Abstract: Chapter 3 delves into the world of peer interactions. I present general patterns of children’s social networks, highlighting the importance of child-to-child ties. I illustrate the key features of this humorous, playful world and examine how peer play facilitates children’s moral learning. In peer play children are developing what I call “the spectrum of moral sensibilities:” They are learning about and engaging in cooperation and care, conflict and dominance, and creating gray areas in between. This poses a stark contrast to the imagery of “the innocent child” permeating in historical and philosophical views of Chinese childhood that fixate on the brighter side of human nature in moral cultivation. Moreover, through deciphering children’s pretend play, I argue that these non-elite children, often relegated to history’s silent margins, have a much richer inner life than my predecessors assumed. Lastly, using a human–machine hybrid approach, I find that young learners’ sensibilities in discerning layered intentions and moral sentiments defeat AI algorithms. This sheds light on the mystery of human sensemaking and inspires reflections on ethnographic epistemology.

This chapter extends on the previous one by investigating the validity of preexisting theories of intersubjectivity within psychology. Operationalizations of children’s intersubjectivity are applied to narrative vignettes used to exemplify alternative theories. This analysis demonstrates how each theorization illuminates some dimensions of interaction while excluding others. The vignettes are contrasted to show how the measurement of interactions determines the form of intersubjectivity observed. The conclusion argued for in this chapter is that although all theories depict some component of intersubjective behavior, a theory in line with the principles elaborated in the previous chapter is necessary.

Pretend play is a creative act and an essential part of childhood. Both imagination and affect are expressed in pretend play. Affective processes that occur in both pretend play and creativity are: positive affect and joy in the task; pretend affect states; affective ideation; and integration of affect. Theories of the role of affect in creativity are discussed. Empirical support for the association between affect in pretend play and creativity and the facilitation of affect in pretend play is reviewed. Future research should investigate neurological correlates of pretend play.

This chapter introduces mindreading (the ability to understand others' thoughts and to interact with them socially). The first section looks at childrens' pretend play behavior and how it is explained by Leslie's metarepresentation models. The second section addresses the false belief test, which was developed to detect whether young children can understand that other people might hold misleading information about their environment. The third section introduces Baron-Cohen's model of the mindreading system, explaining data from different paradigms, such as the false belief test in normal or autistic children. The fourth section looks at an alternative approach -- the simulation theory, which hypothesizes that we predict other people by simulating how we would react if we received the same information. The last section reviews recent neural evidence on mindreading mechanisms.

It is widely known that pretend play and creativity are essential developmental processes for typically developing children, but there has been little collective examination of the role of creative play in children with developmental disabilities. In this chapter, we review the importance of creativity for children with various developmental disabilities, with a specific focus on pretend play. Research over the past decade in disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Down Syndrome (DS), cerebral palsy (CP), Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS), and Williams Syndrome (WS) indicates that pretend play is a development skill area where many of these children show deficits, and these deficits may be impactful on their ability to develop appropriate social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral skills associated with pretend play. Recent research also suggests that pretend play can be used as a means of intervention to improve the play skills and associated skills of socioemotional and cognitive-behavioral functioning in children with developmental disabilities. Future study should examine the use of increasingly accessible means of pretend play intervention, such as telehealth, and focus on how parent-training interventions can be utilized to effectively implement pretend play for children with developmental disabilities at an early age.

The school-age years are an important period for the development of creativity. Children 6–12 years of age must learn to balance creative thinking with the conventional demands of parents, schools, and society. The development of components of creative thinking should be focused on in research. Divergent thinking is one component that is a valid indicator of creative potential. Much of the research on the developmental trajectory of divergent thinking has found contradictory results. Moderators such as type of task and culture are factors to take into account. Pretend play is also a common form of creative activity during these years that includes many of the components of creativity. Implications of research findings are discussed.

Pretend play is indeed a microcosm of creative processes. With pretend play, we can observe the fundamental components of creativity. Pretend play is one arena in which we can identify the basic essentials of the creative process and learn about the development of the interaction of these processes. Pretend play is the expression of self-generated thought that includes divergent thinking, object substitution, symbolism, fantasy, affect themes, and narrative development. In play, children switch back and forth between spontaneous idea generation and the more controlled logic of the narrative. This chapter reviews the theories of play and creativity, and the correlational, longitudinal, and experimental research literature. The development of creative processes in play is discussed. Pretend play can be used as a measure of creativity. Suggestions for future investigation are offered.

Natural and manufactured objects saturate human culture. Infants need not do much or go far to find objects of different shapes, textures, sizes, and functions throughout their environments. And, as they manipulate and play with objects, they learn quite a lot along the way. From the time they can swipe and grab, infants spend most of their awake hours exploring objects – moving seamlessly from object to object in short bursts of activity distributed over time. These bouts of object interaction allow infants to practice and refine manual skills, learn about object features and functions, and test the fit between body and environment. Object interactions also allow infants to extend the limits of reality. Infants can pretend that objects exist when they do not, use objects to stand for other objects, and generate unique ways to use objects beyond their intended design. Indeed, to fully engage human artifact culture, infants must become proficient at using objects in twin planes of action – the real and the imagined.

This chapter examines the relationship between mental state reasoning skills and imagination; specifically how and why children who create imaginary companions (ICs) differ in these skills from children who do not have imaginary playmates. This chapter introduces mental state reasoning, and explains its links to imagination and other variables, while exploring how this construct is measured. It then moves on to investigate IC play and consider how a child’s creation of a pretend mind is thought to improve his or her ability to reason about real minds. The chapter also includes a short history of the imaginary companion, as well as an overview of how science has viewed this construct, a clarification of what type of play is classified as IC play, and which groups of children might be more likely to play with these entities. Toward the end of the chapter, research on mental state reasoning and IC status is reviewed, and theoretical viewpoints on why these children excel in mental state reasoning are laid out. The chapter closes with a discussion of future explorations for this field in terms of causal direction and new forms of therapeutic play intervention.