REPORT
“The Red Spots Are Now Lava, We Shouldn’t
Step on Them”—The Joint Creation of Novel
Arbitrary Social Contexts in Pretend Play
Krisztina Andrási1,2,3 and Ildikó Király2,3
1Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
2Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
3MTA-ELTE ‘Lendület’ (Momentum) Social Minds Research Group, Institute of Psychology,
ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
Keywords: pretend play, social cognition, social conventions
ABSTRACT
Pretend play has been extensively studied in developmental science, nevertheless important
questions remain about how children engage in and navigate between pretend episodes. In this
proposal, we scrutinize childhood pretense from a social cognitive developmental point of view. Primo,
we review previous theories of pretend play structured around important questions that pinpoint some
attributes of pretend episodes, such as their transient and socially defined nature. In these sections,
evidence is also reviewed about children’s understanding of these attributes. Following this, we
describe a novel proposal of pretend play which extends recent accounts of (pretend) play (Wyman &
Rakoczy, 2011; Chu & Schulz, 2020UN) by exploiting the importance of social interactions in pretense.
We contend that engaging in shared pretending can be considered a manifestation of and support for
children’s ability to participate in and set up arbitrary contextual boundaries with others. These claims
are discussed with regards to how pretend play may figure into social development, its potential
implications for intra- as well as intercultural variation, as well as future research.
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INTRODUCTION
“On this rug, the red spots are now lava, we shouldn’t step on them”—was declared sponta-
neously by a preschooler in our lab. From early on, these kinds of activities are ubiquitous in
the everyday life of children. Starting from their second year of life, while they are still actively
learning about the world, children seem to be capable of construing the world as it is not
(Lillard et al., 2011). A number of concepts have been introduced to describe this form of
activity, such as make-believe, symbolic or pretend play (Harris et al., 1993; Piaget, 1952;
Walton, 1990). One crucial attribute of pretending is that it is guided by some form of mental
representation that results in nonliteral behaviors or actions (Fein, 1981; Lillard, 2001;
Weisberg, 2015). Children start to engage in simple pretend scenarios from around 18-months
of age (or earlier, Vedere: Fenson & Ramsay, 1981; Tamis-LeMonda & Bornstein, 1994), while they
also adequately recognize pretense and share pretend scenarios with others (Haight & Mugnaio,
1992, 1993; Onishi et al., 2007). Remarkably, pretense seems to be universal—it even appears
in cultures where children are not encouraged to play (Gaskins et al., 2007; Smith, 2005).
Despite being one of the trademark characteristics of human childhood, the cognitive back-
ground and function of pretend play still raises open questions.
a n o p e n a c c e s s
j o u r n a l
Citation: Andrási, K., & Király, IO. (2023).
“The Red Spots Are Now Lava, Noi
Shouldn’t Step on Them”—The Joint
Creation of Novel Arbitrary Social
Contexts in Pretend Play. Open Mind:
Discoveries in Cognitive Science,
7, 283–293. https://doi.org/10.1162
/opmi_a_00082
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00082
Received: 13 Gennaio 2023
Accepted: 21 April 2023
Competing Interests: The authors
declare no conflict of interests.
Corresponding Author:
Krisztina Andrási
andrasi.krisztina@ppk.elte.hu
Copyright: © 2023
Istituto di Tecnologia del Massachussetts
Pubblicato sotto Creative Commons
Attribuzione 4.0 Internazionale
(CC BY 4.0) licenza
The MIT Press
The Joint Creation of Novel Arbitrary Social Contexts in Pretend Play Andrási and Király
In the following sections, first, we review previous theoretical accounts of and empirical
findings about pretend play, organized around some important questions with regards to its
developmental role and interactional roots, as well as pertaining to children’s understanding
of certain characteristics of social pretend episodes. Following this, we suggest extensions for
previous proposals of social pretend play through drawing attention to the arbitrary and
provisional social contexts created during pretense. We propose that engaging in pretense
manifests and supports children’s ability to set up transient, arbitrary contexts with others
(Chu & Schulz, 2020UN; Rakoczy, 2007, 2008B). In the last sections, the details and implica-
tions of this proposal are further discussed.
