Children Use Pretend Play to Deal with Bad-Tempered Playmates, New Study Suggests

A new study suggests children are more likely to present violent themes into their pretend play like imaginary fighting or killing, whenever they are with a playmate who peers consider as bad-tempered.

The University of Cambridge researchers believe this tendency for kids to present aggressive themes in these circumstances, which appear to occur whether they are personally easy to get angry, maybe due to their 'practicing' tactics to deal with their hot-headed peers.

The study result is based on observational research of over 100 school children in China. They were asked to play with toys in pairs.

According to research, kids whose play partners were regarded by their peers as bad-tempered "were 45 percent more likely to introduce aggressive themes" during their pretend play than those whose partners were known to be better when it comes to managing their temper.

Essentially though, the said study specified that the own temperament "did not predict the level of make-believe aggression. Instead, the participants frequently appeared to present these themes, particularly in response to playing with an irritable child.

Meaning, while many adults understandably discourage kids from pretend play that appears aggressive, it may help them grow socially and emotionally in certain conditions.

The study authors emphasized though that further study is needed before giving parents and practitioners definitive guidance.

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How 'Pretend Play' Helps Children

According to the Center for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge's Dr. Zhen Rao, "IF children have a friend" who quickly gets angry and specifically, if they have not dealt with it well with that behavior, it is likely of them to look for ways to discover it through pretend play.

This, Dr. Rao added, "Gives them a safe context in which to try out different ways" of managing difficult circumstances next time they crop up in reality.

Reports on this condition have said, aggressive pretend play has been the subject of substantial, more comprehensive research, much of which to understand if it forecasts similarly aggressive behaviors in real life.

Most of these studies, though, tend to concentrate on whether such links are associated with their temperament instead of the kids they play with.

Furthermore, the Cambridge research aimed to know further how far aggressive pretend play is linked to children's anger and play partner's expression.

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Analyzing Kids Through Toys They Were Asked to Play

In this study, children participants were asked to be in pairs with many of them, choosing friends. For 20 minutes, they were filmed while playing.

Each pair was given toys that were intentionally neutral in character. Children were not given any toy weapon, and they had the liberty to play with what they were provided however, they wanted.

The study authors then coded 10-minute samples of every pair in 120 five-segments, earmarking occurrences of "pretend play, aggressiveness themes, and non-aggressive negative themes."

Separately, researchers asked peers as well to rate the tendency of children to become angry. Each child from the 104 participants in the study was rated by, on average, 10 others, who were asked to decide if they were good at handling their temper, easily get angry, or "somewhere in between."

Furthermore, the scientists evaluated data using a statistical model known as an "Actor-Partner Independence Model," a medium that measures and tests the influence that two people have on one another.

This enabled them to work out how far kids played a particular way of their own preference, as well as how far their partner was influencing them.

Averagely, the study found, children spent just about one-fifth of the recorded session taking part in pretend play, of which roughly 10 percent involved aggressive themes, while eight percent involved non-aggressive negative themes.

All children in the study were observed to have done pretend play. More than 50 percent presented at least one aggressive pretend play incident, while more than 40 percent of the kids exhibited at least one occurrence of negative play pretend.

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