Applying psychological principles In Our Lives
Pretend Play and Emotional Control in Young Children
Dr. Thalia R. Goldstein[2], a developmental psychologist at George Mason University, studied how participation in drama classes impacted the development of emotional regulation in five-year-old children. Young children have diffuse interests, meaning they are interested in many different things. Because everything is a learning opportunity when they are young, five-year-olds were the perfect age group to introduce this theater intervention.
The Research Design
Goldstein wanted to examine how dramatic play might have a unique impact compared to other types of play with similar elements – in other words, are drama games beneficial in different ways than other play activities?
Goldstein hypothesized that it was the embodiment aspect of theatre and dramatic play that would cause changes for children. What does “embodying emotion” looks like? Goldstein gives the ‘right foot’ example: “Shift your right foot as if you were the most important and most powerful person in this room. How does your right foot feel different? Now I want you to imagine your right foot as if your favorite person in the whole world is about to walk through the door. What would your right food be doing right now?” That is an example of making an abstract emotion physical, or embodying it using your foot.
Because Goldstein and her fellow researchers wanted to be able to make a causal claim, she used a randomized controlled field intervention. The children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, for eight weeks:
- Drama Games – games included acting out narratives with embodied emotions and characters with guidance around emotional embodiment.
- Block Play – guided block building, embodied action, no narrative, characters, or emotions.
- Story Time – stories that included characters and emotions, no emotional guidance or embodiment.
| Drama Games | Block Play | Story Time | |
| Group Interaction | Groups of 4, interacting | Groups of 4, interacting | Groups of 4, listening |
| Guidance | Guidance through games and emotions | Guidance for building and placing blocks | Guided reading with questions during books |
| Narrative/Character | Narrative and characters in games | No narrative or character | Narrative and characters in books |
| Emotions | Emotions in some games | No discussion of emotions | Emotions in some books |
| Embodiment | Embodied emotions and characters | Embodied actions in building | No embodiment |
Each of these conditions was designed to analyze different aspects of theatre education. All three conditions included groups of four children interacting with each other along with some form of guidance for the activity, but the drama games condition was the only one with emotional guidance. The Story Time condition included discussion of emotion, but no emotional embodiment and no physical action. The Block Play group included embodiment of action but no emo