WHAT KIND OF ROLE ENGAGING IN PRETEND PLAY MAY PLAY IN
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT?
Even though people intuitively endow pretend play with benefits for children, its role in cog-
nitive development remains a question. Some approaches suggest that early pretending
appears as a consequence of some newly emerging cognitive process, such as the ability to
represent the world (Piaget, 1952) or to handle multiple models about reality (Perner, 1991;
these approaches jointly described as “pretense as process” theories by Friedman & Leslie,
2007). In this sense, pretending may be the (behavioral) manifestation of a certain ability or
processi, but would not necessarily contribute to its development.
Alternative theories posit that engaging in pretense serves an important role in cognitive
development. Per esempio, it has been assumed to contribute to the development of counter-
factual reasoning (Harris, 2000; Walker & Gopnik, 2013; Weisberg, 2015), creativity
(Carruthers, 2002; Nielsen, 2012) or executive functions (Carlson & White, 2013; Thibodeau-
Nielsen et al., 2020). Further proposals highlight its importance in reasoning about social
others—through figuring into the development of children’s theory of mind abilities (Leslie,
1987, 1994), or their understanding of social realities (Rakoczy, 2007). Others have argued
that pretending supports children in acquiring culture specific skills, knowledge and institu-
tional practices (Adair & Carruthers, 2023; Wyman, 2014) and that it enables children to
develop their executive function skills in culture-specific ways (Doebel & Lillard, 2021).
The exact contribution of pretend play to cognitive development is difficult to investigate.
The abilities that are studied in connection with pretense may be linked with one another, while
creating control groups who do not engage in pretense is almost impossible and ethically ques-
tionable, therefore making the causal links difficult to disentangle ( Weisberg, 2015). Neverthe-
less, a recent review examined empirical evidence to explore the connection of pretense with
other abilities (Lillard et al., 2013). The empirical data is weak and spare with respect to direct
causality; pretense might have a crucial role in the development of language, narrative abilities
and emotion regulation or these abilities might enable, or merely be correlated with pretense.
Correlations, but little evidence for causation, also applies to executive function abilities, social
skills and reasoning. When it comes to theory of mind abilities and creativity, empirical findings
are inconsistent, and may lend support to the view that a third variable is causing the associ-
ation. All in all, pretend play is associated with the development of a number of abilities, ma il
exact way in which it may figure into their advancement appears to be complex and variable.
THE ROOTS OF PRETEND PLAY: INDIVIDUAL OR SOCIAL?
Closely intertwined with the previous question is whether pretending is mainly rooted in intra-
or inter-psychological processes (Nielsen & Christie, 2008). Approaches to pretending tend to
either focus on the individual (pretend production and the intra-individual processes), or on
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The Joint Creation of Novel Arbitrary Social Contexts in Pretend Play Andrási and Király
the importance of social partners in its emergence. In the former view, pretending appears in
childhood as a consequence of some newly emerging cognitive process (see Piaget, 1952;
Perner, 1991). Accordingly, while infants and children may engage in pretense with others,
this is rooted in intra-individual cognitive processes that develop at certain ages. In contrasto,
alternative theories argue that pretend play is fundamentally social and communicative start-
ing from early development (Friedman, 2013; Friedman & Leslie, 2007; Leslie, 1987), that it is
first produced interpsychologically (Adair & Carruthers, 2023; Nielsen & Christie, 2008;
Rakoczy, 2007), and highlight the importance of adult scaffolding in its development (Rakoczy
et al., 2005; Vygotsky, 1967). Relatedly, according to Rakoczy and colleagues (Rakoczy, 2007,
2008B), pretending with others can be considered early evidence for shared intentionality—in
case of which, two or more persons share an intentional “we” attitude that cannot be reduced
to their individual intentions—which is ubiquitous in adulthood.
