The Connection of Play Activity and the Understanding of Emotions in Older Preschoolers

Play is traditionally associated with the emotions of a child, however, the results of research in this area are ambiguous. Available works are mainly concentrated in foreign sources since this topic is practically not studied in Russia. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap – to study the relationship between the play activities of preschoolers and their understanding of emotions. The hypothesis is that there is a direct connection between the level of development of pretend play for children 5-7 years old and their emotional development. To test the hypothesis, a modified method for evaluating play activity of L.B. Baryaeva and A.P. Zarin, as well as the Test for understanding emotions, were used. Play was evaluated twice, with a difference of 2 weeks, average scores were displayed. Emotion comprehension testing was carried out using the specially developed ChildStudy MSU computer program. The study was conducted in five kindergartens working under general education programs. The sample consisted of 50 children (21 girls, 42%), the age of the subjects ranged from 5 years 0 months to 7 years 5 months. As a result of the study, no correlations were found between scores on play activity and the understanding of emotions. Another noteworthy significant result is that children who correctly solve tasks for understanding mixed emotions have more complex creative play.

Introduction

In cultural-historical psychology and the activity approach, play activity is recognized as the leading activity in preschool age (L.S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonin, A.N. Leontiev, A.V. Zaporozhets, etc.). It harmoniously develops all spheres of a child's personality, forms the main new formations of age. Children's play affects the development of socio-communicative skills, arbitrariness, imagination, thinking and other cognitive functions. Many psychologists and teachers also consider play as a means of development and correction of the emotional sphere [2; 3; 7; 10; 11; 18; 22; 25; 34; 38]. Moreover, the idea of a connection between play and a child's emotions is so widespread abroad that attempts are being made to create standardized scales aimed at assessing the affective plane in play [16; 31]. Such scales have been used in some works investigating the links between the emotional plane and play [23].

However, the results of empirical works are not so unambiguous. In addition, studies concern various aspects of the child's emotional sphere, which includes, as is known, the direct experience of various emotions, the behavior stimulated by them, the ability of emotional self-regulation, and even an intellectual component in the form of the awareness of their experiences, the understanding of their causes and consequences [25], so it is important to consider various studies in this area, which reflect the contradictory data on the relationship of play with each of the aspects of children's emotional sphere.

The study of direct experiences in play is virtually unrepresented in contemporary literature, with the results of these rare works varying. Thus, the work of Z. Rao and J. Gibson showed that pretend play in pairs with peers enhances the manifestation of positive emotions in children [29], however, in a study by S.S. Fasikhah and T. Fatiyyah it was found that children often demonstrate mixed feelings in pretend and outdoor play [17].

The study of understanding emotions in connection with play also does not provide reliable data. As a result of a formative experiment by S. Richard et al. a significant effect of pedagogical support of children's play on their ability to name their emotions and an insignificant effect on their ability to recognize emotions was found [30]. At the same time, the lessons included the active labeling of their emotional states, which may have influenced the results of the study. A.L. Seja and S.W. Russ found a connection between the understanding of emotions and play, but emphasize that the correlations found are rather weak [32]. Smirnova et al. also found weak connections between the understanding of emotions and two parameters of play: children's play interaction and the detail of the game concept [9].

The results of studying the influence of play on children's emotional self-regulation also give a contradictory picture. Some works found a direct relationship between play skills and emotion regulation skills [19; 21]. In the work of K.T. Galyer and I.M. Evans, a relationship was found between the frequency of children's cooperative play with more experienced partners and the adaptive manifestation of affect and the awareness of their emotions in everyday interactions with other people; emotion regulation was found to be related more to the frequency of children's play than to its quality. T.R. Goldstein and M.D. Lerner found that through controlled dramatic pretend play children better cope with distress [20]. In L. Iswinarti's study, play with a rule that included an educational component in the form of adult feedback led to an increase in self-management skills and increased responsible decision making, but without the didactic role of an adult, no positive changes were observed [28]. Thus, adult-led play is a more effective means of developing self-regulation than non-adult-led play, something traditionally stated by Russian psychologists and which is the focus of attention of modern scholars studying children's play (see [6; 13; 14]). At the same time, some studies that do not include adult supervision, but are based on parental assessments of children's self-regulation, confirm the positive effect of pretend play. For example, a longitudinal study by M. Taylor et al. showed a connection between the complexity of pretend play and parental ratings of children's self-control after three years [35]. A similar result was obtained in a study by J. Hoffman and S. Russ, who found that pretend play was related to parental ratings of children's self-regulation, while measurement with other scales did not yield the same result [23].

