Fein, G. (1986).
The affective psychology of play.
In Gottfried, A. W. & Brown, C. C. (Eds.)
Play interactions: The contribution of play materials and parental involvement
to children's development.
Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Characteristics of pretend play:
- Referential freedom (i.e., mappings) = children use metacommunication to
orchestrate action. This ability illustrates children's developing representational
competence.
- Denotive license = loose relationship of play content with child's memories
of past experiences. Children create stories in play rather than engaging
in pure imitation. Fein asserts that script theory is not an adequate explanation
of play content because scenarios involve events and relationships never experienced
by the child. A pretend frame is used for pretense monitoring (Bateson, 1956).
- Affective relationships = play content has emotional content. There is not
much research pertaining to the function of affect in play. Affective themes,
however, may be used for executive emotional regulation.
- Sequential uncertainty = scenarios are repetitous but also shift to new
actions, settings, affects. Children use metacommunication to maintain collaboration.
Processing of scenarios is a bottom-up process: generate idea, begin to enact
it, let others follow. "one circumstance gave rise to another and the
play meandered through loosely connected notions about medical practices and
professional relationships between doctors, nurses, patients, and their parents."
pp. 42
- Self-mirroring = self in relation to others as constructed in play. The
individual views self as the core self and as the pretend self.
No theory addresses the occurrence of all of these features.
Pretense is counterfactual, affective and expressive, requires representational
systems to "detect, pick up, and hold vivid life experiences," need
a template of the self that mirrors the pretend self and gives conscious awareness
to the act of pretense.
A "theory of pretense needs to posit a system able to conserve, manipulate,
and reconstitute affective representations separated from those used in practical
affairs." pp. 45. There is an 'uncoupling' of real and pretend by the affective
representation system. Pretense occurs in a pretend frame.
"Affective templates may be mapped on to aspects of the immediate environment;
thereby yielding the referential freedom of pretense."