The question whether early pretend acts are rooted in social interactions or not is difficult to
investigate. On the one hand, observational data could shed light on the amount of pretending
children engage in with others and alone, as well as how the proportion of this may change with
development. Tuttavia, since children take part in social interactions from birth, even if they
play individually, this still could be built on their interactive experiences with others—and vice
versa. Evidence shows that early pretense is highly scaffolded and initiated by parents and older
siblings (Dunn, 1988; Haight & Mugnaio, 1993). Additionally, findings demonstrate that social
pretend episodes are accompanied by communicative signals, such as eye contact, from age
one, and during their second year of life, children engage in pretense through replicating others’
pretend actions (Howes et al., 1989). Also, from around 18 E 24 months of age, children
adequately interpret and respond to simple pretend acts by others (Dunn & Dale, 1984; Haight
& Mugnaio, 1993), and make appropriate inferences about their behavior (Harris et al., 1993).
Another line of research explored whether children’s pretend acts tend to be imitative or
creative (Nielsen & Christie, 2008; Rakoczy et al., 2005; Striano et al., 2001). The results sug-
gest that the pretend acts of preschoolers are characterized by imitation and are heavily
accompanied by communication such as frequent gaze-alteration and smiling (Rakoczy
et al., 2005; Striano et al., 2001). Allo stesso tempo, the proportion of creatively invented pre-
tend acts increases with age and adult modeling results in the production of novel ideas and
more complex playing (Nielsen & Christie, 2008; Striano et al., 2001). These results suggest
that elaborate pretend episodes with creatively produced elements in preschoolers—that
could be played individually or in groups—may be rooted in observing others pretend and
sharing simple pretend episodes with them. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the com-
plementarity one could intuitively associate with “genuinely” joint pretense only appears as
around the age of 3 (Howes et al., 1989). Così, we are not able to conclusively discern how
children understand and participate in these scenarios before the appearance of
language—similarly to the case of other interactions, such as joint attentional situations. How-
ever, the results suggest that even young children can recognize and engage in pretending
with others, and their pretense behavior cannot be disentangled from what they experience
in social settings; thus highlights the importance of social context in pretending.
DO CHILDREN GRASP THE TRANSIENT, SOCIALLY DEFINED NATURE OF
PRETEND EPISODES?
As mentioned above, according to Rakoczy and colleagues (2007, 2008B; Searle, 1975, 1995;
Walton, 1990; Wyman, 2014), joint pretense is an early instance of shared intentionality: pre-
tending with others can be conceived as a collective activity that includes the assignment of
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The Joint Creation of Novel Arbitrary Social Contexts in Pretend Play Andrási and Király
transient status functions and made up constitutive rules (“This banana is now a telephone in
our game”). Pretend play, hence, is governed by (pretend) stipulations that exist purely based
on the agreement of the participants and which are applicable within the thus created
framework.
It is an empirical question to explore whether children grasp these characteristics of shared
pretend episodes. In order to appropriately engage in these, children need to follow pretend
stipulations and their implications, and track the boundaries of the episodes. This entails
quarantining the pretend representations, while at the same time, applying the stipulations
at certain times and places, and to particular partners. This latter not only requires separating
the representations, but also switching between contexts that implicates the involvement of
executive functions.
Following Pretend Stipulations
Fifteen month-old infants detect pretend violations in others’ actions and behave in accor-
dance with simple pretend scenarios (Bosco et al., 2006; Onishi et al., 2007). From around
their second birthday, they draw appropriate inferences about the pretend behavior of their
partners in more complex situations (Harris et al., 1993; Mamma & Lillard, 2006; Tomasello
et al., 1999). Preschoolers are even more proficient: they keep track of the identity of objects
in different games ( Weisberg & Bloom, 2009; Wyman et al., 2009UN). Two-year-olds also expect
others to follow current stipulations (Rakoczy, 2008UN). Così, children follow pretend stipula-
tions and their implications for social partners from their second year of life.