Similar results were obtained in other works. In L. Isvinarti's work, playing without the educational role of an adult did not lead to the development of self-regulation [28]. As a result of the formative experiment of S. Richard et al. the ability to regulate emotions did not change in the course of lessons [30]. H. Petersen and M. Holodynski found no differences between children in and out of role: children in both groups were equally unable to contain their disappointment when they did not find a gift in the box, and when they found an unattractive gift, they lost their role [27]. A.K. Jaggy and I. Kalkusch found that training pretend play does not produce significant effects in the development of children's emotional skills [24]. G. Veiga studied a specific type of play, barely studied in Russia – rough-and-tumble play, and also found no connection between emotional self-regulation and play[1] [37].

In general, studies of the relationship between regulatory functions and play show conflicting results. For example, in the work of J. Hoffman and S. Russ, a good imagination and pretend play skills were not related to regulatory functions [23]. T.R. Goldstein and M.D. Lerner found no changes in the results of theory of mind tests in four-year-old children who participated in adult-controlled dramatic pretend play [20]. However, in the work of N.E. Veraksa et al. ambiguous results were obtained on the relationship between play and regulatory functions: some functions depended on the acceptance of a role (and in some cases the nature of the role was important, and in other cases it did not matter) [2]. At the same time, a study by R.B. Thibodeau-Nielsen et al. found a positive relationship between story play in the preschool age and regulatory functions in first grade [36]. A similar result was obtained in the work of R.H. Bauer and A.T. Gilpin, where links with cognitive skills were also found [15]. Finally, there is also no unanimity in the results of studies aimed at investigating the relationship between play and empathy, social skills. R. H. Bauer and A.T. Gilpin, as well as U. Gülden et al. found such links [15; 21]. In L. Isvinarti's study, playing with a rule under the guidance of an adult led to improvement in children's relationships, but without an adult such positive changes were not observed [28]. A.K. Jaggy and I. Kalkusch showed that the training of pretend play significantly increases children's social competence, their behavioral skills and positive relationships with peers [24]. In a study by G.R. Solikhah et al. it was shown how the organization of role play in a group of younger schoolchildren (7-8 years old) led to an increase in empathy, sympathy, mutual aid and cooperation, rule following, etc. [33]. However, as a result of the formative experiment by S. Richard et al. children's prosocial behavior did not increase [30]. T.R. Goldstein and M.D. Lerner also found no changes in altruism, empathy, or in helping behavior, although some trends in increasing positive social interaction among children were observed [20].

Such ambiguous results of different works lead some authors to say that research in this area is questionable. For example, A.S. Lillard believes that methodological limitations (e.g., small sample sizes and their non-randomness, researchers' interest in certain results, etc.) lead to the fact that empirical data is not as reliable as it may seem [26].

The extremely contradictory picture in the field of connection between play and the emotional sphere, as well as the weak development of this topic in Russian psychology determine the relevance of the present study aimed at studying the relationship between the play activity of older preschool children and their understanding of emotions. The choice of this age category is explained by the fact that by the age of 5 a child's play activity reaches its prime, and, consequently, the age influence factor (and insufficiently developed play in connection with it) can be removed. The choice of studying the connection of play specifically with the understanding of emotions is due to the availability of a standardized and adapted for Russia scale of the understanding of emotions [4].

The hypothesis of the present study is that there is a direct connection between the level of development of children's pretend play of 5-7 years old and their understanding of emotions.

