Playing with dolls helps children’s language, empathy and friendship skills, especially as we emerge from the pandemic, according to neuro scientists from Cardiff University.
Children talked more about others’ thoughts and emotions when playing with dolls than while playing tablet games, a study commissioned by the makers of Barbie shows.
While learning and socialising outside the home has been limited due to the pandemic, the Cardiff University researchers said doll play can offer children the chance to emulate scenes and interactions.
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The study, with 42 children - 20 boys and 22 girls - aged from four to eight years, found speaking about others peoples’ internal feelings while they play helps children practice social skills. This can help with real life situations and emotional development.
Researchers looked at what children say while they play and found they use increased language about others’ thoughts and emotions when playing alone with dolls.
“When children create imaginary worlds and role play with dolls, they communicate at first out loud and then internalise the message about others’ thoughts, emotions and feelings,” said researcher Dr Sarah Gerson.
“This can have positive long-lasting effects on children, such as driving higher rates of social and emotional processing and building social skills like empathy that can become internalised to build and form lifelong habits.
“Children mimic what they see their parents, teachers or peers say and do, and dolls can give them an outlet to recreate what they’ve seen and heard to rehearse skills they can use in real-life social situations.”
Studying children at play the researchers saw increased brain activity in the part of the brain involved in the development of social and emotional skills. This happened when children played with dolls in groups or alone and didn’t depend on gender.
The research team monitored brain activity while children played with dolls and on tablets, both by themselves and with another person. The dolls used included the diverse Barbie’s family set, careers set, DreamHouse set and animal set. Tablet play was carried out using games Toca Boca and Hoopa City, both of which were chosen for allowing children to engage with open and creative play (rather than rule or goal-based games) to provide a comparative play experience to doll play.
Watching the children pretend and talk about dolls having thoughts and feelings researchers saw increased brain activity in the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) region of the brain when they spoke as though their dolls had thoughts and feelings. The pSTS region is heavily involved in the development of social and emotional processing skills.
“Internal state language can indicate that a child is thinking about other people’s thoughts and emotions while playing with dolls,” added Dr Sarah Gerson.
“These skills are really important for interacting with other people, learning from other people, and navigating a variety of social situations. It becomes important for making and sustaining friendships, and how they learn from their teachers, and parents.”
In 2020, Barbie independently commissioned a global survey that suggested 91% of parents ranked empathy as a key social skill they would like their child to develop, but only 26 percent were aware that doll play could help their child develop these skills. Parents and caregivers have also been increasingly concerned over their children’s developmental track during the last two years. Barbie said its research found 61% of parents reported that their child’s social-emotional development had been negatively impacted by the pandemic.
“We’re proud that when children play out stories with Barbie and vocalise their thoughts and emotions, they may be building crucial social skills, like empathy, that give them the tools needed to be confident, inclusive adults,” said Lisa McKnight, senior vice president and global head of Barbie and Dolls, Mattel.
“As leaders in the dolls category, we look forward to uncovering even more benefits of doll play, grounded in neuroscience, through our long-term partnership with Cardiff University.”
The results of the second year of research, titled Doll play prompts social thinking and social talking: Representations of internal state language in the brain, were published in Developmental Science by Dr Gerson and colleagues at Cardiff University’s Centre for Human Developmental Science and colleagues at King’s College London.
The project will continue into 2024 with further results due.
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