The triviality barrier
Fifty-five years ago, psychologist and children’s folklorist Brian Sutton-Smith (Reference Sutton-Smith1970) argued that a triviality barrier kept his fellow psychologists from studying the expressive play forms of children. For Sutton-Smith, the problem of the triviality barrier is difficult precisely because of modern civilization’s central concerns with work, rationality, science, sex, food, etc. Not unlike Sutton-Smith, L&A face down a triviality barrier in (at least) Euro-American cultural evolution studies that deem peer cultures “inconsequential” or “relegated entirely to the domain of play” (sect. 3.2, para. 3). We applaud L&A for looking past the triviality barrier to attend to children’s folklore. If their hypothesis that peer cultures contribute to cultural evolution holds water, and if children’s folklore scholarship ends up supporting their claim, we suspect that peer culture’s prowess in the domains of play and expressive behaviors will be important.
Newell’s paradox
L&A claim that participants in peer cultures are both high-fidelity learners (i.e., capable of high-fidelity transmission) and effective innovators. Their claim runs parallel to old ideas in children’s folklore studies, going back to Newell’s (Reference Newell1883) recognition that children’s folklore is simultaneously conservative and inventive. While L&A cite Fine (Reference Fine1980) in their discussion of localization and urban legends (sect. 4.3, para. 4), they do not mention the primary concern of that study, which is to identify possible solutions for what Fine calls Newell’s Paradox. If peer culture is both conservative and creative in ways that are distinct from adult culture, why is this so?
Fine suggests that certain folkloric forms are conserved because they align with developmental needs that remain similar from generation to generation. Indeed, folkloristic data demonstrate that forms of childlore are consistently performed in developmental bands. Verbal examples include tongue twisters (Nikolić & Bakarić, Reference Nikolić and Bakarić2016), knock-knock jokes (Bauman, Reference Bauman2024 [1982]), and folktales and legends (Tucker, 1999). In our study of children’s play with perceptual illusions, we have shown that simple prank-like forms of folk illusions, such as an older family member “stealing” the nose of a child, stop when the victim is about 5 years of age, while folk illusions that require particular acts of dexterity, such as the Rubber Pencil trick, begin around 7 years, and illusions that are embedded in a narrative frame, e.g., the size-weight lifting illusions known in English as Light as a Feather, begin closer to adolescence (Barker & Rice, Reference Barker and Rice2019).
Conversely, inventiveness arises from processes of localization (as discussed by L&A) and from idiosyncrasies of individual performances. For example, McDowell (1999) reports a single children’s riddling session, recorded in the 1970s, involving four six-year-old Chicano children in Austin, Texas that features both rote memorization of traditional riddles and the presentation of novel (if less semantically impressive) items modeling the form of traditional riddles: What did X say to Y? Note, riddle 1 is traditional, whereas riddles 2, 3, and 4 are nontraditional inventions:
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1. What did the big chimney say to the little chimney? (Answer – You’re too young to smoke.)
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2. What did the burp say to the great white? (Answer – I can make more noise than you can.)
-
3. What did Spiderman say to Ironman? (Answer – You don’t have no brains.)
-
4. What did the Martian say to the human? (No answer)
On one hand, the Chicano children’s riddling session aligns with L&A’s assertions that children are innovative language users (sect. 2.2, para. 3). Though riddles 2–4 are not traditional, they evince transmission as cognitive activation of the riddling form, where young participants learn the riddle’s form before they master the art of making familiar subjects strange in order to hide the riddle’s solution. Similarly, the inclusion of Spiderman and Ironman demonstrates L&A’s assertion that one way peer cultures vary is through “remixing aspects of an ever-changing popular culture” (sect. 4.3, para. 2).