Tracking the Boundaries of Pretend Episodes
Empirical evidence shows that by 3 years of age, children are able to separate reality from
pretense (Bourchier & Davis, 2002; Flavell et al., 1987; Woolley & Phelps, 1994), and separate
pretend contexts from one another ( Weisberg & Bloom, 2009; Wyman et al., 2009UN). This is
less clear in the case of younger children; nevertheless, even though they spend much time
engaged in pretense, this does not result in mistaken beliefs. Così, these representations seem
to be appropriately quarantined from their developing knowledge about the world (Leslie,
1987). Importantly, this boundary is not always strict, Per esempio, children can learn and gen-
eralize from pretend episodes (Hopkins et al., 2015; Sutherland & Friedman, 2012, 2013).
What cognitive architecture enables tracking the boundaries of pretend episodes? One of the most
influential debates about pretending concerns the representations enabling the quarantining of
pretend episodes. According to Leslie and colleagues (Friedman & Leslie, 2007; Leslie, 1987,
1994), pretense is supported by metarepresentations even from young infancy. This format
enables the decoupling of the regular relations of the content and thus making it available
for pretense via ascribing agent-centered representations to the participants. As a result of this
decoupling, the representational system and children’s semantic knowledge remains intact.
Stich and colleagues (Nichols & Stich, 2000) also argue that representations involved in pre-
tense can have the same format and content as beliefs, Tuttavia, they claim that ascribing
agent-centered representations is not necessary to participate in pretense. Piuttosto, representa-
tions are quarantined in a so-called Possible World Box which is a “(…) work space in which
our cognitive system builds and temporarily stores representations of one or another possible
world” (Nichols & Stich, 2000, P. 122). Recent evidence indeed suggests that children grasp
that mental states are involved in pretending, and thus favors the metarepresentational view
( Weisberg, 2015).
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The Joint Creation of Novel Arbitrary Social Contexts in Pretend Play Andrási and Király
Constraining Pretend Stipulations by Time, Spazio, and Partners
The contextual boundary within which pretend stipulations are valid may be designated by a
number of factors—such as time, space or participants of the episode. While sensitivity to tem-
poral boundaries have not been tested specifically, two year olds follow that the same object
may have changing identities in subsequent pretend scenarios (Harris et al., 1993). Pre-
schoolers also understand that different stipulations may apply at different locations ( Wyman
et al., 2009UN) and extend this to others ( Wyman et al., 2009B, Experiment 2). Additionally, Essi
follow to whom a stipulation is known and applicable (Andrási et al., 2022; Hickling et al.,
1997; Kalish et al., 2000; Wyman et al., 2009B, Experiment 1). This suggests that they under-
stand that stipulations are valid within constraints by time, location and specifically, by
partner.
Context-Switching
Flexibly navigating social contexts not only requires separating the relevant representations,
but also executive function skills. Lillard and colleagues (Lillard et al., 2013) suggest a rela-
tionship between pretending and executive functions, with pretend play being one of the
developmental routes for executive function skills. Recent studies also support that these
abilities are related (for e.g., Carlson et al., 2014; Thibodeau-Nielsen et al., 2020). Inhibitory
control skills seem to be specifically related to engagement in social pretending ( White et al.,
2021). Findings from other investigations, Tuttavia, did not find a straight-forward relationship
between these abilities (see Doebel & Lillard, 2021).
CREATING ARBITRARY SOCIAL CONTEXTS IN PRETEND PLAY
Previous findings suggest that early pretend play is heavily scaffolded by social partners, E
that from the preschool years, children are able to competently navigate multiple episodes of
pretend play with various partners ( Weisberg, 2015). Preschoolers also grasp some important
attributes that characterize the social contexts created in shared pretense. While pretend play
is associated with the development of a number of cognitive skills—many of which are impor-
tant for socio-cognitive development (such as language and narrative abilities, emotion regu-
lation, social skills or theory of mind)—the exact manner in which it may figure into their
development remains to be explored.
