In the quest to understand how children engage and collaborate during play, new research from the Universities of Cambridge and Sussex challenges longstanding assumptions about the importance of social familiarity in cooperative interactions. The study, recently published in the journal Infant and Child Development, delves into how children’s connectedness—a measure of how effectively they communicate and share ideas—varies not just with their social skills but significantly with the context and purpose of their play activities.
For generations, parents and educators alike have urged children to “play nicely,” hoping for spontaneous cooperation among young peers. However, this new investigation reveals a more nuanced picture: the quality of interaction depends less on the intrinsic social capabilities of the children themselves and more on whether they share a pre-existing friendship and on the nature of their play. This groundbreaking insight reorients the understanding of social development by positioning the situational dynamics of play as crucial determinants of collaborative success.
The study rigorously examined 148 children aged six to eight, pairing them as friends and non-friends, then observing their interactions in two distinct play scenarios. The first scenario involved unstructured, open-ended play with a Playmobil treehouse, allowing children to engage at will without explicit goals. The second context presented a structured, goal-directed task where pairs had to collaboratively complete a drawing of a treehouse starting from a simple tree-trunk outline, necessitating joint effort and shared problem-solving.
Researchers quantified “connectedness” by analyzing video recordings for episodes where children’s speech aligned—when one child’s remarks directly responded to, elaborated on, or built logically upon what the other had said. This approach provided a proxy for understanding how children negotiate, share attention, and coordinate their actions beyond mere proximity or side-by-side play. The measure of connected talk served as an objective indicator of the depth and quality of social communication between pairs.
Intriguingly, across the entire cohort, connectedness increased modestly during the goal-directed drawing task compared to free play. Yet a closer stratification revealed that this overall rise was predominantly driven by non-friend pairs, whose connected talk soared from 44% to an appreciable 55%. In contrast, friend pairs showed minimal difference across conditions, maintaining high and stable connectedness. This disparity highlights that while friends leverage pre-existing rapport and unspoken cues to coordinate, non-friends may require structured goals to facilitate equivalently effective collaboration.
Dr. Emily Goodacre, a cognitive development expert with Cambridge’s PEDAL (Play in Education, Development and Learning) Research Centre, commented on the findings’ counterintuitive nature. She explained that friends’ shared history and mutual understanding render explicit objectives less critical for connected play, as they intuitively sync. Conversely, non-friends, lacking this familiarity, appear to benefit significantly from the scaffolding a clear, joint purpose provides to engage reciprocally and deepen their communicative exchange.
This revelation holds profound implications for pedagogical strategies in early education. It suggests that educators and caregivers should incorporate deliberately designed, goal-oriented activities when aiming to foster cooperation and connectedness among peers who do not naturally gravitate towards one another. Simply providing open-ended play materials may not sufficiently encourage meaningful interactions among children lacking friendship bonds, potentially limiting their social skill development.
Furthermore, the study advances the dialogue on childhood social competence by shifting focus from individual socio-cognitive traits to the relational and contextual elements shaping interaction quality. It underscores the importance of examining both the composition of social pairings and the environmental frameworks in which children engage, advocating a holistic perspective in developmental research and applied educational interventions.
Beyond practical teaching considerations, the research elucidates a subtle but critical facet of play dynamics: while children can physically play side-by-side, true collaboration involves an active back-and-forth communication that fosters mutual understanding and responsiveness. This “connectedness” serves not only as a marker of teamwork but also embodies the skills of negotiation, empathy, and co-regulation essential for healthy social development.
Anecdotal observations from the study’s video recordings underscore this divide—the conversations among non-friends during free play were often functional and staccato, lacking the vibrancy and creative spontaneity seen in friend pairs. However, when a shared goal was introduced, non-friends increased their active listening and reciprocal engagement, suggesting that goal-directed tasks act as catalysts for more meaningful interaction.
In practical terms, these findings illuminate how to better support children who may be socially isolated or less inclined to form friendships. Facilitating structured cooperative projects can help bridge the gap, encouraging these children to connect and communicate more effectively, enhancing their social integration and skill acquisition through intentional play design.
Importantly, the researchers caution that the observed patterns do not imply that friends are inherently more collaborative—instead, friends may rely on implicit communication modes such as gestures or shared rhythms, which do not always manifest in overt verbal connectedness. This distinction highlights the multifaceted nature of social interaction, where communication encompasses a diverse array of signals beyond speech alone.
Overall, this compelling research expands our understanding of the interplay between social relationships and play contexts in childhood development. By identifying the conditions under which non-friends achieve higher connectedness, it offers actionable insights to educators, caregivers, and policymakers seeking to cultivate cooperative and inclusive learning environments that accommodate a broad spectrum of social dynamics among young children.
Subject of Research: Communication and connectedness in childhood play among friend and non-friend peer pairs.
Article Title: Communication with friends and non-friend peers: An examination of dyadic connectedness across two play contexts
News Publication Date: Not explicitly specified in the article; research published on 26-Feb-2026
Web References: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/icd.70089
References: Goodacre, E., et al. (2026). Communication with friends and non-friend peers: An examination of dyadic connectedness across two play contexts. Infant and Child Development. DOI: 10.1002/icd.70089
Keywords: Social sciences, Behavioral psychology, Developmental psychology, Children, Educational methods, Education, Teaching, Informal education, Early education, Early educational intervention, Preschool, Cognitive psychology, Cognitive development
