The Genesis of Animal Play
Subtitle: Testing the Limits (Bradford Books)
Contributors: Brian Sutton-Smith (Foreword)
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: February 1, 2005
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 519
ISBN-13: 9780262025430
Subjects: Psychology; Zoology & animal sciences; Animal Behavior (Ethology); Science; Science/Mathematics; Cognitive Psychology; Life Sciences - Zoology - General; Psychology & Psychiatry / Cognitive Psychology; Behavior evolution; Play; Play behavior in animals
Description: "In The Genesis of Animal Play, Gordon Burghardt examines the origins and evolution of play in humans and animals. He asks what play might mean in our understanding of evolution, the brain, behavioral organization, and psychology. Is play essential to development? Is it the driving force behind human and animal behavior? What is the proper place for the study of play in the cognitive, behavioral, and biological sciences?"

"Using the comparative perspectives of ethology and psychology, The Genesis of Animal Play goes further than other studies in reviewing the evidence of play throughout the animal kingdom, from human babies to animals not usually considered playful. Burghardt finds that although playfulness may have been essential to the origin of much that we consider distinctive in human (and mammalian) behavior, it only develops through a specific set of interactions among developmental, evolutionary, ecological, and physiological processes. Furthermore, play is not always beneficial or adaptive."--Jacket.