Animal Behavior, Learning, and Playfulness

In her article "Animal Behavior, Learning, and Playfulness," Myrna Milani, DVM, writes:

"First, I think that all behavioral scientists agree that evolution has primed young animals to learn from play. That tells us that this constitutes the most deeply embedded and thus energy-efficient way to teach animals new things. And because we know that domestication more or less suspends an animal in a physiologically and behaviorally immature state, this link between learning and play most likely lasts throughout a domesticated animal's life."

I know she's writing about animal behavior. She's a DVM, for goodness sake. But, as a deeply domesticated animal myself, I can only concur as well as agree. Though I think the physiologically and behaviorally immature part can be attributed to the play-youth connection (play and you act younger, look younger). As for playfulness being a deeply embedded way for me to learn new things, it is clear that the connections between learning and play in my life have not only continued, but increased in strength, number and kind:

"Second, whatever else play in adult wild animals might denote, in many cases it signals an animal who has established and protected a territory, found food and water, mated , reproduced and raised young with energy to spare. If this weren't the case, the potential for adult play wouldn't exist in the gene pool. That says to me (and I admit that some anti-adult-animal-play scientists don't agree) that a playful adult possesses more confidence and ability to cope with stressful situations than a nonplayful one."

It has in deed been my observation that a playful adult has more confidence and ability to cope with stressful situations. Or, perhaps even more self-evident, the adult (animal or human being) who isn't playful tends to be more easily stressed and often more concerned about his ability to perform. At any rate, all this coincides both fortuitously and non-coincidentally with last Friday's article Playfulness and the Health of the Herd.