The relationship between play and creativity - Essay Example

This close association between play and creativity has prompted practitioners and educators to design creative curriculum fostering creative environments in early school education. This paper seeks to review the literature on the relationship between play and creativity and the insights gained from the review will be beneficial for further interdisciplinary researches in this regard. A large number of researchers have tried to unearth how pretend play and elaborated role play are associated with creativity.

Russ & Wallace (2013) regard pretend play among children as a creative act that is capable of stimulating and fostering creativity in adulthood. Pretend play triggers cognitive, affective, and interpersonal processes that are essential for the development of one’s creativity (Russ & Wallace, 2013, p. 136). The potential of pretend play to develop mature emotional control has also been documented in the literature. Hoffmann & Russ (2012, p. 182), in this respect, point out that children with higher levels of imagination, affect and organization during pretend play are better able to self-regulate and manage their emotions.

Creativity researchers identify that both creativity and pretend play are characterized by cognitive abilities, the ability to create a variety of ideas, divergent thinking, broad associative skills, insight, cognitive flexibility, and perspective taking (Russ & Wallace, 2013, p. 137). The authors perceive pretend play as the creative outcome of children and emphasize on the need to undertake more in-depth researches on pretend play as a measure or predictor of creativity. The article throws light on a number of theories that explain how pretend play promotes creativity among children.

Evolutionary theorists argue that pretend play prepare children for necessary adult activities; they claim that pretend play offers unique opportunity for children to practice with the skills of problem