Playing ‘Barbie and Ken’ helps children improve vital social skills that tablets don’t, study shows

Playing ‘Barbie and Ken’ helps children develop vital social skills they can’t pick up from tablets, a study suggests.

Cardiff University researchers found that playing with dolls helps both boys and girls develop empathy and understand other people’s views.

He also encouraged them to play roles in social situations and include other people, such as parents or siblings, in games.

It was stated that playing with dolls is especially beneficial for children who have problems interacting with their peers.

The six-week study also found that children were more likely to use language expressing emotions when playing with dolls than when playing with tablets.

Dr. from Cardiff School of Psychology. Sarah Gerson said: ‘We believe that baby play can encourage children to become more involved in social interactions and give children more opportunities to rehearse or reflect on the beliefs, feelings or intentions of others than other types of play.

‘When playing with dolls, children have the opportunity to role-play characters, create narratives and act out scenarios; Doing so builds on and develops the ability to imagine the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others.

‘These imaginary play scenarios allow children to practice social skills, emotional processing and emotion regulation in a safe environment.’

Researchers assigned children ages four to eight to play with Barbie and Ken dolls or a tablet with preloaded games.

They asked their parents to keep diaries about how often they played with them, for how long, and whether their child played with any of them.

Games installed on the tablet involved building a city for the characters or styling the characters’ hair.

At the beginning and end of the six weeks, the children were tested on how well they understood the mental states of others through play sessions in the laboratory.

They were also given a test to see how well they understood the concept of ‘false belief’, the idea that other people may have untrue views.

This is the cornerstone of the concept of ‘theory of mind’, the ability to understand and differentiate the thoughts of others.

Dr Gerson said theory of mind ‘is a fundamental skill for developing relationships with peers, teachers and parents, and a skill that people acquire throughout their lives to develop relationships as adults’.

The paper, ‘Doll play improves false belief reasoning: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial’, was published in the journal PLOS One.

It involved 80 children recruited via social media and from a local South Wales database; 42 were told to play with dolls and 38 were told to play with tablets.

Children’s understanding of ‘false belief’ was tested by asking them to think of a character burying an object in the sand and whether they would believe it was still in the same place if another person had secretly moved it.

The paper said: ‘We found the first causal evidence that baby play improves false belief understanding in children aged 4 to 8 more than imaginative tablet play.’

The authors also noted other benefits, adding: ‘Children were more likely to play socially and use language that expresses emotions when playing with dolls compared to tablets.

‘Parents also reported that children were more likely to play with dolls with siblings, parents or friends.

‘This suggests that doll play can be effective in practicing and developing social processing skills.’

Pending further research, giving children dolls to play with could be a ‘cost-effective’ way to ‘improve emotional cognition’, the paper said.

He said the study could potentially be ‘scaled up’ to entire schools and communities to spread the potential benefits.

And it said the method could especially help “loner children” “engage in social interactions that encourage them to think and talk about the mental states of others.”

The findings come after Government research revealed nearly 98 per cent of children watch screens daily by the age of two, and parents and teachers have warned it is harder to concentrate on learning when they start school.

The government is expected to publish guidance on screen time for children under five in April.