Soviet Psychology

ISSN: 0038-5751 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mrpo19

The Development of Voluntary Behavior in

Preschool-Age Children

Z. V. Manuilenko

To cite this article: Z. V. Manuilenko (1975) The Development of Voluntary Behavior in

Preschool-Age Children, Soviet Psychology, 13:4, 65-116

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Published online: 19 Dec 2014.

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 Izvestiya Akademii pedagogicheskikh
nauk RSFSR, 1948, No. 14, 89-123

Z . V . Manuilenko

THE DEVELOPMENT O F VOLUNTARY

BEHAVIOR IN PRESCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN

I. The Problem and the Method

Inthe literature on the psychology of the preschool-age child one

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finds it frequently stated that the preschool period is when the first
signs of the development of volition [ o r the will] appear (Ushinsky
[ 191, Sikorskii [ 171, Kornilov [ 61, and others). Empirical studies
on the development of specific processes in the child, e.g., percep-
tion, memory, speech, and movement, have shown that the principal
change these processes undergo in the three-to-seven-year-old
child is that they become voluntary and subject to regulation.*
Empirical studies have also been made, of course, on the spe-
cific problem of the development of voluntary behavior in the
child (Ivanov [ 4 ] , Gurevich [ 3 ] , Gorbacheva [2]).
In the light of the results of all these studies i t may be con-
sidered a quite well established fact that somewhere during the
preschool period a significant change occurs: the child's be-
havior becomes voluntary and regulable. The purpose of our

*See the works of N. G. Morozov, Z. I. Istomina, and

A. V. Zaporozhets that appear in the present issue of Iz- _.

vestiya APN.

65
 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

study w a s to investigate this change.

One of the major difficulties in the study of the problem of
the development of will in children is to find out exactly what we
mean by this problem, i.e., to be able to pose it in clear and
precise terms. The terms "voluntary," the "will," and "regu-
lability" a r e extremely vague in psychological usage. In some
cases, by voluntary acts or acts of the will is meant any act that
is not reflexive or instinctive.
In other cases, these terms refer to acts involving obstacles,
choice, and a conflict of motives. Moral force is sometimes
added as another characteristic. In experimental studies, es-
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pecially contemporary studies on particular psychological pro-

cesses, the concept of voluntary behavior usually h a s a more
restricted and concrete meaning, referring to purposeful be-
havior capable of being regulated and monitored.
This latter notion of voluntariness, more restricted in its
meaning, should not, in our opinion, be counterposed to the no-
tion of voluntary or willful acts as those that are neither reflex-
ive, impulsive, nor instinctive. Yet it helps to clarify our terms,
and is much closer to the notion of voluntary acts and the con-
cept of voluntary, willful behavior that has come into use in
preschool pedagogy.
In addition, this concept of voluntariness is psychologically
more specific than the ethico-psychological view, as we might
call it. The latter complicates the psychological problem of
voluntariness by introducing the added problem of general per-
sonality traits, and must take into consideration questions such
as personal orientation, personal views, and s o forth. Of course,
when one attempts to apply such a concept to the psychology of
young children, considerable difficulties arise. Nevertheless,
some notion of purposefulness and regulability of behavior must
be used in any general psychological description of will no mat-
ter how it is defined. We thus decided to focus our study on the
development of purposefulness and the capacity to regulate one's
own behavior in the preschool child.
Another problem we faced in setting up our study w a s to find
some type of children's behavior that best fit our intention. In-
 SUMMER 1975 67

deed, the emergence of purposefulness and controllability in

the development of specific processes (for example, volun-
tary recall and retention, or processes of perception) or of ac-
tive motor behavior cannot be separated from the development
of other aspects of these processes. If this is true, even a study
of complex behavior such as K. M. Gurevich (3) has undertaken
cannot be made without taking into account the influence exerted
on such behavior by the development of the processes that con-
stitute that kind of behavior - for example, putting together a
mosaic, or choosing games with a purpose.
The ideal situation, of course, would be to be able to study
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voluntariness of the will in its pure form, s o to speak. There-

fore, in working out our method, we tried to eliminate as far
as possible the influence of the specific content of a particular
type of behavior on the child's capacity to regulate that behavior
(since i t w a s this development we intended to study).
The behavior we decided to study w a s the holding of a particu-
lar pose. The task we presented to our subjects had a t f i r s t
glance a negative form, i.e., the child w a s required to refrain
from making any movements. Actually, however, such a task
is not a t all negative. On the contrary, i t is a quite specific,
positive, psychological task, which requires self -supervision,
self-control, and regulation of one's motor behavior. It r e -
quires the child to be psychologically active . This unique, ac -
tive form of inactivity, so to speak, has traditionally and rightly
been classified as one of the specific forms of active will.
Yet, this unique form of behavior, which outwardly appears
negative and passive, is not at all artificial. On the contrary,
we regularly encounter various forms of it in a child's every-
day life and in our own everyday pedagogical practice, in which
it appears quite clearly as a form of behavior requiring active
ability to exert self-control.
At home, in the family setting, and in the kindergarten we
often say to the child: "NOW s i t quietly; stop shuffling about
with your feet and fidgeting about in your chair"; o r , in games,
"You must stand in line and keep your place and wait your
turn"; or "If you want to play hide-and-seek, you can't budge if
 68 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

you don't want to give away where you are," etc.