Method

Research Site. The study was conducted in five different kindergartens working under general education programs of preschool education: "BOLSHIYEmalenkiye" (the "Berezka" program), "Grain Path" ("Berezka"), "Reggio-Ramenskoye" ("Reggio"), "SmartTim" ("The Golden Key"), "Kindergarten 444" ("From Birth to School"). The choice of these institutions is due to several reasons: they work under popular programs, and these programs differ significantly in their content, the conditions in them also differ significantly.

Sample. The sample consisted of 50 children (29 boys, 58% and 21 girls, 42%), the age of the subjects ranged from 5 years 0 months to 7 years 5 months (60 months to 90 months; M=76.7, SD=8.4). All children who were present in the group on the scheduled study day participated in the study. The small number of children in several kindergartens was due to the different age groups.

Table 1. The Characteristics of the Sample

Method. The following methods were used in the study:

1. Assessment of the level of children's play activity using adapted play monitoring by L.B. Baryaeva and A.P. Zarin.
2. Assessment of the level of development of children's understanding of emotions using the TEC test for understanding

Assessment of Children's Play. The assessment was carried out in order to study the level of children's play activity. L.B. Baryaeva and A.P. Zarin's monitoring was chosen for the assessment [1]. The examination plan proposed by these authors is very thorough and detailed, which allows for the most versatile assessment of children's play activities. At the same time, it is redundant for the purposes of this study, so it was significantly modified. As a result of discussion and approbation, only 15 parameters were left, organized into 5 blocks.

1. The "Subject Material of Play" block shows the presence of interest in plot, realistic toys or substitute objects, the ability to create objects necessary for play from improvised materials. There is only one parameter in this block, which is due to the age of the children under study: object substitution at 5-7 years old should already be well developed.
2. The "Form of Play" block indicates the child's ability to play alone or in contact with others, as well as in a group. This block consists of the following parameters:

• solitary play,
• cooperative play with children,
• cooperative play with an adult,
• contact with peers during play,
• stability of play associations.

This block is presented in detail, as it is of special importance in the older preschool age: social relations become the main content of play at the age of 5.

3. The "Level of Play" block reflects the richness of play actions and play plot, the ability to assume roles in the game. This block consists of the following parameters:

• content of play actions,
• presence of a problem situation in play and attempts to solve it,
• attitude towards the role in play,
• creativity in creating play.

4. The "Quality of Interaction" block reflects the ability to initiate the game independently and respond to the initiative of another, the ability to discuss and plan the game, as well as the extensiveness of role speech. This block consists of the following parameters:

• initiative in play,
• responsiveness in play,
• ability to coordinate their own actions with the actions of a partner in play,
• means used to interact with a partner in play.

5. The "Affective Material of Play" block shows the presence of different emotions and states in the game, reflects how wide of a range of emotions the child plays through.

For each parameter a child can get from 0 to 5 points, which reflects the stages of development of children's play skills throughout preschool age.

Monitoring procedure. The monitoring was conducted in 2 stages.

The first stage was joint. Before the first observation the observer came to a group and met the children. When the children stopped being shy and paying attention to him and started to play, the observer together with the teacher conducted an observation of each child under study. Based on the results of a discussion, the joint assessment was entered into the first monitoring table. The second stage was the stage of the independent work of the teacher. For the duration of two weeks, the teacher could gradually enter data on children's play independently.

Thus, 2 scores for all play parameters were obtained for each child, between which the average scores were calculated and used for further analysis. The mean scores for the blocks and the mean score for the game were also derived and used for analysis.

Understanding of Emotions by Children. The emotional development of children was studied through the cognitive component – the understanding of emotions. The measurement was carried out with the help of a standardized test aimed at studying the understanding of emotions - TEC (Test of Emotion Comprehension). This technique was chosen due to the fact that it is standardized in different countries. In Russia, this method was tested on a sample of 596 children of 5-6 years old in 2019-2020 by N.E. Veraksa et al. [4].

