Talk:Play (activity)/Archive 1

Magic circle
The link to Magic Circle doesn't seem to make sense: Is there a lost article somewhere, that explains what Huizinga et al mean by magic circle?


 * I couldn't find one, so I removed the wikilink. Graham talk 06:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Magic Circle in Wiccan Traditions; Yantra in Sanatana Dharma; Mandala in Vajrayana, etc. ad infinitum NOW...
 * B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 10:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Definition
Defining play seems to be have been done better done in "toys", so i transferred it over to here. I have removed some weasel words, but there are still lots left.

The opening sentence is awful ("Play is a rite and a quality of mind in engaging with one's worldview.") Can we delete and use the second sentence as the opening sentence ("Play refers to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities that are normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment.") 38.96.137.87 (talk) 00:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Childhood and Play
Added section to cover play and children, at this stage not highly developed. Have found the book 'The Genius of Play' by Sally Jenkinson quite authoritative in relation to the relevance of play for children. Added a quote which may be seen to be too ambigious but hopefully which stimulates further development of this area. --Evolve2k 12:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Stevanne Auerbach has a book out, 'Smart Play Smart Toys,' in which she talks a lot about the relationship between play and toys. She says that toys should be assessed on the basis of their play value, and that they can be broken down into three main value categories, active, creative and educational. She has other interesting concepts too such as the parent really is the child's first big toy and should function as his or her play guide. She notes that play is the child's work, which made me think of the Mark Twain quotation in this article about play and work being the same activity--just described from different angles. I added a short paragraph about play therapy upon which she comments extensively. Dr.apricot 15:41, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

How do we include great info from another wiki page?
Early childhood education has a great section on the relevance of play to childhood, does someone with more wiki experience know how we should include this great cross relevant information there as well as here? Thanks --Evolve2k 13:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC) wat are the different types of play —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.59.63 (talk) 18:36, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Play in non-human animal species
It would be nice to have an expanded section on play in other animals, as there is an extensive literature on the subject, and my understanding is that it does differ fundamentally from play in humans. I would particularly like to see examples of play in non-human animals, and a breakdown of what animals truly engage in play - I have read that only mammals engage in true play behaviour, due to fundamental differences in neuroanatomy, but certainly many bird species also engage in play behaviour. QuinnHK 21:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I suppose this goes to the very heart of the question of what play is. A couple thoughts occurred to me when I was thinking about the "play fighting" mentioned in the article:
 * play seems to be an important part of development
 * play is a way to explore/model/experiment with real-life situations in a non-affective or "sandbox" context
 * Animals play-fight as a way to develop those skills in a way that mistakes aren't counted. Same with flirting in humans - it's a way to explore the possibilities of a relationship before committing fully to one.  Without prior play, it seems that a person or animal is unprepared to go jumping into the real-life situation.  Maybe the key difference is between the ability to engage in play as a purely developmental activity, or as a purely recreational activity (or maybe there's no way to be completely one or the other).  Just some thoughts 71.195.199.141 (talk) 07:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps not a expanded section but perhaps a new page Play(Animal) something like that because no dare say there's alot to write on how animals play and all the different types and ways and human version of playing you could write the games we play e.g tig ect. - Jonoridge


 * So something like Play (activity) and Play (animal behavior)? I've written a couple of new articles on animal behavior recently, so I could give it a shot when I have some time. There is a book on animal behavior by Dugatkin which devotes a full chapter to the subject, so with a little research as well it shouldn't be hard to put a quality article together. Richard001 09:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I envision that play is a Universal: in evidence refer lila. I appreciate the specialization of human specific and animal specific articles; but value the mutual intraspecies and interspecies dialogue that is evident within an inclusive article.


 * Namaste in Agape


 * Walking my talk in Beauty


 * B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 10:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is certainly a lot of overlap, but writing about a behavior in humans and animals in one article can be difficult. Compare human infanticide with infanticide in zoology for example. It might be better to get this messy thing into better shape first though and then assess whether splitting it would be the best option. Richard001 10:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Adults and Play
Do adults play? GOD 11:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you playing a game with us, asking such a question? ;) I'm missing a paragraph on adults' play, too, though. --Mudd1 09:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

E.G., blowjobs?
This seems like an unnecessarily crude way of putting it. Perhaps, "e.g., 'fooling around'" or "e.g., sexual forePLAY" would better convey the desired impression (without offending our more sensitive-minded readers)?