The need for this kind of control over one's behavior is es-
pecially obvious in school. It is one of those unavoidable de-
mands that school places on a child from the very first day he
enters it; the child must learn to stand in line, to stand quietly
without any unnecessary movements. In the classroom he must
not slam h i s desk top, he must not fiddle with and handle school
things; when something is being shown or displayed, he has to
watch himself, keep an eye on h i s actions, and curb his impul-
sive, involuntary movements. "The notion that the will not only
is capable of causing but also suppressing actions has existed
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ever since human beings f i r s t began to observe in themselves

and those around them the capacity to suppress involuntary out-
bursts and impulses,'' said I. Sechenov (16 P. 121). Finally,
this kind of voluntary behavior seemed to us to typify most
thoroughly the development of the physiological mechanisms of
voluntary behavior as defined in our more general theory. In-
deed, it was no coincidence that Sechenov and other investiga-
tors linked the development of this mechanism with the develop-
ment of the inhibitory function of the higher cortical centers.
Thus, after deciding on what type of behavior we should study,
we worked out a standard procedure to be used for all the age
groups of subjects. This procedure involved studying the length
of time a child could hold a specified pose. However, in order
not to limit ourselves to a mere description of the stages of
development of children's ability to cope with this problem and
to enable us to subject this process to empirical analysis, we
varied the conditions of the experiment. There were six series
of experiments, each with slightly altered conditions, which we
shall describe below.
In all the series, our subjects were three to seven years old.
However, for some series we omitted data obtained in the
youngest subjects (three-to-f our-year -olds) because they were
completely unable to cope with the problem.
All the subjects were divided into age groups: three to four;
four to five, five to six, and, finally, six to seven. Thus, in all
our graphs and tables the age reference should be read, for
 SUMMER 1975 69

example, as follows: three to four means children who were at

least three years old but had not yet reached their fourth birth-
days. Each group contained 30 children, i.e., there were 120
subjects in each series.
In each s e r i e s there were about 700 sessions in all, excluding
practice sessions. The studies were carried out in Moscow
kindergartens: Kindergarten No. 12, Krasnoperenskii Kinder-
garten No. 2 , Sovietskii District, and in the nurseries of the
No. 63 Sovietskii District.

11. Voluntary Behavior of Children as They Perform

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a Task Assigned by an Adult and in Play

This s e r i e s of experiments w a s set up to determine differ-

ences in the voluntary behavior of children of various ages as
they performed a task assigned by an adult.
To determine to what extent three-to-seven-year -old chil-
dren were capable of voluntarily maintaining a specific pose on
the demand of an adult we asked the children to assume the
pose of a guard and to hold i t as long as they could. In the in-
structions given to the children this pose w a s not named as
such, so that they did not have any idea that this w a s indeed the
pose of a guard. We told them only that we wanted to see wheth-
e r they were able to stand in the way that we would show them,
and then we actually showed them this pose: the right a r m bent
a t the elbow and the left a r m hanging down at the side. The chil-
dren were told they had to stand this way without moving, that
they could not shift about or fidget. Then they were asked if
they understood the task. Usually the children answered yes
and displayed complete willingness to show how long they could
stand this way. Then the subjects assumed the required pose,
and the experimenter started a stopwatch to mark the beginning
of the experiment. The time elapsed until the child made the
f i r s t gross break in the pose w a s counted. During the experi-
ment the experimenter saw to it that there were no external
 70 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

factors to distract the child. One hundred and twenty subjects

aged 3 to 7 years (30 children in each age group) went
through this s e r i e s of experiments. Our data summarizing the
average length of time during which the required pose w a s
maintained show that, as indeed we anticipated, most three-to-
four-year-olds were unable to cope with the task to any signifi-
cant degree, although they had been willing to try.

Table 1
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Pose-holding Times
(1st Series of Experiments)
Pose-holding time
Age of children (average figures)
From 3 to 4 years 18 sec
From 4 to 5 years 2 min, 15 s e c
From 5 to 6 years 5 min, 12 sec
From 6 to 7 years 12 min

As is evident from Table 1, the average length of time during

which three-to-four-year-olds held the required pose was about
18 sec (median). This means that most children of this age
were, practically speaking, unable to cope with the task. Of the
30 subjects, only 8 held the pose for more than 1 min, and most
of these were the oldest in the group. The others broke i t al-
most immediately, i.e., within 15-20 sec. Older subjects were
able to maintain the pose for a longer time; thus, in fcur-to-
five-year-olds, the average time w a s 2 min, 15 sec. Only 6
subjects maintained the required pose for less than 1 min, and
17 held i t longer than 2 min. Compared with the three-to-four-
year-olds, the time w a s much longer.
Results were again much different in the older groups. Fig.
1 presents in graphic form the general increase in the pose-
holding time for all the age groups. Table 2 compares the
distribution of average times for four-, five-, and six-year-
olds .
To s e e what was responsible for this increase in pose-holding
 SUMMER 1975 71

Table 2

Comparative Distribution of Indices

of Pose -holding Time for
Test Subjects of Various Ages
(1st Series of Experiments)

Post-holding time Number of subjects by age

I
(in min) 4-5 years 5-6 years 6-7 years
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To 1 6
From 1 to 2 7
From 2 to 3 5
F r o m 3 to 4 12
F r o m 4 to 8 -
From 8 to 12 -
Over 12 -
time with age, let u s take a look at
how the children actually behaved
duringthe experiments. First, let 15--r
2 10
u s look at some examples of how v
m
three-t 0-four -year -old children
behaved.
Alla G. (three years, two months)
willingly undertook the task, stood
3-4 4-5 5-6 6-7
motionless, but within 10 sec turned Key: - Pose-holding time
her head and then resumed the re- i n the presence only
quiredpose. Another 8 sec later of experimenter
she made a gross movement to Fig. 1. Pose-holding time
break the pose. (1st series of experiments)
Another subject, Vova P. (three years, six months), also
willingly agreed to stand motionless. But within 15 s e c he be-
gan to swing his right a r m , while keeping his left a r m close to
its original position, except that it w a s a little bit unbent and
his hand was made into a fist. The subject himself clearly did
not notice this and continued to demonstrate how well he could
stand there. The experiment was stopped a t the 30th sec.
 72 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

