Untitled

the attainment of specific goals �enjoyable work) as
well as from those that seem aimless or unfocused.
Play is regarded as organism-dominated, rather
than stimulus-dominated. In other words, it is
governed by the individual rather than the
environment. Play serves to introduce stimulation
and maintain an optimal state of arousal when little
challenge or information flow can be extracted
from the environment. In this reasoning, play is
contrasted with exploratory behaviour in which the
question for the player is `what can I do with this
object?' while for the explorer it is `what is this
object and what can it do?' The latter is about
external events, about learning something; the
former is about personal desires, about pretending
to be in charge of the something that has already
been learned. The attribution by players that
internal wishes determine play, rather than physical
parameters of the external environment, is an
important outcome and is one that holds throughout
the life span.
This organism-dominated character often yields
its nonliteral description. Play behaviours are not
serious renditions of the activities they resemble.
For example, it is easy to detect the difference
between fighting and play fighting in both humans
and animals. Similarly, the usual functional meanings
of objects can be dispensed with within play
and the individual explores new potential meaning
by treating the object as if it were something else.
Thus, play has been regarded as possessing an `as
if ' representational set, focusing on its imaginative
and pretence qualities. This becomes important in
the acquisition of the ability to engage in subjective
thought processes, and in the development of a
sense of autonomy, individuality, and competence
or power.
There are two general perspectives about the
value of play to the individual and society. The first
argues that play serves to prepare the individual for
the future. In this sense, it is predominantly what
children do. These preparatory theories argue that
play prepares the child for adult life, that the young
are born with immature or imperfectly honed
mechanisms and skills that need to be developed
and finely tuned. Selection has favoured pressurefree
periods of time in childhood during which the
subroutines of adult skills can be acquired through
observational learning and imitation. Play also
play 443
serves a critical social function: to reduce social
distance between individuals and to develop
intimate social bonds that may approach what
some have termed `love' in peer relationships and
between parents and offspring. Evolutionists,
biologists, developmental psychologists, and feminists
all subscribe to this `preparatory' approach to
play.
The second rhetoric about the value of play is a
more pessimistic one. It posits that individuals play
to adjust to their present life circumstances and to
the stressful situations in which they find themselves.
The psychoanalytic explanation for play and
the phenomenological nature of the flow experience
are prime examples of this approach, in which
the impetus for play is to master anxiety and
conflict: what has been suffered in ordinary
experience must be purged. This way, play serves
to restore the individual to a more pleasant state of
mental health. Thus, in contrast to the first theme,
individuals do not grow as a result of their play,
instead they strive for contentment. It is in this
sense that tourism has been regarded as play or a
form of it, with tourists playfully throwing
themselves into the liminal and ludic moods.
While some have attempted to show and develop
the relationship between tourism and play, the
theme has remained mainly underdeveloped. The
behaviour and activities of tourists have often been
the subject of analysis, but without explicit
reference to the concept of play. Some researchers
believe that it is precisely the study of this
relationship which can make the tourist culture
meaningful. Understanding the degree and level of
interaction of tourists �or the absence or artificiality
of it) with the host population is another topic
which would benefit from this study, with applications
both in the realm of concept and practice.
Play is widespread, encompassing, and often
indistinctive from other forms of behaviour. However,
it is often argued that play is a separable
category of behaviour by having distinguishable
play places �like playgrounds, playrooms, sports
arenas, gambling boats, parks, etc.) and play
times �like recess, game nights, vacations, guided
tours). To play seems to be the easiest thing to do.
However, to define play is quite the opposite. Its
rich kaleidoscope of many facets and forms renders
it one of the most remarkable and empirically