Building on these findings, we propose that pretend play both manifests and supports chil-
dren’s ability to recognize and navigate the boundaries of social contexts with others, anche
as to create novel social contexts. Humans have a fundamental motivation to maximize their
learning benefit about their environment and they acquire most of their knowledge from con-
specifics (Herrmann et al., 2007). That is why it is so important for them to establish a shared
representational space with fellow humans, namely to get and maintain access to their knowl-
edge base (Oláh et al., 2019). In joint pretense, novel social contexts are created that deter-
mine the action utilities and beliefs of those involved. These contexts are arbitrary and
transient, and are applicable to certain places, times and people. As children participate in
pretense with social partners, they gain experience in joining and creating these social con-
texts, which may be one of the developmental routes for skills related to recognizing, creating
and navigating social-contextual boundaries in later life. The fact that pretend scenarios are
transient and result in propositions which are true within the pretend context but false outside
of it (Cosmides & Tooby, 2000), may prompt children to pay attention to the contextual bound-
aries. This may support them in identifying who shares their knowledge, in creating novel
social contexts, and in identifying the boundaries of already existing social communities.
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The Joint Creation of Novel Arbitrary Social Contexts in Pretend Play Andrási and Király
These abilities would be important, among other things, because much information in chil-
dren’s environments is constrained by being “true” only temporarily or locally. Infatti, it has been
proposed that one of the remarkable characteristics of humans is that they can successfully mod-
ify their behavior tailored to the specific situation based on contingent information (Cosmides &
Tooby, 2000). Additionally, human social interactions are often guided by social conventions
which are context-dependent and arbitrary (Rakoczy & Schmidt, 2013; Lewis, 1969). Therefore,
the validity of cultural information is generally constrained to places, times and social
communities—and thus shares many similarities with social contexts created during pretend play.
As to why children pretend, we suggest that their motivation is built on a general motivation
of becoming expert members in social contexts (Király, 2019). This fundamental drive, processi
fuelled by curiosity, motivates children to share in the knowledge of their partners. Pretend
play may offer an opportunity to gain insight both in the formal characteristics of social con-
texts, as well as specific knowledge through the involvement of culture specific scripts of
events in play ( Wyman, 2014). Inoltre, we posit that humans as a species enjoy setting
up simple, transient contexts with context-dependent rules, and this makes them better at cre-
ating flexible and novel contexts—such as new communities or groups—which are ubiquitous
in their social world. Tuttavia, we would suggest that children’s motivation for social pretense
would also be impacted by their cultural environment. In the following sections, we briefly
expand on how this proposal ties together ideas from two prominent approaches, as well as
its potential implications for development and cultural differences.
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Theoretical Roots
Theoretically, this proposal is closely connected to, on the one hand, a theory of playing
recently proposed by Chu and Schulz (2020UN). The authors suggest that one of the most impor-
tant characteristics of the unique form of playing that emerges after toddlerhood is the inven-
tion of novel problems. This entails the “players” intervening in regular utility functions which
would otherwise frame their behavior, and incurring unnecessary costs and aiming for
arbitrary, self-invented rewards. In this view, engaging in play scenarios could be useful for
supporting the generation of new problems and goals which may lead to novel thoughts
and ideas, and is often motivated by curiosity. Additionally, the authors also address the arbi-
trary nature of play and propose the following: “(…) the idiosyncratic, arbitrary nature of the
problems set in play, and the often flimsy, inadequate solutions generated, may be offset by the
fact that the ideas generated in play can be decoupled from the problems that inspired them
and be valuable in their own right.” (Chu & Schulz, 2020UN; 14.11). In other words, although
the problems invented during play may be arbitrary, these can inspire solutions that could be
useful in a future context. Importantly, this theory focuses on solitary as well as collaborative
play and proposes that, in the sense of inventing arbitrary constraints, many kinds of play
involve a kind of “pretending” or “making up” goals (Chu & Schulz, 2020UN, P. 14.12).
D'altra parte, it is also rooted in the proposal of Rakoczy and colleagues which posits
that participating in pretend play supports children’s developing understanding of social realities
(Rakoczy, 2007; Wyman, 2014; Wyman & Rakoczy, 2011). In more detail, pretend play shares
similarities with adult social institutions—for example, it involves the assignment of status func-
tions –, yet its structure is much simpler. Per esempio, it only applies to a small number of people
and does not constitute part of a wide web of function assignments (Wyman & Rakoczy, 2011).