Ira L. (three years, one month) w a s quite willing to meet the

requirement of standing in one position without moving. How-
ever, by the time 5 sec had elapsed, she had already shifted h e r
position, although she returned to the original pose. This took
place several times during the course of the session, which we
broke off quite soon. When w e asked her if she had really stood
without moving and if she was satisfied with her performance,
she answered yes.
An older girl, Natasha K. (three years, seven months), stood
straight, looking the entire time a t the experimenter. She stood
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thus for 45 sec and then broke her pose by turning her head.
However, she did not notice this and continued staring. Her
right a r m gradually dropped. When we stopped the session, we
found that she thought she had fulfilled the task, i.e., like the
other subjects of her age, she did not notice that she had broken
her pose.
There is no need to add to these examples. In all cases in
which children of this age group were unable to hold the pose
for more than 1 min - and that was in 70% of the cases w e-
found that the subjects were unaware of their motor behavior,
i.e., they usually did not notice that they had broken their pose.
They would turn their heads, shuffle their feet, and swing their
left a r m ; sometimes they would involuntarily let their right
a r m drop and would make a fist with their hand. Nevertheless,
they thought they had carried out the instructions correctly. It
might be thought that subjects of this age group forgot what they
were doing. However, this was not the case. When we asked a
child just how he had been asked to stand, he would usually re-
peat the instructions: You must not move, you must not turn
your head, etc. Thus most of the record sheets for three-to-
four-year-old children show that even a simple monitoring of
one's motor behavior presents considerable difficulties for
children of this age, who hence seem to lack even the most gen-
e r a l and elementary preconditions for voluntary command over
their behavior. We could say that at this age behavior i s not
yet under self-control (self-monitored).
We saw that four-to-five-year-old children were able to
 SUMMER 1975 73

maintain the pose for a much longer time, in fact, more than
seven times longer. The reason for this w a s that, as an analy-
sis of the record sheets for children over four years old showed,
the almost totally unmonitored behavior typical of younger chil-
dren had vanished in them.
Valery B. (four years, two months) assumed the pose and then
f r o m time to time would look a t his right a r m and adjust it.
However, as soon as he took his eyes away from his a r m it
would quickly drop, and then he would again have to adjust i t s
position. In his case, monitoring was sporadic and involved
visual checking of a r m position. The role of proprioception
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seemed to come into play only when gross disruptions of the

pose occurred.
Another type of behavior w a s exhibited by Valiya K. (four
y e a r s , three months). He assumed the required pose and stood
there, motionless. On the 30th sec he turned his head. We told
him that this w a s an e r r o r and that he would have to stand there
better and not turn his head, and asked him to continue. In con-
t r a s t to the younger subjects, Valiya agreed with our sugges-
tions. He now stood there more motionlessly; he would look a t
objects that came into his view, but without turning his head.
When his head would begin to turn ever s o slightly with his gaze,
he immediately righted it, as if he were again and again re-
turning to his task. The second time he stood there more than
2 min. The pose w a s finally broken when he raised his right
hand to h i s face. However, he himself didn't notice this and
continued to stand there longer.
In this and similar cases we observed what w a s undoubtedly
monitoring, although i t w a s still very limited. Indeed, it was
limited by the form in which i t occurred (by the role of visual
monitoring, and by the primitiveness of proprioceptive monitor-
ing) and by the child's restricted ability to watch over the posi-
tions of various parts of his body, e.g., his head and a r m s , a t
the same time.
The five-to-six-year-old subjects demonstrated an even bet-
ter command of their motor behavior.
Lida (five years, six months) stood with her gaze focused on
 74 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

one point. She suddenly took out her handkerchief with her left
hand and began to wipe her eyes, all the while maintaining her
right a r m and the r e s t of her body in the required position.
When asked why she had broken her pose, she answered that
she had to rub her eyes. She w a s told that she could blink her
eyes and that that would moisten them. We repeated the experi-
ments. She stood there for 5 min with her eyes dry. She tried
to turn her head toward the window, but abruptly checked her-
self. She kept her right a r m in the required position the entire
time. When her fingers involuntarily began to close, she would
stretch out her palm without looking. She stood there 8 min in
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all. She broke the pose by raising her left hand to her face. She
herself noticed this and looked questioningly at the experimenter.
Valery R. (five years, ten months) took on the task with in-
terest. He said that he wanted to stand there a very long time.
He w a s a little embarrassed and cast his eyes downward. Three
minutes went by with him holding his pose well. During this
time a fly alighted on his face, but he suppressed the desire to
brush i t away. During the 12th min his right a r m began to drop.
Without looking a t it, he raised i t and bent i t a t a right angle.
When the nurse unexpectedly entered the testing room, he
showed no response.
Vitya V. (six years old) maintained the pose well, also with
his eyes cast down. He would ajust his right a r m from time to
time and look a t it while doing so. Sometimes he would adjust
it and straighten his body a t the same time. He stood for 8 min
and then broke the pose by an abrupt movement with his left
arm.
These records show that usually five-to-six-year-old chil-
dren kept an eye on the position of their a r m and sometimes
adjusted the position of their entire body a t the same time.
Cases in which the children would suppress involuntary move-
ments were more frequent (to brush away a fly, to scratch a
cheek, turn their head toward a noise, etc.). However, children
of this age sometimes still found it very difficult, on the whole,
to watch their pose for any appreciable length of time.
Five-to-six-year-old children were typically able to utilize
 SUMMER 1975 75

specific devices to keep themselves from being distracted. They

would most often keep their eyes cast dawn or gaze straight
ahead of them. Sometimes they would look a t the experimenter,
however, which of course w a s also a way to avoid distraction.
The voluntary behavior of six-to-seven-year-old children
w a s quite steady and prolonged.
Igor V. (six years, four months). Fourteen minutes passed
during which Igor kept his gaze downward. It w a s obvious that
he w a s getting physically very tired, but he did not even make
an attempt to break his pose. He overcame the unpleasant feel-
ing of fatigue almost imperceptibly, squaring his shoulders.
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When asked, "Igor a r e you tired?" he answered emphatically,

