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The authors contend that many cognitive abilities and affective processes important in creativity also occur in pretend play and that pretend play in childhood affects the development of creativity in adulthood. They discuss a variety of theories and observations that attempt to explain the importance of pretend play to creativity. They argue that rigorous research supports the association between the two but note that experimental studies are difficult to conduct for a number of reasons. A few promising, well-done studies, they conclude, suggest that engaging in pretend play fosters the development of creativity. And they call for further research-correlational, experimental, and longitudinal-to focus on specific processes in both play and creativity. They suggest that large-scale, multisite studies planned by researchers from different perspectives would be optimal. Key words: affect in creativity; creativity: divergent thinking; pretend play
Pretend play is a creative act. In pretend play, we can observe the creativity as it occurs, minute by minute. Theorists and researchers in the fields of child development, child psychotherapy, creativity, personality, and evolution have reached the conclusion that pretend play and creativity are linked. We believe these researchers confirm the connection because pretend play affords children opportunities to express many different processes-cognitive, affective, and interpersonal-important for creativity.
Pretend play constitutes an open-ended event and serves as a tool that a child uses for a variety of creative purposes. She can use such play, for example, to manipulate objects, mental images, and representations; to compose stories; to explore an imaginary cave (or a real one); to rehearse for a trip to the hospital; to recall a memory with many imbedded emotions; and to express positive or negative affect. This variety of possibilities offers an advantage to an individual child, but it confounds the individual researcher. This very variety is one of the reasons for the scattered nature of research in the field of play and creativity: Different children use different processes in different ways to develop their creative potential.
Processes in Pretend Play and Creativity
What is pretend play? What is creativity? Both pretend play and creativity are multidimensional, and there are many similarities between the processes that occur in both of them (Russ 1993, 2004, 2014). Creativity researchers, beginning with Guilford in 1950, have identified...