the little boy stuffed part of a sticky, rubberised alien toy up his nostril and ran around the room shaking his head from side to side, the makeshift blob of mucus swinging above his lip. 'Look Phil, it's a giant bogey,' he said. Similarly, his sister was squishing her alien toy in the palm of her hand to see how far its head would swell without popping.
Grotesque could be the adult's response to this type of play, yet for all its gruesomeness, there is a very natural and powerful internal mechanism driving the children to engage with these artefacts in this way. This mechanism is called neophilia - a curiosity for, and a fascination with, everything that is new, strange and rare.
As a rule, the human species is generally neophilic. We regularly pursue activities that are new, odd and different, that have an element of challenge or risk and which push and stretch our imaginations. Furthermore, our neophilic tendencies support the profile that we are opportunists, in comparison to other species who are specialists. For example, the anteater is by design a specialist, adapted to seek out its primary food source with a limited anatomy and set of behaviours that are modified to suit its survival. As a specialist (neophobic) creature it has evolved a single survival mechanism but at the exclusion of all others (Watson 1989).
Humans, on the other hand, tend to be non-specialists - not particularly good at any one thing, but apt enough to try all things. For example, we are not the fastest runners, nor able to fly without additional support, or able to see particularly well in the dark. But we can adapt and alter the environment to our advantage, thus enabling us to maximise the opportunities available to us. Unlike the anteater, who would become extinct should its food supply seriously decrease, humans are able to survive as a result of being determined non-specialists.
Neophilia is an important factor of the human condition and is observable at its most natural state during childhood. Children are by nature very curious beings. They have a thirst for knowledge and new experiences which is substantially more intensified than you find in most adults, which raises the question: what it is that we do to children, or what it is that they are exposed to during childhood, that curtails their neophilic drive?
Inventive energy
The inventive energy that children possess so that they can turn a table into a castle, or battle with an invisible dragon, or create a giant bogey from a rubberised toy alien is evidence of their creative neophilic mechanisms, yet this type of behaviour and the psychic processes behind them are being repressed by the 'seriousness' of becoming an adult. For example, research into the creativity of children has shown that schools place overwhelming emphasis on teaching children to solve problems correctly, rather than creatively (Kraft 2005).
There is no doubt that an emphasis on logical thinking and factual competence is reinforcing for the left hemisphere of the brain, the region associated with convergent thinking; however, this has increasing implications for development in the right hemisphere of the brain, the region typically associated with divergent thinking and creative potential.
Thus the amount of time children are now spending in academic institutions, approximately the first 20 years of a child's life, is having serious implications for the development of creative thought and, more worryingly, the development of the neophilic mechanism. Furthermore, if we continue down this path then we are likely to lose those unique aspects of ourselves that have stood us apart from other species.
Despite these concerns, however, there is some evidence within certain industries that neophilia is starting to take a hold. Consider the recent growth in 'horrible science' and 'horrible histories' publications. Here we have two subjects that have over the years struggled to enthuse or engage young learners but, with an element of creativity and reframing, these publications have marketed themselves to appeal to the curious, perhaps gruesome minds of children. They may in the future bear witness to an increased interest in these subjects at a high academic level. Likewise, toy manufacturers are also responding to children's neophilic mechanisms.
Just consider the number of odd and unusual items one can find in a toy store compared to ten years ago.
Playground design has also responded to neophilia. There was a time when most playgrounds consisted of monkey bars, swings, slides, climbing frames and, if you were lucky, a roundabout. The modern playground, however, has a multitude of equipment, including tunnels, rickety bridges, flat and landscaped surfaces, objects that spin, climbing ropes and even some of the traditional elements, all of which encourage children's curiosity and imagination and locomotor engagement.
Good features
Perhaps the most difficult area for neophilia consideration is within an organised play setting. To a great extent it is hard to provide for a child's neophilic mechanism because such a mechanism is an internal one and each child will have a curiosity or fascination for different things. This said, however, Hughes (2002) suggests that in environments where children display neophilic behaviour you will usually observe high-quality enabling features, including:
* stimulating space
* diversity (play artefacts and people)
* explorative play being encouraged and supported
* constant changes to environment and props seen as the norm
* the space not being fixed in time.
Hughes also suggests that the attending adult can supply a range of neophilic materials, which could include the following:
* mirrors
* coloured glass
* structures
* other species
* huge flags
* circus skills equipment.
All have the capacity to be attractive and curious, and thus activate or re-activate a child's neophilic mechanism (Hughes 2002).
Neophilia has a strong relationship with a range of play types, not least exploratory, creative, object and mastery play, whereby they are either engaged as a result of the child's neophilic drive, or as a resultant outcome from playing in this way, perhaps even complementing each other.
Furthermore, neophilia is also supported by, and supportive of, compound flexibility - the inherent flexibility in a child's environment which eventually leads to the growth of flexibility in the child (see Waters 2005, below).
In children's play that has strong elements of combinatorial flexibility we can observe the novel and unusual ways that children combine play artefacts, thoughts and behaviours to create novel solutions to problems.
Driving force Neophilia is at the core of all human exploration; it is the driving force behind our achievements in the fields of art and science and is the essence to which we owe much of our evolution and continued survival. But it is not without its dangers. We are becoming an increasingly stimulus-seeking, dependent society, searching for new and heightened experiences to remove us from the mundane.
We engage in extreme sports, take mind-altering drugs, create technologies that remove some of the tediousness of everyday living, and fight with our fellow beings because it gives us a response, any response, and that has got to be better than no response at all. Yet this is the legacy we leave behind for our children. Therefore neophilia remains something of a Trojan horse, and it is worth considering that while curiosity may 'kill the cat', if we are not careful it may also lead to our own extinction.
Philip Waters is a playwork lecturer and freelance trainer, based in Cornwall
Further reading
* Watson, L (1989) Neophilia: The tradition of the new. Kent: Sceptre.
* Kraft, U (2005) Unleashing creativity, Scientific American Mind, vol 16, no 1, pp 16-23.
* Hughes, B (2002) The First Claim: Desirable processes. Cardiff: Play Wales.
* Waters, P (2005) Free range: compound flexibility, Out of School, pp 8-9, January.