"NO."
Sveta B. (six years, seven months) behaved the same way.
She tried to keep from being distracted, often glanced down-
ward a t a particular spot, and adjusted her right a r m from
time to time without looking at it. Twelve minutes passed, and
the expression on her face and her pose remained the same as
they were a t the beginning of the experiment.
Thus, the records of the experiments generally show that
six-to-seven-year-old children tended to exhibit the same type
of behavior in carrying out the task. They maintained complete,
voluntary control as they stood in the required pose.
A comparison of the behavior of subjects in different age
groups gives us an idea of the internal changes that character-
ize the development of voluntary control over one's outward
behavior during the preschool period as a whole.
At each r i s e on a curve corresponding to an increase in vol-
untary pose-holding time, new features appear in the child's
behavior. A s we have seen, the youngesl of our subjects (those
between the ages of three and four) were unable to cope with
the task even though they were willing enough. Not only did
they show no ability to maintain voluntary control of themselves
but they were even unable to give any s o r t of a clear account
of their movements, that is, in the particular experiment to tell
how they were standing a t a given moment. Evidently, the ab-
sence of self -control at this age also precludes these children's
 76 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

having any voluntary component in their motor behavior.

The voluntary pose-holding time sharply increased for the
four-to-five-year-old children; and as we may infer from the
cases described above, this was probably due to the fact that
the children were able to s e t a goal for themselves, namely, to
monitor their pose. They would continually look at their bent
right arm, adjust its position, and always notice any gross
break in the pose. In other words, subjects of this age for the
f i r s t time had conscious control over the position of their body.
However, it should be especially emphasized that this control
is of a very particular form. It is the result of a specific, pur-
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poseful act that is not yet fused with other processes and com-
pletely occupies the child's consciousness. Hence this control
is easily disrupted; one need only distract the child for this to
happen.
The first signs that a child has developed the kind of control
over his outward behavior that is based upon a real self -control
that no longer requires any special purposeful acts and does
not completely occupy the child's mind do not appear until the
age of five or six. Then control over one's pose becomes, as it
were, automatic. This change in the nature of self-control in-
volves a switchover to proprioceptive perceptions, which, of
course, a r e typical of most automatic processes. This process
reached its full development in our oldest group of subjects.
Real control, real voluntariness, also requires that the process
of control become automatic, i.e., that it be transformed into a
cognitive operation (A. N. Leont'ev). The voluntary holding of
a pose does not mean that the child consciously maintains the
pose without interruption, but only that he has the ability to
control it consciously. Indeed, what we call the ability to moni-
tor oneself is not the result of a specifically directed con-
scious activity, but only the possibility of conscious control of
oneself, i.e., the possibility of accounting for some motor be-
havior or expression, the ability to maintain control over one-
self as one is carrying out some task. For example, school re-
quires students to sit correctly a t their desks. This require-
ment, of course, assumes that the student is capable of main-
 SUMMER 1975 77

taining the correct pose not only when his attention is specif-
ically directed to it but even when he is paying attention to the
teacher or doing a lesson. Thus, the very f i r s t data we obtained
provide a basis for tracing out hypothetically the lines along
which voluntariness develops in preschool-age children.
The second series of experiments w a s designed to check the
data we obtained under the conditions described above.

The f i r s t s e r i e s of experiments w a s carried out in a special

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testing room with each child individually. These experimental

conditions had diverse effects on how a child carried out the
task, depending on his age. The second s e r i e s of experiments
differed from the f i r s t in that it w a s carried out in a common
room with all the children present. If w e assume that the pro-
cesses involved in holding a pose a r e different for different
stages of development, then the influence of these new condi-
tions would vary depending on the age of the subjects. Three-
to-four-year-old children accepted the task, as a rule, but were
unable to cope with it. Thus, any distracting factors associated
with the transfer of the experiment to the group situation should
not produce any great differences in the performance of these
children, since even when there was a minimum of distracting
factors, their performance was minimal.
The situation was different for four-to-five-year-olds. Sub-
jects in this age group, as w e have seen, had to concentrate
their attention to hold the pose. Hence we assumed that for
these children performing the experiments in a group would
cause a sharp drop in their performance. On the other hand, if
our analysis were correct, then the older children would show
no appreciable difference in their performance because of the
change in the conditions of the experiment. Holding a pose w a s
a controllable act for them and, moreover, an automatic pro-
cess. Consequently, even if their attention were distracted by
the other playing children, this should not disrupt their purpose,
which w a s to maintain the required pose. With regard to the
 78 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

five-to-six-year-old children, we expected them to occupy

an intermediate position between four-to-five-year-olds and
children older than six. The second s e r i e s of experiments
w a s carried out to test these assumptions. An additional
important feature of this s e r i e s of experiments w a s that
its external conditions were equivalent to the third ("game")
s e r i e s of experiments. Hence, we were able to compare
performances in the two series, e,g., in the second s e r i e s
holding a pose a t the request of an experimenter, and in
the third series, holding a pose as part of playing a role in a
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game. Experiments in the second s e r i e s were carried out exact-

ly as in the first series. The same 120 children of the first s e -
ries participated in the second series as well. The data showed
that under these conditions, the children were able to maintain
the voluntary pose of a guard for a much shorter time, and this
was especially true of four-to-five-year-old children.
A comparison of the performance of three-to-four-year-
olds in the second s e r i e s with the performance of children
of the same age group in the first s e r i e s shows (see Table
3) a decrease from 18 s e c in the first s e r i e s to 12 sec in

