The Multiple Facets of Play: The Root of Adaptability

Photo by Vlad Hilitanu on Unsplash

What comes to mind when someone says the word ‘play’? Frivolity? Distraction? Is it a childlike quality? In a professional environment, it’s not commonly encouraged, but rather, it’s a reward for when the ‘real work’ has been completed. Between the performance reviews, productivity hacks and ‘get your head down’ attitude, play is often seen as inefficient and generally expendable. The unserious nature of play is exactly why it’s been overlooked, and yet it does not disappear, even if it’s discouraged. From an evolutionary perspective, play is not a luxury, but a multi-faceted necessity; an intrinsic part of all life. Is play actually a foundational phenomenon of purpose?

In Burghardt’s research on the evolution of play, the claim is that is isn’t frivolous, but rooted in evolutionary history and is widespread across the animal kingdom. It is observed in many different species and even creatures, like fish and reptiles, without language and culture seem to play. It is not an add on tool developed for survival, but a persistent feature of all life over time. Play underlies flexibility, creativity and resilience, so why is it not more commonly used in high performance cultures?

Play is a hard idea to define. It looks different to everyone; it can be highly subjective. Scientists struggle to agree on one definition, so of course that’s where the issue begins. If science struggles to define play, how can it’s value be quantified? Allowing the assumption of how an individual (or professional collective) subjectively views play only heightens its illusion, rather than allowing exploration of its potential insight. Play is a biological puzzle with no one answer; and that is why it’s worth such rigorous inquiry.

Even with no one set answer, most animals demonstrate behaviours that meet some criteria of what play actually is. This suggests that play is not a luxury subject only to humans, and is performed at any level of intelligence. Play appears at the meeting point between excess of time and energy and behavioural flexibility, in animals, it could look like the deliberate push and toss of objects, wrestling, or social rough and tumble - contexts that aren’t obviously intentional. If intelligence is only measured in productivity, a crucial element of the system is missed; exploration, surprise, experimentation and play all collectively mesh together for any one individual’s ability to adapt.

So what might play actually do?

Some theorise that play is a rehearsal; preparation for future skills. Others view it as a biproduct of an excess of energy or for neurodevelopment. More recent theories include adaptive potentiation, the exploration of different behaviours that can be drawn on in different circumstances. Whichever theory underpins the necessity of play, it may be the case that play is not the answer to one specific mechanism, and it is important because it’s multifaceted, context dependent and emerges both similarly and differently across and between species and cultures. Assuming play has one singular causation reduces the vastness of it’s benefits, reality is never usually one dimensional.

Based on the current theories in research, it’s worth considering; if play allows behavioural flexibility in animals, then how does this translate to humans and the potential impact play has on creativity? Does limiting  play in the workplace, a space that is obsessed with efficiency, actually limit adaptability? And if engaging in play breeds a condition for better resilience, social connection and cognitive growth, why is it not encouraged more often?

The work environment so frequently praises those talents; adaptability, innovation and resilience, yet design cultures that punish the behaviours thought to create those qualities. Play requires psychological safety, tolerance for ambiguity and requires room to try things that may or may not work. Environments breeding ‘success only’ mindsets are the very ones disabling the opportunity for play and over specified outcomes kill curiosity and exploration. What if play is not the opposite of work but something complex systems require?

When looking at pay through the depth psychology lens, its suppression is not neutral but consequential. Play lives closely to the psyche’s self regulating function; the spontaneous movements that the unconscious uses to communicate, experiment and integrate that which the ego cannot. Play may be supressed but the unconscious cannot be, instead it goes underground and curiosity turns into restlessness and creativity melds into anxiety. The unlived and exploratory parts of the psyche slip into the shadow and they resurface as cynicism or compulsion or burnout. Play, then, is not an indulgence but a dialogue between conscious intention and unconscious possibility. Reducing play tries to control parts of the psyche that cannot be controlled, and extinguish the processes that generate renewal. A psyche that cannot play eventually loses its capability for imagination of alternatives, a slave to a system, a loss that is renamed ‘maturity’.

For the full article, published in Animal Behavior and Cognition 2014, find the link here: https://www.animalbehaviorandcognition.org/uploads/journals/2/01.Burghart_Final_2.pdf

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