Pretend Play, Creativity, and Emotion Regulation In Children

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Critique of Journal Articles

Pretend Play, Creativity, and Emotion Regulation In Children

Hoffmann and Russ (2012) examined the relationships between pretend play, creativity, emotion regulation, and executive functioning. The researchers suggested that during pretend play, the children exhibited cognitive, affective, and interpersonal processes. Studies have shown that pretend play is associated to being creative, in that, children who are more imaginative and affective during pretend play are also divergent thinkers. To further explore this relationship, the researchers recruited students from a private all-girls school to participate in this study (Hoffmann & Russ, 2012). Participants were administered several measures to assess their capacity to exhibit cognitive and affective play processes. Researchers used the affect in play scale, alternate uses task, and story telling task to rate the children’s creativity. In addition, they used the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) to measure the children’s regulation of their emotions; the short form of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task as a measurement of their executive functioning; and the vocabulary subtest of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV) to assess the children’s verbal ability (Hoffmann & Russ, 2012).

A Pearson product-moment correlation was conducted to test whether a correlation existed among pretend play, creativity, emotion regulation, and executive functioning. The results indicated that pretend play is correlated with creativity (Hoffman & Russ, 2012). The researchers found that the children who were more imaginative during play and had more organized stories were better divergent thinkers. Furthermore, they found that those who were rated...

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...nstantine and colleagues are important and useful to those who are thinking about becoming a mental health professional. Becoming a counselor does not only entail helping at the individual level but also creating change at a more global level. Moreover, these findings can also be generalized to other helping professions.

References

Constantine, M. G., Hage, S. M., Kindaichi, M. M., & Bryant, R. M. (2007). Social justice and multicultural issues: Implications for the practice and training of counselors and counseling psychologists. Journal of Counseling and Development, 85, 24-29.

Hoffmann, J., & Russ, S. (2012). Pretend play, creativity, and emotion regulation in children. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6, 175-184.

Pielech, M., Sieberg, C. B., & Simons, L. E. (2013). Clinical Practice in Pediatric Psychology, 1, 214-226.

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