Table 3
Comparative Data in Voluntary Pose-holding
for Subjects of Various Ages

Average indices
Experiments Experiments Comparison of
of f i r s t of second results of f i r s t
series series and second
Age of children Pose-holding Pose-holding series
(in years) time time (in %)
From 3 to 4 years 18 sec 12 sec I
50
From 4 to 5 years 2 min 15 " 41 320
From 5 to 6 years 5 12 " 2min 55 I'
'I I 178
From 6 to 7 years 12 'I 11 'I 9
 SUMMER 1975 79

the second, and 2 1 of the 30 subjects in this group were able to

stand motionless for less than 15 sec in the second series.
Thus, if we compare the behavior of the different age
groups in the second s e r i e s (see Fig. 2), we see that three-
to-four-year-olds suffered relatively less impairment in
performance compared with four - to-five-year-olds. But this
can be explained by the fact that since the performance of
three-to-four-year-olds in the f i r s t
series w a s already poor, it could
not be reduced much more.
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A s we expected, the voluntary pose-

holding time diminished most sharply
(by more than a factor of three) in the
second series for four-to-five-year-
olds. This decrease was due to the
children's being distracted by what
Key: - - - Pose-holding time in was going on about them.
presence of other Thus, for example Valerii N.
children of the group
(four years, one month) got dis-
Fig. 2. Voluntary pose-holding
tracted within a few seconds and
time (2nd series).
began to look with interest a t the
children playing in the group; the children would run off to
one side, and he would turn his head to follow them. He
broke his pose within 15 sec.
Salvik K. (four years, two months) agreed eagerly to
"stand there nicely.'' But he w a s all movement: his left a r m
moved, and he would turn his head toward the children.
Throughout the entire period not even once did he correct
the position of his right a r m , which had almost completely
dropped. H e kept his pose for 13-15 sec. The record for
Nina D. (four years, two months) gives the same picture.
She, too, was quickly distracted, watched the other children,
and turned her head toward the children's noisy conversa-
tion behind her. She stood motionless for 40 sec.
Thus we s e e that the children's newly emerged capacity
for self-control was very unstable and required all a child's
attention.
 80 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

Any external factors that distracted a child from his under-

taking completely shattered his newly acquired ability to
monitor his own behavior. He w a s thus not capable of coping
for any appreciable length of time with the experiments of
the second s e r i e s , which took place in a common room
among the other children.
As we indicated above, five-to-six-year-olds also made
a considerably poorer showing in voluntary pose-holding in
the second s e r i e s compared with their performance in the
f i r s t series. However, on the whole, the average reduction
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in pose time was still less than for four-to-five-year-olds;

and in this respect five-to-six-year-olds occupied a s o r t
of intermediate position between four-year-olds and six-
year-olds (see Table 4 and Fig. 2).

Table 4

Distribution of Parameters Obtained

in 2nd-Series Experiments
with Five-to-Six-Year-Olds

Less More
than 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-8 8-12 than
Parameter 1 min min min min min min 12 min
Number of
subjects 8 2 4 2 8 5 1

A closer analysis of the quantitative data and, especially,

of the behavior of the subjects in this age group during the
experiments gives us the explanation for this observation.
If we examine the distribution of pose times obtained in the
experiments with children of this age group we see clearly
that they fall into two groups: one group had pose times
identical with those obtained for the majority of four-to-
five-year-olds, whereas the other had times similar to those
 SUMMER 1975 81

of six-to-seven-year-olds (see Table 4).

The behavior of the group with the lowest pose times during
the experiments indicates that they were able to hold a pose
only if they were internally and explicitly intent on this objec-
tive. For this reason, any distracting factors were quite dis-
ruptive for these children.
Thus, Feliks Z . (five years) accepted the task and tried his
best not to look in the direction of the other playing children.
He w a s unsuccessful, of course. A new person entering the
group during the second minute captured his attention, and he
almost immediately broke h i s pose.
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On the other hand, the behavior of the five-to-six-year-olds

who had the best performance displayed features typical of the
behavior of our older subjects.
The performance of the six-to-seven-year-olds in the second
s e r i e s differed little from their performance in the f i r s t series.
Thus, the introduction of very distracting factors into the ex-
perimental situation had no notable disruptive effect on them.
Indeed, there were certain aspects of their behavior that were
striking. Most of the subjects of this age made no attempt
whatever to concentrate wholly on their pose. On the contrary,
they seemed rather to be absorbed in what w a s going on around
them: they looked about and listened to what others were say-
ing, yet this did not seem to interfere with their ability to keep
a check on their pose and to hold it for a very long time.
For example, Ira L. (six y e a r s , three months) stood in the
assigned pose while the other children were playing noisily in
the same room. She watched them calmly. From time to time
she would adjust the position of her body and right a r m , but
without looking a t it.
Thus, if we compare the results of the f i r s t and second series
of experiments, we find certain recurrent patterns that fully
confirm our conjectures.
If we compare the curves expressing the increase in pose-
holding time as a function of age in both these s e r i e s (Fig. 3 ) ,
we find that initially, i.e., for the youngest children, the re-
sults a r e quite similar, but then diverge, only to converge again
 82 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

later for the oldest age group. This

means that distracting factors have
different effects on the children's
performance depending on their age.
For the youngest children, dis-
traction decreased the average pose-
holding times, although not as much
as for four -to-f ive-year -olds, be-
cause even without distractions their
Key: - Pose-holding time in performance was already poor. How-
the presence only of ever, these children were unable to
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experimenter cope with the pose-holding task even