Agreed. It seems to just jump out and be crude almost for the sake of it. Shouting play in foreplay seems a better tack to take (this is not prudishness or blanking out the world of eroticism but it just doesn't seem to fit the discourse of the article) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.51.123 (talk) 09:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Play as rite
Just passing through and unable to fix it myself now, but I note that some of the material in the introduction at present doesn't make sense. What's with all these references to "rites"? Play doesn't have an inherently ritualistic element, nor does the linking through to process art make the definition any better. The rest of the intro looks fine, but the first sentence is terrible. Play engages "worldview"? Bizarrely disembodied. The material is there in the sections below, but it needs summarising more successfully. DionysosProteus (talk) 02:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree, and have written a new definition based on developmental psychologist, Catherine Garvey's thoughts on play. --Jcbutler (talk) 15:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Purpose of play
Though touched on, there does not seem to me to be enough explicit discussion of the role of play, especially in early cognitive development. There is good reason that all higher animals engage in play. It seems odd to mention researchers, such as Piaget, who studied the critical role of play in learning and then only mention in that sentence "human spirituality", which many of the named researchers did not study.--seberle (talk) 18:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Merger of "Play (animal behavior)" and "Play (activity)"
sorry, not yet familiar with the ways of wikipediea. i agree that animal and human play definitions should be the same(merged). as i see it, play differs from work only in consiquinces, sorry for bad spelling. play without question happens between different species. who has a dog? when you play catch, you are playing a game that the two species have developed over time for survival. you knock the target out of the sky or whatever, and the dog gets it and brings it back! nature is awesome! we did it together! but today, you buy alppo or sciencene diet or whatever, so you don't really need to have your dog fetch your dinner. just your slippers and newspaper. what a good boy! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sweetgum75 (talk • contribs) 03:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Considering that the merge request was filed several months ago and there have been no objections to it, I've acted boldly and performed the merge. I tried to move every piece of information from the animal behavior article into this one so there may be some redundant or undue portions. For this reason as well as a variety of grammar, spelling, and tone problems I noticed in this article, I have added a copyedit tag to the top of the article. If anybody wants to take a swing at cutting unnecessary material out or otherwise improving the article, please don't regard the condition I left it in as any indication that I think this is the ideal condition. Cheers, -Thibbs (talk) 16:17, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I also endorse this merge. Humans are animals. Human play is only a specific form of animal play. Both are voluntary intrinsically motivated activities that cause pleasure and that lead to learning. The wider variety of play activities enjoyed by humans than other animals relates to the human mind's capacity for higher learning, and not to some intrinsic difference between humans and animals. The split between these articles is arbitrary at best and seems unhelpfully anthropocentric. -Thibbs (talk) 14:46, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm... Let me amend that. I don't actually find this article to be excessively anthropocentric. Rather the animal behavior article is unhelpfully anthropo-exclusionary. The merge of that article into this is the proper direction to merge in my opinion. -Thibbs (talk) 15:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Basic issues
Well, I'm sorry I didn't see the discussion earlier, but one can't be everywhere. First of all, I think the merger between animal and human play was a mistake. Both are enormous topics, though one would never guess it from this page. Although human play is (in evolutionary terms) an extension of mammalian play, in practice it is quite different, mainly due to the huge effect of cultural factors in human behaviour.

The introduction and definition sections of the article have almost no relevance to animal play. The whole treatment of animal play is weak, as others have said. How can one write "it has been given comparatively little attention by scientists" when one doesn't know the literature? I know it's pointless to criticise, but one does need relevant knowledge to contribute on a scientific topic... There's no way it can be handled unless you have access to the one really large survey of the field, which is: There's nearly 700 pages, and even the appendices are mouth-watering: Appendix I: Representative definitions of play; Appendix II: Representative lists of characteristics of play... There are nine appendices. Also, (but not got by me yet) is:
 * Fagen, Robert 1978. Animal play behaviour. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-502761-2
 * Burghardt, Gordon M. 2006. The genesis of animal play: testing the limits. Bradford Books. ISBN 978-0262524698. That certainly sounds promising...

Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Play without rules?
In the "Forms of play" section it says:
 * "Structured play has clearly defined goals and rules; when this is the case, such play is called a "game". Other play is unstructured, without rules. Both types of play promote adaptive behaviors and mental states of happiness."

Did this mean to say "Other play is unstructured, without goals"?

Even animal play can be viewed as following rules, even if they are more genetically than culturally determined. I've never seen a definition of play not suggesting the presence of rules. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.80.123.46 (talk • contribs)
 * You are quite right, and, as it was unsourced, I simply removed the "without rules" part. Thank you for telling us!  Lova Falk     talk   07:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2018 and 10 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lihfrancisco. Peer reviewers: Lihfrancisco.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Homo Ludens
Yesterday when I saw your edit here I reverted you as, first, the citation indicates the book was published in 1955 and, second, changing dates and numbers without sources and without comment is a common form of sneaky vandalism. Today I saw you reverted me with the edit summary, "the Dutch original is from 1938." diff.

I've found a copy of the text online on Yale's website here. That copy says the first edition was "First published in German in Switzerland in 1944", which is not 1955, but also not 1938. Do you have a source for it being 1938? In the meantime I'll change it in the text to 1944 with an explanation. ~  ONUnicorn (Talk&#124;Contribs) problem solving 16:24, 3 June 2015 (UTC)