The Education of Playful Boys: Class Clowns in the Classroom

Playfulness from children's perspectives: development and validation of the Children's Playfulness Scale as a self-report instrument for children from 3 years of age

Children's playfulness refers to children's enjoyment, motivation, and engagement in play and has been predominantly assessed from an adult perspective. To assess children's perspectives on their own playfulness, we adapted and modified the Children's Playfulness Scale (CPS) for children from 3 years and used a two-level response format with a total of four answer options. We tested the self-report scale with 564 children between 3 and 8 years of age who attended childcare center or kindergarten. Results indicated that the adapted version of the CPS identified the five distinct domains of playfulness: social spontaneity, cognitive spontaneity, physical spontaneity, sense of humor, and manifest joy; furthermore, results showed invariance across multiple groups for gender, age, and language skills. A highly significant positive correlation was found between children's self-reported playfulness and children's self-reported social self-concept (r = 0.54, p < 0.001), which demonstrates convergent validity. No association was found with teacher proxy report of children's playfulness (r = 0.03, p = 0.92). Overall, our study confirmed first indications of the validity of the modified CPS as a reliable instrument for assessing children's self-reported playfulness. This enables children as young as 3 years old to be assessed on their own playfulness, which is a valuable supplement to the adult perspective.

Cognition Mediates Playfulness Development in Early Childhood: A Longitudinal Study of Typically Developing Children

IMPORTANCE

Play, children's central occupation, and playfulness, its behavioral manifestation, are the foci of occupational therapy intervention. However, information about the development of playfulness behavior and the role of cognitive function is limited.

OBJECTIVE

To explore the development of playfulness and its relation to cognitive functioning from infancy to toddlerhood.

DESIGN

Longitudinal study with data collected at ages 6 mo, 18 mo, and 24 mo.

SETTING

Laboratory (age 6 mo) and home (ages 12 and 18 mo).

PARTICIPANTS

Eighty-six typically developing children drawn from a convenience sample of 109 low-risk families of middle to upper socioeconomic status.

MEASURES

The Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) to assess cognitive functioning and the Test of Playfulness (ToP) to assess children's playfulness.

RESULTS

ToP scores were significantly higher at age 24 mo than at age 6 mo, t(88) = -60.30, p < .001, 95% confidence interval (CI) [-1.47, -1.38]. Correlation analysis revealed that the more playful the infant was at age 6 mo, the higher their cognitive functioning was at age 18 mo and the more playful they were at age 24 mo. Toddlers with higher cognitive performance at age 18 mo demonstrated more playful behavior at age 24 mo (β = 0.120, SE = 0.05, 95% CI [0.0377, -0.2276]).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

Children's playfulness is evident as early as age 6 mo and continues to develop through toddlerhood, depending on their cognitive growth. Occupational therapists play a key role in working with families with young children, promoting cognitive development to further the development of playfulness behaviors. What This Article Adds: Understanding the development of playfulness and exploring its relationship with cognitive functioning in typically developing children fills important gaps in occupational therapy knowledge and contributes to delivery of early intervention, especially when cognition or playfulness are at risk. Our findings confirmed that cognitive functioning contributes to the development of playfulness.

Can Playfulness be Stimulated? A Randomised Placebo-Controlled Online Playfulness Intervention Study on Effects on Trait Playfulness, Well-Being, and Depression

BACKGROUND

While there are numerous applications of play-based interventions, there is little research on playfulness-based interventions. We applied interventions that aim at stimulating playfulness and test effects on happiness and depressive symptoms.

METHOD

In a randomised placebo-controlled online intervention, N = 533 participants were assigned to one of three 1-week playfulness conditions (i.e. three playful things, using playfulness in a new way, and counting playfulness) or a placebo condition. Participants reported on global playfulness, facets of playfulness, well-being, and depression at pretest, posttest, and at follow-ups after 2, 4, and 12 weeks.

RESULTS

All interventions increased expressions in all facets of playfulness, had short-term effects on well-being, and ameliorated depression.

CONCLUSION

Overall, findings suggest that playfulness can be stimulated by short self-administered interventions.

Aproximaciones a estudios sobre la Burla desde la Perspectiva del Desarrollo

El propósito de este artículo es presentar un balance bibliográfico de estudios que abordan la emergencia de la burla en niños preescolares y escolares a partir de un inventario de artículos de investigación y artículos teóricos que analizan esta problemática. Fichas de reseñas empíricas y de reseñas teóricas son la unidad de trabajo que permite identificar las plataformas conceptuales, metodológicas e instrumentales que subyacen a cada trabajo. La discusión presenta las perspectivas de los estudios a partir de las modalidades de análisis: centradas en el sujeto, investigaciones que describen el desempeño de los niños y las niñas a partir de sus habilidades cognitivas y sociales para comprender la burla. Relacionales, estudios que revelan el vínculo burlón-burlado a partir de la interpretación de las intenciones humorísticas. Socioculturales, trabajos que se centran en el reconocimiento de agentes y contenidos humorísticos de comunidades específicas. Finalmente, el artículo propone una reflexión acerca de las acciones humorísticas que abren el entramado de significados de la experiencia inquietante del encuentro con el otro en la relación dialógica burlón-burlado en el ciclo cultura-individuo-cultura.

The Social Life of Class Clowns: Class Clown Behavior Is Associated With More Friends, but Also More Aggressive Behavior in the Classroom

A dimensional rather than a typological approach to studying class clown behavior was recently proposed (Ruch et al., 2014). In the present study, four dimensions of class clown behavior (class clown role, comic talent, disruptive rule-breaker, and subversive joker) were used to investigate the associations between class clown behavior and indicators of social status and social functioning in the classroom in a sample of N = 300 students attending grades 6 to 9 (mean age: 13.09 years, 47.7% male). Participants and their teachers completed measures of class clown behavior, and peer nominations of peer acceptance, mutual friends as well as social behavior in the classroom (popular-leadership, aggressive-disruptive, sensitive-isolated, and prosocial behaviors) were collected. The results showed that overall, class clown behavior was positively related to peer acceptance, the number of mutual friends in the classroom and peer-perceived social status. Overall, it was also positively related to peer-rated popular-leadership and aggressive-disruptive behaviors, as well as negatively related to prosocial behaviors. When considering the four dimensions of class clown behavior, comic talent was particularly relevant for the relationship with social status and with popular-leadership behaviors, but also with aggressive-disruptive behaviors. Aggressive-disruptive behaviors were also particularly related to the class clown dimension disruptive rule-breaker. The results underline the significance of class clown behavior for the social status and functioning of students and may help further understand the phenomenon in its multidimensional nature.