--- Pose-holding time in though they had agreed to do it; they
presence of other
children of the group were unable to keep a check on their
Fig. 3. Comparative data on pose and hence could not maintain
voluntary pose-holding voluntary control over it.
(1st and 2nd series). The older subjects presented an
entirely different picture. We find in these children, for the
f i r s t time, a clearly defined and consciously grasped goal -
to hold the assigned pose - and consciously to check on the
position of their body. All their activity was directed toward
this goal; yet precisely for this reason distracting factors were
able to decrease sharply (by a factor of three) their pose-
holding times.
The situation was again different for six-to-seven-year-olds.
These children had advanced to a different method for keeping
check on their pose and a totally different type of voluntary
self -control in general; hence, distracting factors did not dis-
rupt their behavior. The fact that their inner activity w a s fo-
cused on something else, i.e., that they were wholly absorbed
in watching the other children playing, did not interfere with
their maintaining the required pose, nor with their ability to
keep a check on themselves. This also explains why carrying
out the experiment in a common room had no effect on their
perf or mance.
These s e r i e s of experiments provided u s with some general
notion of a few of the phases typical of the development of vol-
 SUMMER 1975 83

untary behavior a t preschool age. The modification we made in

the conditions of the experiment affected only the external con-
ditions of the process we wished to study; hence, it w a s able to
provide us only with supplementary data as a check on our orig-
inal data. To go further in our study i t w a s necessary to study
the dependence of the child's performance of the task we pre-
sented on internal psychological factors, including different in-
centives motivating the child, which give the proposed assign-
ment different meanings for him.
In the two s e r i e s of experiments whose results we have re-
ported, the child's performance of the assigned task w a s an
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integral part of his social intercourse with adults; i t s meaning

w a s that of an assignment to be carried out in association with
a request, or with the appreciation or self-esteem arising in
the course of this social interchange. The content of the assign-
ment w a s linked only outwardly with the child's incentive for
carrying it out; it did not flow directly from the communicative
situation, and essentially could have had any content.
To alter the conditions of pose-holding from this perspective,
we altered its motivation: we made i t a part of the children's
play and associated it with the performance of a specific role
in a make-believe situation.

The purpose of the third s e r i e s of experiments w a s to deter-

mine what differences would appear in the voluntary behavior
of the children when they were enjoined to hold a pose not be-
cause of the explicit demand of an adult, but by the very nature
of a role they had to play as part of a children's game. This
marked the difference between the third series and the f i r s t
and second s e r i e s of experiments.
To this end we chose the children's game "Factory and
Guards.'' In this game the role of the guard on duty required
the child to stand motionless. The subjects were not given any
toy weapons so as to keep the play situation in this s e r i e s anal-
ogous to the experiments in the preceding series - specifically,
 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

in both cases the pose w a s not dictated by the subject matter

itself.
The game "Factory and Guards" required all the participants
to play the role of guards. The pose-holding time was deter-
mined by the principles of the game itself. We tried to see that
all the children assumed the roles of worker and guard with
equal willingness.
The game was played as follows. A group of five to seven
children was invited to play an interesting game, which we
briefly described. The children were told that the game was
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called "Factory and Guards." The workers had to pack the

products into boxes, and the guards had to watch over the fac-
tory.
Two or three children played the workers, who s a t a t a table
and packed a round plate into a carton; the others stood around
the workers' table as guards as long as the workers were on
the job. A bell was rung to signal the end of work. The time
elapsed between the beginning of the game and the ringing of
the bell w a s decided on by the experimenter and varied for the
different age groups. The length of time w a s determined as
follows. A group of four or five children made some trial runs
on the basis of which their pose-holding times were estimated.
The game times thus determined were 10 min for four-to-five-
year-olds, 12 min for five-to-six-year-olds, and 15 min for
six-to-seven-year -olds.
It w a s discovered in preliminary trials that the game "Fac-
tory and Guards" was not suitable for the youngest children.
The three-to-four-year-olds and some of the four-to-five-
year-olds did not understand the role of guard and were unable
actively to participate in a game that had such complicated
subject matter. They were unable to form any specific notion
of the role of a guard. A check showed that only three of the
youngest children had any desire to be a guard. Consequently,
for this age group we substituted the game "Spider and Fly,"
in which the role of the guard was replaced by the fly. The game
w a s similar to "Factory and Guards" in that it also required a
pose to be held for some time.
 SUMMER 1975 85

Thus, the results of the experiments could be analyzed com-

positely, inasmuch as the general principle of the roles in the
two cases (i.e., the guard and the fly) was the same, namely,
to hold a pose without moving.
We shall return to a description of this game and an analysis
of the data later, but f i r s t let us look at the results obtained in
the factory-and-guard game with four -to-seven-year -olds.
As in the other s e r i e s of experiments, 30 subjects in each
age group played the game. The average pose-holding times
for the different age groups in this third s e r i e s of experiments
are given in Table 5 and Fig. 4.
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Table 5

Pose-holding time
Age
(years) 2nd s e r i e s 3rd series
From 3 to 4 years 12 sec 1 min, 28 sec
From 4 to 5 years 4 1 sec 4 min, 17 s e c
From 5 to 6 years 2 min, 55 s e c 9 min, 15 s e c
From 6 to 7 years 11 min 12 min

Even a cursory glance a t these data cannot fail to show the

considerable differences from the values obtained in the second
s e r i e s of experiments. Indeed, if we compare the average fig-
u r e s for each age group in these series we find that the average
pose-holding time w a s longer in the make-believe situation than
when the subjects were required to hold the pose on the explicit
instructions of the experimenter. The pose-holding time in-
creased by a factor of six for four-to-five-year-olds, by a fac-
tor of three for five-to-six-year-olds, and by only 9% for the
oldest children (see Table 5 and Fig. 4).
This difference in pose-holding times between the make-
believe situation and the assignment situation is revealed very
clearly in Table 6 .
 86 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

