Psychology, 5/e   Wortman, Loftus & Weaver
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Psychology Around the Globe

Children’s Play

United States children are closely guarded before they go to school. Parents or caretakers watch them throughout the day. Not so in the Marquesas Islands, and most children survive. They also don't seem to go through quite the same stages of play as their U.S. peers.

Martini (1994) observed a group of thirteen children between two and five years old to figure out how they managed themselves, playing unsupervised for several hours a day. Marquesan adults tend to treat siblings and other groups of children as one entity. If one misbehaves, all are punished: the guilty child, and the others for not controlling their peer. The children also work to make their friends part of the group. Preschoolers go through “hazing,” and are taunted and attacked for doing dangerous things or not paying enough attention to their peer group's leaders. These actions have a strong effect on the children’s play. The Marquesan children spent none of their time in "solitary play," compared with thirty-six percent of the time for a U.S. sample. Instead, they spent ninety-three percent of their time playing in groups of three or more; Americans spent only nineteen percent of their time in groups.

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