Why Play Is a Psychological Need

"Play" can look like nothing more than a source of fleeting happiness that vanishes in an instant. Yet psychologists have found that "play" actually offers enormous benefits for our mental health. Research in psychology shows that leisure activity is a basic human need: meeting our need to "play" raises our satisfaction with life and helps maintain both physical and psychological health. From a medical perspective, "play" can even aid recovery from mood disorders. And gathering with others, rather than "playing" alone, brings an even greater sense of well-being! Today, let the play experts at ReUbird walk you through exactly why we need to "play"!

"Play" is a basic human need

When it comes to human needs, many people think of Maslow's "hierarchy of needs", a theory that encompasses both our external, environmental needs and our internal ones. The "self-determination theory" later put forward by Deci Edward L. and Ryan Richard M. set aside the lower-level external factors to focus on higher-order psychological needs, and it is now widely used in modern psychology.

"Self-determination theory" holds that people have three basic psychological needs: "competence", "relatedness" and "autonomy". "Competence" is the sense of being capable of controlling outcomes; "relatedness" is the sense of interaction and connection with others; and "autonomy" is the sense of being able to make decisions about one's own life.

One psychological study used needs theory as its framework to examine the relationship between 12 leisure activities — such as photography, visiting friends and relatives, and jogging — and our psychological needs, and found that leisure activities are positively related to psychological needs. Activities like photography and jogging relate to satisfying the "autonomy" need mentioned above; visiting friends and relatives, playing card games and watching performances relate to satisfying social needs and family togetherness needs — that is, the "relatedness" need in the "self-determination theory" above; while walking and jogging relate to the skills development need — that is, the "competence" need in the "self-determination theory" above. In other words, different kinds of leisure activity can satisfy different aspects of our basic psychological needs, and in doing so promote our psychological health.

"Play" brings personal growth

The psychologist Howard E. A. Tinsley put forward A Theory of Leisure Experience, which holds that the leisure activity itself is not what matters; what matters is how a person feels about the leisure activity — that is, the leisure experience. He noted that everyone experiences leisure to differing degrees, and that the highest leisure state can make a person feel free, lose self-consciousness, become more keenly aware through the senses, and lose track of time. In real-life gatherings with friends, we sometimes feel most truly ourselves, laugh easily and heartily, and lose ourselves in enjoyment as the hours slip by — and that is precisely the highest leisure state Tinsley described.

Tinsley's theory explains how the leisure experience leads to personal growth: the leisure experience satisfies our psychological needs, which in turn maintains our physical and physiological health, raises our satisfaction with life, and ultimately leads to personal growth.

"Play" is closely tied to mental health

In recent years the prevalence of mood disorders among city dwellers has risen, and mental health has drawn growing attention. One psychological study explored the relationship between leisure activities and mental health problems, taking 101 adults with mood disorders across different ethnic groups as its subjects. It found that patients who actively took part in leisure activities recovered more quickly than those who did not. The researchers noted that taking part in leisure activities can reduce states of boredom and improve resilience to stress, strengthening the recovery capacity of people with mood disorders.

Beyond easing mood disorders, "play" plays a crucial role in helping people maintain mental health and build well-being. The Leisure and Well-being Model in therapeutic psychology describes five ways in which leisure activity contributes to building well-being: (1) savoring leisure: enjoying and focusing on positive emotions during a leisure activity; (2) authentic leisure: understanding and expressing one's true self through leisure activity; (3) leisure gratification: throwing oneself fully into a leisure activity and finding its meaning; (4) mindful leisure: consciously experiencing the present moment during a leisure activity; and (5) virtuous leisure: strengthening and exercising one's strengths through leisure activity. In other words, these five elements within leisure activity can cement the building of well-being.

Playing with others brings even greater benefits

Research in social psychology has found that well-being is directly linked to interaction with others. One recent study examined the relationship between how much time we spend with others and our well-being, recruiting 410 participants. The results showed that people who spent more of their daily lives with friends, family and partners felt happier. Of these, time spent with friends — rather than family or partners — produced the highest experiential well-being.

Explained from a neuroscience perspective, when we spend time with friends the neurons in the brain that govern emotion are activated, which over the long run tends to make our emotional experience hedonically positive. Research has found that sharing emotional stimuli with others eases the negative impact of negative stimuli and, conversely, amplifies the positive impact of positive stimuli. In other words, sharing happiness with others doubles positive emotion, while sharing worries with others reduces negative emotion.

To explain this phenomenon, the researchers went on to conduct experiments on the brain's neurons, finding that spending time with friends activates the ventral striatum and the orbitofrontal cortex in the brain. These two neural regions are important elements of the brain's "reward circuit" and play a part in governing emotion. This offers a reasonable explanation for why sharing time together with others brings a positive emotional experience.

Playing together — opening the door to happiness

Taken together, the psychological theories and research above show that "play" does not bring only fleeting happiness; it is inseparable from maintaining lasting psychological health, and it is a balm for the soul in building well-being. So, amid the daily grind of work and study, do remember to make time to meet the people who matter to you, and to throw yourself into and savour the time spent "playing".

References:

1. Deci, E. L., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2004). Self-determination theory and basic need satisfaction: Understanding human development in positive psychology. Ricerche di Psichologia, 27, 17–34.
2. Rodríguez, A., Látková, P., & Sun, Y. Y. (2008). The relationship between leisure and life satisfaction: Application of activity and need theory. Social Indicators Research, 86(1), 163.
3. Tinsley, Howard E. A, & Tinsley, Diane J. (1986). A theory of the attributes, benefits, and causes of leisure experience. Leisure Sciences, 8(1), 1-45.
4. Iwasaki, Yoshitaka, Coyle, Catherine, Shank, John, Messina, Emily, Porter, Heather, Salzer, Mark, . . . Koons, Glenn. (2014). Role of Leisure in Recovery From Mental Illness. American Journal of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, 17(2), 147-165.
5. Hood, C. D., & Carruthers, C. P. (2007). Enhancing leisure experience and developing resources: The leisure and well-being model part II. Therapeutic Recreation Journal, 41(4), 298.
6. Hudson, Nathan W, Lucas, Richard E, & Donnellan, M. Brent. (2020). Are We Happier With Others? An Investigation of the Links Between Spending Time With Others and Subjective Well-Being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(3), 672-694.
7. Wagner, U., Galli, L., Schott, B. H., Wold, A., van der Schalk, J., Manstead, A. S., … & Walter, H. (2015). Beautiful friendship: Social sharing of emotions improves subjective feelings and activates the neural reward circuitry. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 10(6), 801-808.