Guided Participation: How Mothers Structure and Children Understand Pretend Play

Abstract

Pretend play is a significant human invention. Despite occasional reportsof other animals appearing to pretend, nonhuman animals clearly do notdo what young children do, frequently using one object as if it wereanother , attributing imaginary properties to objects, and impersonatingother characters. Several hallmarks of human civilization appear to arisefrom the same cognitive underpinnings as pretend play . The philosopherW alton (1990) claimed that all human art forms are rooted in pretendplay . T o create and appreciate art, drama, and music, one suspends thehere and now . Hypothetical reasoning also shares this with pretending: Inboth, one temporarily suspends the present situation to imagine and par-take in a different one (Harris, 2000). Language is also akin to pretend-ing: In both genres, one entity (a word or object) represents another(Piaget, 1945/1962).Understanding minds has also been related to pretending, because rep-resen tin g m en tal represen tation s appears to un derlie both abilities(Flavell, Flavell, & G reen , 1987; Forguson & G opn ik, 1988; L eslie, 1987).On this account, children come to understand mental representation firstin pretend, and then apply that understanding to more difficult mentalstates like belief. However , results from many experiments suggest that

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