Pretend play, creativity, and emotion regulation in children.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine relationships among pretend play, creativity, emotion regulation, and executive functioning in children. Pretend play processes were assessed using the Affect in Play Scale (APS), which measures children's cognitive and affective processes, such as organization of a plot or use of emotions. Sixty-one female participants, in kindergarten through fourth grade, were assessed using the APS to measure pretend play ability, a divergent thinking task (the Alternate Uses Test), a storytelling task to assess creativity, a measure of executive functioning (the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, Short Form; WCST-64), and parent report on the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC). Using correlational analyses, pretend play significantly related to creativity as measured by divergent thinking and storytelling, and related to emotion regulation. Affect expression in play was significantly related to affect expression in storytelling suggesting cross-situational stability. Divergent thinking ability was significantly related to creativity in storytelling. In general the magnitudes of the correlations were of medium effect size. No significant relationships were found with executive functioning. The results of this study support theories that suggest play, creativity, and emotion regulation are linked.

Feasibility of online divergent thinking assessment

“…Many recent laboratory studies of creativity (Fink, Grabner, Benedek, & Neubauer, 2006;Hoffmann & Russ, 2012;Russ & Schafer, 2006;Silvia et al, 2008) focus on the AUT. In addition to that task, some studies have also used the Wallach and Kogan (1965) instances task to assess verbal divergent thinking (Benedek, Jauk, Sommer, Arendasy, & Neubauer, 2014;Benedek, Mühlmann, Jauk, & Neubauer, 2013).…”

Assessing the Relationship Between Youth Sport Participation Settings and Creativity in Adulthood

“…In this sense, a neighborhood stickball game affords the context through which children might imagine themselves as Major League Baseball players competing in the World Series. Within this type of fantasy play, children are able to engage in the cognitive processes that facilitate the development of creativity through the integration of reality and imagination, a notion supported by Hoffmann and Russ (2012), who found a significant relationship between forms of pretend play and creativity as measured via divergent thinking and storytelling.…”

The relationship between creativity, social play, and children's language abilities

“…For example, Hoffman and Russ' (2012) correlational study on pretend play, divergent thinking, storytelling, emotion regulation, and executive functioning revealed that pretend play is associated with creativity in the forms of divergent thinking and storytelling. Their research also points to a positive relationship between affect and creativity.…”