15 As is evident from Table 6, only

5 of the 30 subjects aged 4-5 held
the pose for 1-2 min, whereas 22
of the subjects held i t for more than
3 o r 4 min. More than half of the 5-
6-year-olds held the pose more
than 8 min, whereas among the old-
e s t children (6-7years), 28 of 30

- 3-4
Key:

----
4-5 5-6
Pose-holding time in
make-believe situation
6-7 children held the pose this long.
Before we go on to a qualitative
analysis of the children's behavior
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Pose-holding time in the in the make-believe situation, let

presence of other children
us look at the quantitative data ob-
Fig. 4. Pose-holding times
(2nd and 3rd series). tained with the three-to-four-year-
olds and four-to-five-year-olds in
the spider-and-fly game so that we can also include our find-
ings with this youngest group in our overall results.

Table 6

Distribution of Pose-Holding Times

for Different Age Groups in the Third Series

Pose-holding
time (min) 3-4 years 4-5 years 5-6 years 6-7 years
To 1 - -
From 1 to 2 5 -
From2 to3 3 3
From 3 to 4 3 1
From 4 to 8 19 8
From 8 to 12 - 13
Over 12 - 5

This game w a s played as follows. At a given signal, the child

playing the spider would run from his corner and the children
playing the flies would take their places and freeze into the
designated pose. If one of the children playing the role of a fly
 SUMMER 1975 87

moved and broke his pose, the spider would notice i t and would
then have the right to c a r r y him off and eat him. The game con-
tinued until only one fly was left. This last one, who had held the
pose longer than the others, w a s the winner and got to play the
spider in the next game.
We played this game not only with three-to-four-year-olds,
for whom the guard game was too difficult, but also with four-
to-five-year-olds. We did this to obtain results we could com-
pare with the results in the other game.
The 3-4-year-olds held the pose required by the spider-and-
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fly game for an average of 1 min, 28 sec. However, there were

also many children (8 of 30) in this group who were basically
unable to cope with the task and lasted only a short time, less
than 1 min. Only 17 of the 30 children held the pose longer than
3 min.
The four-to-five-year-olds performed much better in this
game. Their average pose-holding time was 4 min, 17 sec, i.e.,
almost about the same as their average time in the guard game
( 5 min). We were thus able to summarize the results together.
If we include in our analysis the results obtained with the
youngest children, we find that the greatest difference between
the results of the third series and the results of the second
series occurred with this youngest group, which had a pose-
holding time more than seven times longer in the game situa-
tion. This difference gradually diminished until there w a s al-
most no difference between the two series in the oldest age
group .
At f i r s t glance it may seem that the game s e r i e s featured a
gradual change beginning with an abrupt rise in the pose-holding
time compared with the times recorded in the second series
and followed by a more gradual but steady increase with age
(still less, however, than the age-related increase observed in
the second series). However, a qualitative analysis of the be-
havior of the subjects showed that the situation w a s more com-
plicated than that.
To shed light on what this actual situation w a s , it will be
necessary to examine the game behavior of children in the dif -
 88 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

ferent age groups successively.

Let us f i r s t take a look a t the group of three-to-four-year-
olds. Can we explain the increase in pose-holding time in this
group by the fact that the role in the game required this pose?
Although this was, as we shall see, unquestionably the case
with the older subjects, such an explanation does not suffice
for the behavior of the youngest group. We found that although
the children in this group formally understood the rules of the
game and the role, they did not follow them o r , more precisely,
followed them in idiosyncratic ways.
They did not see their task as preventing themselves f r o m
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being caught, or if they did understand this objective, they for-

got it almost immediately. Not only did they not play to win,
i.e., not only w a s the game not a real game with rules in the
ordinary sense: i t did not even contain (for them) the implicit
rule of standing without moving.
For example, Ira M. (three years) stood there smiling and
jumping about, even when the other children kept still like flies.
A reminder of the rules of the game sufficed for only a very
short time: she broke her pose on the 25th sec.
Nina V. (three years, two months) moved about from place to
place, waving her a r m s the entire time. A reminder of the rules
of the game had no effect. Even a demonstration by an adult of
how a fly must stand quietly had no effect: she remained motion-
l e s s for only 15 sec.
The nonobservance of even the implicit rules of the role by
these children was reflected in the fact that many of them, as
w e have said, performed very poorly in holding the fly pose.
But the average pose-holding time rose especially sharply in
this group. Consequently, in this third s e r i e s of experiments
there had to be another factor besides the particular role that
was responsible for this increase, and indeed such a factor was
quite evident in a number of cases. This w a s the direct, and
almost impulsive, freezing behavior under the conditions cre-
ated by the dynamics of the game situation, the effect of the
other children's playing, and the immediate reaction of waiting
for the spider.
 SUMMER 1975

Sasha N. (three years, five months) watched the spider with

interest; and when the latter captured his neighbor, Sasha un-
expectedly turned to the spider and asked to be taken too: "Take
me, me too," he said. Ala G. (three y e a r s , two months) let her-
self be guided by the behavior of the other children, froze, and
began to watch the spider, afraid to move. However, when the
spider captured h e r , she laughed gleefully and willingly accom-
panied the spider to h i s corner; but then she just as quickly r a n
away and resumed her position with the other flies.
This effect of the outward dynamics of the game situation w a s
highly erratic and irregular and precluded any prolonged main-
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tenance of the required pose.

