"It Tickles in My Tummy": Understanding Children's Risk-Taking in Play through Reversal Theory

Autor/in	Sandseter, Ellen Beate Hansen
Titel	"It Tickles in My Tummy": Understanding Children's Risk-Taking in Play through Reversal Theory
Quelle	In: Journal of Early Childhood Research, 8 (2010) 1, S.67-88 (22 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1476-718X
DOI	10.1177/1476718X09345393
Schlagwörter	Play; Emotional Response; Interviews; Risk; Student Attitudes; Phenomenology; Fear; Arousal Patterns; Attitude Measures; Foreign Countries; Norway + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Spiel; Emotionales Verhalten; Interviewing; Interviewtechnik; Risiko; Schülerverhalten; Phenomenological psychology; Phänomenologie; Psychologie; Furcht; Ausland; Norwegen
Abstract	"It tickles in my tummy" is one of the most frequent answers when children are asked to describe what they experience when engaging in risky play. Why do children take risks in spite of the fact that this can be a harmful and even fatal activity? This article aims to explore this issue. Semi-structured interviews of 23 pre-school children aged four and five years were analyzed on the basis of the concepts of paratelic and telic states in Reversal Theory, the paratelic state being an excitement-seeking mode, and the telic state being an anxiety-avoiding mode. The phenomenological structure of children's risky play was found to be characterized by children expressing the ambiguous nature of quick reversals between the paratelic and telic states, producing both pleasant and unpleasant emotions. This "walk on the dangerous edge" seemed to be one of the primary goals of engaging in risky play. As long as the paratelic state dominated the situation, children embraced the potential fear by arousal-increasing strategies and maintained play. If the telic state dominated the situation, children described arousal-avoidance strategies and ultimately withdrew from play. (Contains 1 figure.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10