I have been looking into the Psychology of Play for my project – particularly focusing on the Psychology of Cooperative Play.

“Through play, children develop the skills they need to expand their physical, emotional, social, and cognitive abilities.”

Cooperative Play

Cooperative play involves socially interacting using games and play as a structure to actively build these interactions. Cooperative play can involve cooperative and competitive play.

According to Parton’s Stages of Play in 1932 and many others since, as we develop as humans, the forms of play that we participate in become more social. We tend to play less alone and wish to engage in cooperative and competitive game play.

People form groups or teams for the purpose of playing a game and these interactions enable the formation of a community. Games enable complementary roles, shared goals and and group interactions to be a valuable part of game play.

How does this relate to the Project?

The board game that I have designed promotes cooperative play – there will be a slightly competitive element in the form of answering questions correctly to collect tower pegs to fill their game piece to win the game. There is a strong collaborative element to the game where players have to work together to build a tower or structure using the question cards after they have been read – instead of returning them to the box. The players have to cooperate to produce the tower and the design and shape is of their choosing, providing a different result each time.