“Many research studies have shown that children and adults are more creative when they are playing than when they are trying to impress a judge or win a reward.” – Peter Gray
“Play is the ideal context for practicing new skills or trying out new ways of doing things precisely because play has no real-world con-sequence. Nobody is judging, no trophy is on the line, no teammates will be let down, and so the player is free to fail. With freedom to fail comes freedom to experiment. The playworld is a simulation world, a safe and funplace to practice for the real world” – Peter Gray
“…in humans playfulness can blend with productivity. When productive work is suffused with the qualities of play–that is, with freedom, creativity, and imagination–we experience that work as play.” – Peter Gray
“…we bring playfulness to bear in our social interactions we create a spirit of equality and personal freedom that allows us to overcome our equally human drive to dominate one another.” – Peter Gray
“Heaven take pity on those few of us who try to take play seriously. It’s hard to do. Play, by definition, is something that is not serious. I’m sure that’s part of the reason why most serious scholars stay far away from the topic.” – Peter Gray
“When you place one of these play-deprived animals in a somewhat novel, somewhat frightening environment they overreact with fear. ( …) They alternately freeze with fear and lash out with inappropriate and ineffective aggression. They don’t learn to respond to the social signals of the other animal.”
Peter Gray, psychologist and author, describes in his 2014 TED talk how animals who have been prevented from playing during early development become socially and emotionally crippled.