On the other hand, the Chicano children’s riddling session complicates L&A’s report that children’s folklorists unanimously agree that adults’ contributions to children’s folklore are “minimal or nonexistent” (sect. 4.1, para.1). In fact, the traditional Chicano children’s riddle 1 acquires and parodies adults’ rules against children smoking. While we agree that there are folkloric forms and expressions across cultures that remain specific to peer culture – e.g., counting-out rhymes (Arleo, Reference Arleo1991) – the demarcation between culture belonging to the adult and culture belonging to the child is not always clear. Jay Mechling (Reference Mechling and Tuleja1997) cites a well-known traditional rhyme in English performed by Boy Scouts in California that parodies both food taboos and popular/commercial culture: “Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts/ Itty bitty birdy feet,/ Mutilated monkey meat,/ One-pint portion of all-purpose porpoise pus,/ And me without a spoon!/ (But here’s a straw!)/ (Have it your way, have it your way!) [sung to Burger King jingle]/ (Take that, McDonald’s!).” We find a host of examples of the importance of parody, satire, and nonsense play in children’s folklore and children’s folklore scholarship (e.g., Stewart, 1978; Beresin, Reference Beresin2010).
Irreverent portrayal of adult forms goes beyond the domain of language. As Bronner (Reference Bronner1988) has shown with folkloric traditions for making paper airplanes, paper frogs, paper fortune tellers, etc., children acquire and play with contributions from adults by adopting the materials of industrial culture and transforming them into something that belongs distinctly to their peer culture. While L&A make the point that children prefer to learn play behaviors from peers (sect. 2.1, para. 3), the role that adult cultures play as sources of content and behaviors to be playfully replicated and ridiculed demonstrates another way that peer culture supports both conservative cultural inheritance and creative cultural variation.
Folklore, play, and the triviality barrier
In this journal, Palagi, Stanyon, and Demuru (Reference Palagi, Stanyon and Demuru2015) have argued that play “only seemingly serves no function and has no apparent, immediate benefits, but the incredible phylogenetic depth of play strongly suggests that play is a functional and adaptive behavior.” Children’s folklore, especially of early childhood and middle childhood, is playful, expressive, parodical, taboo-breaking, and frequently trivialized. Perhaps the triviality barrier helps to protect the sphere of knowledge L&A claim peer cultures hold in reserve.
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The triviality barrier
Fifty-five years ago, psychologist and children’s folklorist Brian Sutton-Smith (Reference Sutton-Smith1970) argued that a triviality barrier kept his fellow psychologists from studying the expressive play forms of children. For Sutton-Smith, the problem of the triviality barrier is difficult precisely because of modern civilization’s central concerns with work, rationality, science, sex, food, etc. Not unlike Sutton-Smith, L&A face down a triviality barrier in (at least) Euro-American cultural evolution studies that deem peer cultures “inconsequential” or “relegated entirely to the domain of play” (sect. 3.2, para. 3). We applaud L&A for looking past the triviality barrier to attend to children’s folklore. If their hypothesis that peer cultures contribute to cultural evolution holds water, and if children’s folklore scholarship ends up supporting their claim, we suspect that peer culture’s prowess in the domains of play and expressive behaviors will be important.
Newell’s paradox
L&A claim that participants in peer cultures are both high-fidelity learners (i.e., capable of high-fidelity transmission) and effective innovators. Their claim runs parallel to old ideas in children’s folklore studies, going back to Newell’s (Reference Newell1883) recognition that children’s folklore is simultaneously conservative and inventive. While L&A cite Fine (Reference Fine1980) in their discussion of localization and urban legends (sect. 4.3, para. 4), they do not mention the primary concern of that study, which is to identify possible solutions for what Fine calls Newell’s Paradox. If peer culture is both conservative and creative in ways that are distinct from adult culture, why is this so?
Fine suggests that certain folkloric forms are conserved because they align with developmental needs that remain similar from generation to generation. Indeed, folkloristic data demonstrate that forms of childlore are consistently performed in developmental bands. Verbal examples include tongue twisters (Nikolić & Bakarić, Reference Nikolić and Bakarić2016), knock-knock jokes (Bauman, Reference Bauman2024 [1982]), and folktales and legends (Tucker, 1999). In our study of children’s play with perceptual illusions, we have shown that simple prank-like forms of folk illusions, such as an older family member “stealing” the nose of a child, stop when the victim is about 5 years of age, while folk illusions that require particular acts of dexterity, such as the Rubber Pencil trick, begin around 7 years, and illusions that are embedded in a narrative frame, e.g., the size-weight lifting illusions known in English as Light as a Feather, begin closer to adolescence (Barker & Rice, Reference Barker and Rice2019).