This deems participating in these episodes suitable as a cradle for understanding more complex
social institutions (Rakoczy, 2007) and allows children to have a rudimentary grasp on the fact
that fictional status can be assigned by joint intention ( Wyman, 2014).
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The Joint Creation of Novel Arbitrary Social Contexts in Pretend Play Andrási and Király
We believe our proposal ties together and expands on these approaches through integrating
important insights about pretend episodes. Primo, the theoretical approach of Rakoczy and col-
leagues highlights that creating pretend stipulations with others resembles the operation of
social institutions in multiple aspects. We enrich this idea—arguing that as pretending supports
children in creating, recognizing and navigating the boundaries of social contexts, this may
figure into the development of a number of social skills necessary for navigating multiple
social communities in adulthood, within which the capacity to re-identify members for a given
set of shared knowledge is essential, since it could guide the organization of knowledge base.
Secondo, as Chu and Schulz (2020UN) observe, pretend episodes are characterized by modified
utility functions with arbitrary rewards. We broaden this argument for social pretense, by
emphasizing that utility functions and their rewards are rooted in the pretend stipulations cre-
ated by the group and thus determine the behavior of both the child and the other participants.
Even though problems tackled in play may be arbitrary, these could inspire solutions in future
contesti. This consequence has social aspects as well: ideas decoupled from their original
contexts might be shared with others. Inoltre, if pretending figures into abilities related
to creating social groups, this contributes to the creation of novel social contexts which, In
turn, may increase the probability of the ideas itself becoming useful in future contexts. Arbi-
trariness itself is a characteristic of social conventions that regulate everyday life (Lewis, 1969;
Rakoczy & Schmidt, 2013). Così, having experience with social pretense may also support
children in grasping that human social interactions are often regulated by agreed upon, arbi-
trary utility functions.
Empirical Implications and Questions
We propose that pretending is one of the developmental routes for abilities connected to rec-
ognizing, creating and navigating social-contextual boundaries, but not an exclusive one.
Another potential route is through gaining experience with how word meanings may be shared
among members of wider or smaller communities. Relevant evidence shows that toddlers
expect common names to be known by different individuals (Graham et al., 2006; Henderson
& Graham, 2005), but older children do not expect those without specific experience to be
familiar with proper names (Birch & Bloom, 2002; Diesendruck, 2005, Experiment 1) or peo-
ple to know common names from another language than their own (Diesendruck, 2005,
Experiment 2). Another route could be to gain experience with the conventional use of objects
and how these may be known and shared by members of cultural communities. Evidence sug-
gests that by the age of two, children understand some aspects of the conventionality of
objects: two year olds expect others to use the same object for the same function (Casler &
Kelemen, 2005), but their expectations are also guided by cues of shared cultural knowledge
(Oláh et al., 2014; Pető et al., 2021). These findings show that children are sensitive to con-
ventionality, thus experience with language and objects could serve as potential routes for
understanding contextual boundaries.
Relatedly, as there are multiple developmental routes for these abilities, individual differ-
ences in pretending would not necessarily result in differences in adulthood. Tuttavia, we
would predict that relevant socio-cognitive abilities—such as tracking other people’s knowl-
edge states or their changing utility functions, as well as the boundaries of social contexts—are
facilitated in pretend play scenarios. Allo stesso tempo, we would expect to find cultural dif-
ferences, with pretend play being more diverse, frequent and pervasive during childhood in
societies where children are members of and encounter more communities and institutions
which would require them to represent contextually bound information.
