the development of cooperative play were described and discussed in terms of the degree of interest expressed in the other child, the degree to which the other child was allowed to influence his partner, and the development of ego capacities. The value of including assessment of a child's level of peer interactions in the delineation of developing object relationships was emphasized.
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ISAACS, S. (\ 933), Social Develotmumt in Young Children. New York: Harcourt, Brace. KOHUT, H. (1971), The Aoolysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press. MOELLER, T. P. (1974), Cooperative behaviors of four-year-old girls in a nursery school setting. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan. MURPHY, L. B. (1937), Social Behavior and Child Personality. New York: Columbia University Press. - - - (1962), The Widening World of Childhood. New York: Basic Books. PARTEN, M. B. (1932), Social participation among pre-school children.]. Almonn. Psychol., 27:243-269.
PELLER, L. E. (1954), Libidinal phases, ego development, and play. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 9: 178-198. PIAGET, J. (1945), Play, Dream-I, and Imitation in Childhood. New York: Norton, 1951. RAPH, J. B., THOMAS, A., CHESS, S., & KORN, S. J. (\ 968), The inHuence of nursery school on social interactions. Amer.]. Orthopsychiat., 38: 144-152. STITH, M., & CONNOR, R. (1962), Dependency and helpfulness in young children. Child Develpm., 33: 15-20. WASHBURN, R. W. & HILGARD, J. R. (1934), A quantitative clinical method of recording the social behavior of young children.]. Genet. Psychol., 45:390-405. WHITESIDE, M. F. (1972), An analysis of teacher-child interactions in the nursery school setting. Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, University Microfilms, No. 72-29, 235. - - - (\ 975), Activity level, maturity, and the development of peer interactions in nursery school (submitted for publication).