Links to Behaviourism Theory

A large part of rough play is identifying whether the child’s behaviour is acceptable as a teacher and ensuring the children understand and control their behaviour through a learning process. Behaviour is the ‘actions that are observable and measurable’ and behaviourism is ‘explanations of learning concerned with the effect of external events of behaviour’ (Krause et al, 2011, p. 151). When learning occurs through external factors such as reward or punishment changes in behaviour take place often referred to as the ‘cause and effect’ mechanism (Krause et al, 2011). As children’s social experiences increase through rough play, they come to understand that certain social behaviours lead to desirable responses by others and certain to less desirable responses (Trawick-Smith, 2010). Reinforcement can be used during or after rough play to strengthen behaviour to help children understand what they are doing is appropriate, increasing the frequency of the specific behaviour. Scott and Panksepp’s research revealed rough play facilitated friendships and promoted cooperative prosocial behaviours and attitudes (Scott & Panksepp, 2003), making rough play pro-social rather than anti-social behaviour.

Albert Banduras social learning theory recognised the contribution of personal factors to the learning process combining external and internal influences (Krause, 2011). The diagram below shows how Bandura understood all the factors to contribute towards determining human behaviour. I feel this works well with rough play as each factor contributes to the result in the way the play is used, adapted and learnt.