Kolb – play mammals

One of the real energy drains on developing animals is play. All mammals play, birds play, most vertebrates play, and they play, if you think about mammals, mammals play and there are rules. One of the rules they have is reciprocity; I get to do something, you get to do something. There are also rules with respect to sex. So the way males plays with males is different than the way males play with females, and females play with females. The details vary across species, but the story is the same. Now if we look at play, the question we can ask is why do animals spend so much of their time playing? Why would they burn up so much of the resources engaged in a behaviour that doesn’t seem to have any function? So the obvious conclusion is it must have a function. So what it the function? 

The other question we can ask is if we look at play, is there something about play that is affected by early experiences. So for example, if we look at early stressors, pre-natal stressors for example, do we find that animals play the same way? Do they play less? Do they play more? 

Okay, so the question that we want to ask is what kind of factors influence play, and if they do, does that have some consequence down the road. So let’s just talk first about play behaviour, and my colleague Sergio Pellis has studied play behaviour in all orders of mammals except cetaceans probably. About 60 species of monkeys, rodents, people and so on. And there’s no question that all mammals play, there are rules as I described with respect to reciprocity, and the way in which they engage in the play, and there are other rules as well. That’s the first thing.