Goals, Play, and Cognitive Pragmatism: A study of flexible human minds

Abstract

Few phenomena in childhood are as compelling or mystifying as play. While many animals play, human play is distinguished by the sheer diversity of goals that we pursue, even as adults. Yet the seeming inutility of play belies one of the hallmarks of intelligence: a remarkably flexible ability to reason and plan in novel situations. What kind of mind generates and pursues so many goals, and has so much fun in the process? In this dissertation, I suggest that answering this question requires us to go beyond current accounts of rational action and exploration. To map out the path forward I present three lines of research involving behavioral experiments with young children (ages four to six years) and adult comparisons. In study one I find that adults and children endorse speculative conjectures, even when implausible or lacking evidence, because we primarily evaluate novel proposals based on how well it answers our questions. In study two I demonstrate that children at play spontaneously take unnecessarily costly actions and pursue prima facie inefficient plans, even though they minimize costs when achieving similar goals in non-play contexts. Finally, study three demonstrates that adults and children value their goals from the moment they are chosen: participants stick with their goals even when less costly alternatives are available. On their own, each study contributes novel empirical findings and theoretical insights to their respective literature in explanation, play, and planning. Taken together however, they suggest a broader conclusion: that humans treat goals as valuable constraints for reasoning and decision-making. By paying attention to the goals we adopt and the problems we make for ourselves, we may explain much more of the richness and flexibility of the human mind.