The merits of this method also include the fact that it is quite simple to apply, but at the same time it allows us to assess several components and a number of individual indicators of the understanding of emotions.

According to the methodology, emotion understanding includes 3 components, each of which consists of 3 indicators:

1. External Causes: This component contains the following indicators:

• Recognition of emotions (reflects the ability to recognize and name emotions),
• external causes (reflects the understanding that emotions can be caused by external situations),
• desires (different people may experience different emotions in the same situation).

2. Mental Causes:

• beliefs (emotions can be influenced by beliefs),
• memories (emotions can be influenced by memories),
• hidden emotions (discrepancy between real emotions and their manifestation).

3. Reflection:

• emotion regulation (emotions can be controlled),
• mixed emotions (one can experience contradictory emotions in one situation),
• moral emotions (emotions can be influenced by moral norms).

For each component, the scores range from 0 to 3. To determine the overall level of the understanding of emotions, the scores for all components are summarized. The minimum score is 0 and the maximum score is 9.

Testing was carried out with the help of the specially developed ChildStudy MSU computer program ("Test of Emotion Comprehension" complex), which shows pictures and asks questions. Each child was asked individually to answer the questions and click on the "next" button for the next question to appear. The results were automatically recalculated by the program and uploaded to a spreadsheet.

Mathematical processing of the data was carried out using the IBM SPSS Statistics: 28.0.1.1 program.

Results

Assessment of Play

It was found that children of the whole sample had slightly lower scores for almost all blocks of the game - 3-4 points on average for each, which is insufficient for older preschoolers (should be 4-5 points) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Results of play activity

Analysis using Spearman's correlation coefficient showed that age is associated with only one block on the assessment of play - "Form of Play" (r=0.315, p=0.026).

Table 2. Correlation of Age with Play Observation Parameters

Notes. * - p≤0.05; ** - p≤0.001.

Gender differences were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney test. Differences were found for three of the four parameters of the "Level of Play" block, with girls having higher mean scores for all of these parameters:

• "Content of Play" - 4 vs. 4.6 (U=454.5, p=0.002);
• "Attitude Towards the Role" - 3.2 vs. 3.9 (U=429, p=0.013);
• "Creativity" - 3.6 vs. 4.8 (U=458, p=0.002).

Assessment of the Understanding of Emotions

The comparison of scores obtained for different TEC components shows that the best developed component in children is "Understanding of Emotions Caused by External Causes": children show the highest results for this component (Fig. 2). The results for the "Reflection of Emotions" component are worse - children mostly received 1-2 points out of a possible three. Children solved tasks for the "Mental Causes" component the worst - an average of 1 point.

Fig. 2. Results on the Test of Emotion Comprehension

The overall ability to understand emotions was slightly lower than it should be at this age - 4.74 integral points (it should be 5-6) [4].

The Relationship Between Play and the Understanding of Emotions

The analysis using Spearman's correlation coefficient revealed no significant correlations between TEC scores and observational scores on play, either with total scores or with individual blocks and parameters.

Table 3. The Relationship Between Play and the Understanding of Emotions

The Mann-Whitney test was also used to analyze the groups of children who correctly and incorrectly solved various TEC tasks in connection with their scores on the game. Differences were obtained between these groups for only one task, “Understanding Mixed Emotions”: children who solved this task correctly (24 individuals, 48%) had higher mean scores on the “Creativity” parameter (M=4.25) than children who solved this task incorrectly (26 individuals, 52%; M=3.64) (U=189.5, p=0.015). However, when applying the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons, the differences are found to be statistically insignificant (p=0.015 > α=0.0002).

