[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-592427-105":59,"doc-detail-592427-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","play-as-a-pathway-of-behavior-thomas-s-henricks","Play as a Pathway of Behavior - Thomas S. Henricks","","The author presents play as one of four fundamental pathways of behavior alongside work, ritual, and communitas. Each pathway is treated as an organized “pathway” that structures experience through distinct “self-locations,” including privilege, subordination, engagement, and marginality. The discussion links pathways to emotion sequences, showing how feelings move from anticipation toward present occurrences and later remembrances, with illustrative contrasts across the four modes.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/play-as-a-pathway-of-behavior-thomas-s-henricks/592427/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/play-as-a-pathway-of-behavior-thomas-s-henricks/592427.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"McGucket","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-10","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":14},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"How does the author define play within a broader theory of behavior?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Play is defined as one of four fundamental categories of behavior—along with work, ritual, and communitas—each functioning as a structured pathway for experiencing life.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What are “self-locations,” and how do they relate to the pathways?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The author treats “self-locations” as key elements in forming experience, describing privileges, subordination, engagement, and marginality as orientations within the pathways.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What does the article argue about play’s “specialness” compared with other activities?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Rather than contrasting play with all other activities, the author argues it is more useful to compare play with other equally distinctive patterns—work, ritual, and communitas—each understood as a publicly recognized trajectory of an event.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},592427,1792074563,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":14,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":144,"preview_page_count":4},1236954412713,"https://us-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0","Play as a Pathway of Behavior  \ns  \nThomas S. Henricks  \nSeeking to understand play as part of a more general theory of human relationships, the author defines play as one of four fundamental categories of behavior, the others being work, ritual, and communitas. He discusses how each of these behaviors is organized as a “pathway” that offers distinctive opportunities for experiencing life and for discovering “self-locations,” specifically privilege, subordination, engagement, and marginality. These pathways and self-locations are understood to be key elements in the formation of experience. Associating play, ritual, work, and communitas with either ascending (self-directed) meaning or descending (other-directed) meaning, he describes their related “emotion sequences,” essentially chains of emotions that lead from feelings of anticipation to those addressing occurrences in the present to remembrances. For example, work leads from self-confidence to pride; play, from curiosity to gratitude; communitas, from hope to blessedness; and ritual, from faith to reverence. Each of the four pathways is a profoundly important, but also a limited format for action and experience. Keywords: ascending and descending meaning; communitas; engagement; marginality; modes of self-location; patterns of behavior; play; privilege; ritual; subordination; work  \nThe study of play has been marked by a philosophy of exceptionalism—the view that play is profoundly different from“real” or “ordinary”life or, indeed, from anything else that human beings do. To be sure, some of the great writingson play emphasize the extent to which play lies apart from daily routines (Huizinga 1955; Caillois 2001) . Inside the magic circle of play, so some argue, players take liberties with the policies and practices of their societies. They set customary behaviors aside. Inside the circle, they can practice life, parody it, fantasize about it, and even resist it. And during these explorations, they understand that what happens on the playground gets judged only by the rules of the playground. Rid of life’s usual consequences, play takes on the guise of speculation, mimicry, and make-believe. In all these ways, the classic texts consider play special.  \nIn this article, I do not challenge the idea that play is a distinct way of relating to the world. But I do question the case some make for its specialness. I argue here that instead of contrasting play to all other activities, it is more useful to compare play to some other basic—and equally distinctive—patterns. These  \n225  \nExcerpted from Selves, Societies, and Emotions: Understanding the Pathways of Experience, published and copyrighted by Paradigm Publishers, 2012. American Journal of Play, volume 4, number 2. © The Strong. All rights reserved. Contact Thomas Henricks [at henricks@elon.edu](at henricks@elon.edu)  \npatterns are work, ritual, and communitas. Each of them, I argue, is a pathway for experience, a publicly recognized trajectory that orients participants to what will occur and then carries them through that event. Once an activity has been identified in this fashion, everyone knows what behaviors are appropriate, what statuses or “standings” the participants are seeking, what objects and settings are pertinent, and how the whole affair—composed of recognized beginnings, middles, and ends—is going to be comprehended and discussed as an “event.”  \nThe postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida (1981) has claimed that we cannot know the true essence, nature, or meaning of things. Precise understandings elude us even as we seek dictionary definitions. However, all of us have a strong sense that one thing is not the same as another. That is, we look at the world’s objects and occurrences—including the activities that I focus on here—by remarking on their contrast, their differences. We decide what things are by recognizing what they are not. We judge presence (all the things that are going on here and now) by absence (all ","cbCaitAc0edBCxM8","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaitAc0edBCxM8","pdf",405605,29,"English","# Play as a Pathway of Behavior\n## Four Fundamental Pathways\n## The Question of Play’s Specialness\n## Comparing Pathways as Public Events\n## Contrast, Presence/Absence, and Framing","[{\"question\":\"How does the author define play within a broader theory of behavior?\",\"answer\":\"Play is defined as one of four fundamental categories of behavior—along with work, ritual, and communitas—each functioning as a structured pathway for experiencing life.\"},{\"question\":\"What are “self-locations,” and how do they relate to the pathways?\",\"answer\":\"The author treats “self-locations” as key elements in forming experience, describing privileges, subordination, engagement, and marginality as orientations within the pathways.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the article argue about play’s “specialness” compared with other activities?\",\"answer\":\"Rather than contrasting play with all other activities, the author argues it is more useful to compare play with other equally distinctive patterns—work, ritual, and communitas—each understood as a publicly recognized trajectory of an event.\"}]","Play as a Pathway of Behavior - Thomas S. Henricks | PDF",73]