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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1462980

How does playfulness (re)frame the world? Evidence for selective cognitive and behavioral

Provisionally accepted
Xiangyou Shen Xiangyou Shen 1*Zoe Crawley Zoe Crawley 2
  • 1 Oregon State University, Corvallis, United States
  • 2 Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Do playful people perceive, approach, and respond to their environment and life events differently than less playful individuals? This study examined playfulness as a perceptual lens and its potential broader (re)framing effects spanning cognition, emotion, and behavior in the disruptive pandemic context. Comparing two groups with contrasting levels of playfulness derived from a nationwide US adult sample (n = 503), we found evidence for a selective (re)framing effect resembling a "color spotlight" rather than "rose-tinted" glasses. Highly playful individuals exhibited an optimistic future outlook while maintaining realistic perceptions of current situations. They engaged in higher levels of resilient coping and adaptive leisure, instigating behavioral redirection beyond perceptual (re)framing when encountering adversity, while experiencing more immersion, activeness, and positive affect in daily activities. This evidence reveals "lemonading"-creatively imagining and pursuing positive possibilities-as the core of playful redirection, supporting playfulness' potential to build resilience. Our findings advance a nuanced understanding of the playful (re)framing effect and its boundary conditions, emphasizing cognitive and behavioral redirection in shaping experiences. This study underscores the importance of (1) cultivating playfulness as a character strength and resilience factor, and (2) examining the experiential quality of playful engagement as key to unlocking its transformative potential across life domains.

    Keywords: Playfulness, (re)framing, Lemonading, resilience, adaptive coping, Redirection, Experiential quality, COVID-19

    Received: 11 Jul 2024; Accepted: 13 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Shen and Crawley. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Xiangyou Shen, Oregon State University, Corvallis, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.