Discussion of Results

Undoubtedly, a significant result of the work is the absence of significant correlations between the scores on play activities and the understanding of emotions: none of the parameters of one of the methods appeared to be related to the parameters of the other, thus, the hypothesis of the study was not confirmed. The obtained result is quite expected, since many works either do not reveal this connection or reveal weak correlations that require further verification [9; 30; 32]. In this regard, it is interesting to consider the play evaluation parameters used in the present study and compare them with those used in the work of E.O. Smirnova et al. in which weak correlations were found between the total TEC score and the two play parameters (children's play interaction and the unfolding of the idea [9]). The "Play Interaction" parameter reflects interaction driven by an agreement, a shared plot, and the quality of children's contact with each other. In contrast, the parameters that assess play interaction in the present study reflect, rather, a child's activity in communicating with another or the means he or she chooses to playfully communicate with other children (e.g., the object or role-playing nature of the interaction; attempts to negotiate, etc.). Thus, the success of this interaction is not directly assessed, which may have influenced the result obtained.

The "Detail of the Idea" parameter, used in the work of E.O. Smirnova et al. reflects the degree of detail of the play idea: how extensively and in detail the child verbally plans play. It is important that detailed planning requires some kind of plot conflict and emotionally charged play content. In addition, verbalized planning serves the purpose of communication, since it is usually addressed to someone else included in play; in play it is important to explain one's plan to partners and to cooperate in the process of implementing this idea. There are also no direct analogs of this parameter in the present work. The closest is "Content of Play Actions", which reflects to a greater extent how complex a play is unfolded by the child than the extent to which he/she plans this play and voices it for another, i.e. there is no communicative aspect here.

Thus, it can be assumed that the connection between the understanding of emotions and play will be found exactly in these - related to communication and/or successful interaction aspects.

An interesting result was also obtained in connection with the TEC task on understanding mixed emotions (included in the "Reflection" component). Despite the fact that the Bonferroni correction reduces the significance of the differences between children who solved this task correctly and incorrectly, this result seems promising for further research. The task is aimed to study children's ability to understand ambivalent feelings that arise in some circumstances, such as understanding that it is possible to experience joy and fear at the same time when wanting to ride a new bicycle and being afraid of falling off it. It turned out that children who solved this task correctly showed higher results on the "Creativity" parameter of play. This parameter reflects how complex a plot children can create during play: from separate subject actions to eventful, branched out plots, easily supplemented with new elements. This fact can be explained by the following: the more complex children's play is, the more complex the combinations of roles the play image represents is, which requires playing different, and sometimes opposite, emotional states [8], so children who understand the possibility of the simultaneous experiencing of multidirectional emotions (related to roles) create meaningfully rich, complex in structure play plots.

The results that are not directly related to the purpose of the study are noteworthy. The somewhat reduced level of the subjects' play is predictable, since many contemporary authors have been talking about this trend for decades (E.O. Smirnova, E.G. Yudina, E.V. Trifonova, etc.). Correlation analysis showed that only those parameters that reflected the collective aspect of the game were associated with age. This is consistent with traditional ideas that play gradually grows to collective forms (M.B. Parten, J. Piaget, D.B. Elkonin, etc.). Thus, these parameters can be used for age diagnostics of play activity. Gender differences obtained in the aspect of play complexity require setting separate research tasks and further verification.

Findings

The conducted study showed the absence of correlations between play activity and the understanding of emotions in older preschool age children, which complements the data of modern science showing weak links between the parameters of play and the understanding of emotions, and is consistent with the findings about the unreliability and ambiguity of the obtained results in similar studies [9; 30; 32].

Conclusion

The use of a non-standardized method of play assessment and a small sample localized in Moscow and Moscow Region can be considered the limitations of this work.

The prospects for further research include the study of the relationship between the understanding of emotions and the communicative aspects of play, the understanding of mixed emotions due to the complexity of play being created, as well as the relationship of play with other aspects of the emotional sphere of the child.

The obtained results may be of interest to researchers, psychologists and teachers dealing with children's play.

[1] Rough-and-tumble play is play in which a mock (not real at least) fight takes place: children chase each other, may hit each other, push each other, try to drop each other, etc. However, despite the rather intense physical activity, in these games children do not try to cause real harm to each other, which is what distinguishes these games from a real fight.

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