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The Joint Creation of Novel Arbitrary Social Contexts in Pretend Play Andrási and Király
Development and individual differences. Empirical findings reflect that from early on, children
are proficient in navigating the boundaries of social pretend episodes (Harris et al., 1993;
Weisberg & Bloom, 2009; Woolley & Phelps, 1994; Wyman et al., 2009UN). As mentioned
above, we would predict relevant skills to be facilitated in pretend scenarios. Findings suggests
that this is true in the case of theory of mind abilities—children report their own past belief and
the false belief of others accurately in case they need to report a previous pretend stipulation at
earlier ages than it is the case with “real” state-of-affairs (Andrási et al., 2022; Gopnik &
Slaughter, 1991; Hickling et al., 1997; Kalish et al., 2000). We would predict this to be true
in other abilities as well, Per esempio, for how the utilities of another person change from
context to context.
Relatedly, it is an open question how children reason about the way action utilities may
vary between pretend episodes or between social contexts for the same person. To our knowl-
edge, no study has specifically addressed this question. On the one hand, as expanded on
above, children can adequately follow changing pretend stipulations and their implications
for themselves and for others. This would suggest that they could also monitor changes in util-
ities. Recentemente, it has been shown that both toddlers and children reason about other people’s
behavior based on the assumption that others choose actions to maximize utilities—and make
adequate inferences about other people’s costs and rewards based on their choices ( Jara-
Ettinger et al., 2015, 2017). Relatedly, they grasp that the same action may have different costs
for different people ( Jara-Ettinger et al., 2015) and can apply their reasoning about the utilities
of others when deciding what to teach them (Bridgers et al., 2020), but it remains a question
whether they grasp that the same action may have different costs for the same person. Based
on our account, we would predict that it would be easier for children to follow how utilities
may change for another individual in pretend scenarios (at an earlier age and in more complex
situations). Allo stesso tempo, it would be interesting to explore whether children’s inferences
about the utilities of their partners differs in pretend play. Per esempio, a seemingly most costly
manner of doing something may be the reward itself while pretending (see Chu & Schulz,
2020B), therefore otherwise warranted inferences about competence or preference need to
be reconsidered.
Differences between cultures. The presence of pretend play seems to be universal in all cultures
(Gaskins, 2013; Smith, 2005). Allo stesso tempo, the frequency, content, and developmental
trajectory of pretending, as well as parental attitudes towards it vary between cultures (Gaskins
et al., 2007; Haight & Mugnaio, 1993; Haight et al., 1999). A number of interpretations have been
proposed to explain these differences, including children engaging less in pretend play in cul-
tures where they get more opportunities to practice culturally relevant skills via other activities
and children who live in words which are less complex and open-ended (Gaskins et al., 2007).
We believe our account can be an interesting addition to this question through highlighting
that children could be more inclined to engage in social pretense—both more frequently and
more persistently in childhood –, and the thus created social contexts, in societies where they
encounter more communities and social institutions. This remains an interesting empirical
question.
CONCLUSIONS
The social aspects of pretend play are important to examine as, from early on, children rec-
ognize pretense in others and engage in shared pretending with them. These shared play sce-
narios result in an agreed upon set of representations that guide the behavior of game
partners—which, in many ways, resemble the socially constructed, seemingly unwarranted
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The Joint Creation of Novel Arbitrary Social Contexts in Pretend Play Andrási and Király
shared beliefs that determine social interactions in the life of adults on a much bigger scale
(Cosmides & Tooby, 2000). We propose that engaging in social pretense supports children in
recognizing, creating and navigating the boundaries of social contexts. While pretending with
others, children participate in and set up arbitrary contexts with others and they need to apply
representations created in pretense in a context dependent manner. Being sensitive to the
boundaries of these contexts is crucial, on the one hand, as children are members of a number
of smaller or wider communities with varying expected shared knowledge and norms, and on
the other hand, in order to navigate successfully in societies that are becoming increasingly
multicultural.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Krisztina Andrási: Conceptualization, Writing – Original draft. Ildikó Király: Conceptualization,
Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – Review and editing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Réka Petö and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable
comments on the manuscript.
FUNDING INFORMATION
The writing of this Perspectives article was supported by the MTA Momentum program (LP-
2017-17/2017, PI: Ildikó Király).
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENTS
No data was collected in connection with this article.
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