Conversely, inventiveness arises from processes of localization (as discussed by L&A) and from idiosyncrasies of individual performances. For example, McDowell (1999) reports a single children’s riddling session, recorded in the 1970s, involving four six-year-old Chicano children in Austin, Texas that features both rote memorization of traditional riddles and the presentation of novel (if less semantically impressive) items modeling the form of traditional riddles: What did X say to Y? Note, riddle 1 is traditional, whereas riddles 2, 3, and 4 are nontraditional inventions:
1. What did the big chimney say to the little chimney? (Answer – You’re too young to smoke.)
2. What did the burp say to the great white? (Answer – I can make more noise than you can.)
3. What did Spiderman say to Ironman? (Answer – You don’t have no brains.)
4. What did the Martian say to the human? (No answer)
On one hand, the Chicano children’s riddling session aligns with L&A’s assertions that children are innovative language users (sect. 2.2, para. 3). Though riddles 2–4 are not traditional, they evince transmission as cognitive activation of the riddling form, where young participants learn the riddle’s form before they master the art of making familiar subjects strange in order to hide the riddle’s solution. Similarly, the inclusion of Spiderman and Ironman demonstrates L&A’s assertion that one way peer cultures vary is through “remixing aspects of an ever-changing popular culture” (sect. 4.3, para. 2).
On the other hand, the Chicano children’s riddling session complicates L&A’s report that children’s folklorists unanimously agree that adults’ contributions to children’s folklore are “minimal or nonexistent” (sect. 4.1, para.1). In fact, the traditional Chicano children’s riddle 1 acquires and parodies adults’ rules against children smoking. While we agree that there are folkloric forms and expressions across cultures that remain specific to peer culture – e.g., counting-out rhymes (Arleo, Reference Arleo1991) – the demarcation between culture belonging to the adult and culture belonging to the child is not always clear. Jay Mechling (Reference Mechling and Tuleja1997) cites a well-known traditional rhyme in English performed by Boy Scouts in California that parodies both food taboos and popular/commercial culture: “Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts/ Itty bitty birdy feet,/ Mutilated monkey meat,/ One-pint portion of all-purpose porpoise pus,/ And me without a spoon!/ (But here’s a straw!)/ (Have it your way, have it your way!) [sung to Burger King jingle]/ (Take that, McDonald’s!).” We find a host of examples of the importance of parody, satire, and nonsense play in children’s folklore and children’s folklore scholarship (e.g., Stewart, 1978; Beresin, Reference Beresin2010).
Irreverent portrayal of adult forms goes beyond the domain of language. As Bronner (Reference Bronner1988) has shown with folkloric traditions for making paper airplanes, paper frogs, paper fortune tellers, etc., children acquire and play with contributions from adults by adopting the materials of industrial culture and transforming them into something that belongs distinctly to their peer culture. While L&A make the point that children prefer to learn play behaviors from peers (sect. 2.1, para. 3), the role that adult cultures play as sources of content and behaviors to be playfully replicated and ridiculed demonstrates another way that peer culture supports both conservative cultural inheritance and creative cultural variation.
Folklore, play, and the triviality barrier
In this journal, Palagi, Stanyon, and Demuru (Reference Palagi, Stanyon and Demuru2015) have argued that play “only seemingly serves no function and has no apparent, immediate benefits, but the incredible phylogenetic depth of play strongly suggests that play is a functional and adaptive behavior.” Children’s folklore, especially of early childhood and middle childhood, is playful, expressive, parodical, taboo-breaking, and frequently trivialized. Perhaps the triviality barrier helps to protect the sphere of knowledge L&A claim peer cultures hold in reserve.
Acknowledgements
N/A.
Financial support
This research supporting this commentary received no specific grant from any funding agency.
Competing interests
None.