The Emergence of Social Conventional Behavior: Evidence from Early Object Play

Abstract

One aspect of young children's construction of their social world, the conventional ways to use common objects, was examined. Three longitudinal observations of eight children's spontaneous play provided the data for the study. The videotaped observations were done when the children were at mean ages of 22, 24, and 26 months. Object play was described in terms of its relation both to immediate contextual cues and to previously stored information about objects. Specifically, four levels of contextual support in the children's object actions were identified. Less reliance on contextual cues, but greater reliance on stored information, characterized actions at each succeeding level. The results showed that the proportion of play falling into the level requiring the least contextual support but the greatest stored information (Level 4, conventional play) increased for all children over the three longitudinal sessions. Additional analyses showed that this result was due neither to increasing familiarity with the observation context over the longitudinal sessions, nor to the special characteristics of replica objects. Further, conventional actions on nonconventional objects, such as using a bowl for a hat, were late to appear. The rule violation inherent in such actions may provide evidence of rule mastery. Finally, elaboration of conventional object knowledge was demonstrated in three ways. Increases over time were observed in (1) the total number of different conventional act types per object; (2) the maximum number, per any single object, of conventional act types; and (3) the repertoire of conventional acts in general. These results illustrate the integration of social and cognitive factors in object play and are contrasted with interpretations of young children's play as symbolic. The relation between task demands and contextual features in determining a child's performance of behaviors that are in the process of acquisition is discussed. Finally, some implications for the assessment of young children, of children from varying cultural backgrounds, and of children with impairments are considered.