This was also evidenced by the average pose-holding time
for this group, which w a s only relatively higher, and especially
by the distribution of the individual times, which of all our ma-
terial was the only one whose mode (i.e., the most frequent
value) w a s not clearly pronounced. On the contrary, here all
values were almost evenly distributed with respect to frequency
(eight cases l e s s than 1 min; seven cases, 1-2 min; eight cases,
2-3 min; and seven cases, 3-4 min).
Thus, we are unable to determine the influence of the motiva-
tion provided by the game itself on the process under study in
this group of children. Consequently, we shall refrain from using
the data from experiments in the third series with the youngest
children (three to four years).
The situation was quite different for four-to-five-year-old chil-
dren. Most of the subjects in this age group were able to play
the role of the fly (or the guard in the other game).
Although in the spider-and-fly game the children did not al-
ways understand playing to win and did not seem too unhappy
about being caught by the spider, they readily accepted the prin-
ciple of the role: the flies had to freeze when confronted by the
spider, who otherwise would notice them. The same w a s the
case in the guard game: the guard had to stand motionless. This
becomes evident if we regard the children's behavior while they
were playing the game.
Valerii V. (four years, one month) r a n quickly to his place
 90 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

when the bell sounded and assumed the motionless pose of a fly.
He froze and tried not to move, but all the while watched what
the spider w a s doing as the latter circled another fly. Valerii
mechanically turned his head to follow the spider, who noticed
him, grabbed him by the shoulder and led him away. Valerii
squealed with pleasure, resisted, and r a n away from the spider.
H e was finally cornered, and stood there smiling merrily and
clapping his hands.
Tanya A. (four years, three months) played a worker and im-
mersed herself in the packing job. The bell sounded. Accord-
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ing to the rules of the game, Tanya had to relinquish her place
to another and herself stand guard. She stood silently in the re-
quired pose for a long time without moving. For 7 min Tanya
did not take her eyes off Valerik, who was busy packing the
goods. On the 8th min she turned to the side, but did not notice
this herself. After the bell sounded, she breathed a deep sigh
of relief, brightened up, and s a t down again with satisfaction a t
the table to play packing.
The emergence of this new factor, the make-believe role,
had the result that about two-thirds of all the subjects held the
required pose for more than 4 min, whereas among the three-
to-four-year-olds there was only one child who had held it
that long.
The five - to- six-year -olds showed a pattern very similar to
this, if we disregard the fact that, as in the second s e r i e s de-
scribed above, some of these children behaved in a way that
classed them with the oldest group.
Here a r e some examples from the guard game. A l i k G. (five
years, seven months) portrayed the commander who designated
the guards and changed them after the bell rang. He liked his
role very much and performed it very well. When all the children
in the group of four had taken their turns as guards, Alik had
not yet had his. We had now to do something to make the com-
mander a guard, in conformity with the principle of the game.
Alik was asked to show his men a good example of how a guard
should stand. He w a s full of conflicting desires: on the one
hand, he liked the idea that he was the one to s e t the example,
 SUMMER 1975 91

but on the other hand, he did not want to relinquish the role of
commander. All these feelings caused Alik to blush, but the de-
s i r e to be a real commander won out. He stood there grandly,
imitating the bearing of a real commander; he stopped looking
toward the playing children where, without him, Slava had re-
arranged something in the house. But this did not prevent him
f r o m noticing what Slava w a s doing. Alik didactically called
out: "Hey, Slava, let i t be; it's not a throne.. . . Hold on! I'll be
there in a minute." He stood motionless for more than 6 min,
whereas in the second series he had kept motionless for only
about 2 min.
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The most characteristic of this s e r i e s of experiments w a s

the behavior of the children of this age group, i.e., four-to-six-
year-olds. The oldest, like the youngest children, also were af-
fected by the specific conditions of the game, although for com-
pletely different, and in a certain sense even opposite, reasons.
They, like the three-to-four-year-olds,did not really enter
into the role, although, of course, not because it w a s beyond
their abilities, but because it had lost its immediate attractive-
ness for them. For them it was much more important to achieve
what the role entailed. Consequently, from the very outset we
sometimes observed even a mocking attitude toward the guard
role on their part. But if they quite easily coped with the task
entailed by this role, it w a s because they understood the rule
that after a s e t time of standing guard, they could resume the
job of packing, which retained its attractiveness even for the
oldest children.
For example, Serezha B. (six years, two months) asked that
he f i r s t be made a worker and then a guard. But all the worker
roles had been taken, and there was only one f r e e guard role
left. This often occurs in group games: all want to play the ma-
jor role, and there are many taking part in the game. Usually
the children peacefully decide who is going to play the head role
that day. Thus, for Serezha, the incentive for playing the role
of guard was not in this role itself, but in the role of worker.
Serezha found i t difficult to stand watching passively what the
workers were doing, but he mastered his impatience and stood
 92 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

there f o r 12 min. He broke his pose when he dove under the

table with a worker to help the latter retrieve some balls that
had fallen.
Sveta V. (six years) also kept her eye on what the others
were doing, but this did not a t all interfere with her maintain-
ing the required pose. She stood there 20 min in all.
The behavior recorded on most of the record sheets for six-
to-seven-year-olds can be described very tersely. The subjects
calmly and conscientiously held the required pose while they
were also inwardly immersed in something else. Thus, the ex-
periments with six-to-seven-year-olds showed more o r l e s s
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the same pattern in all three series. Hence, in discussing the

results of the third series of experiments, we should concen-
trate chiefly on the data obtained with the four-to-six-year-
olds, who showed the greatest differences between their behav-
ior in the formal assignment experiments and in the role-playing
experiments.
The most important question that arises in an analysis of the
results of experiments in which the subjects a r e required to
hold an assigned pose in a game situation is the following: In
these experiments what w a s mainly responsible for the improve-
ment in pose-holding time in the middle age groups?
Since, with respect to the content of the task (i.e., the external
aspects of the pose) and the distracting factors that were pres-
ent, the procedure in the third s e r i e s may be considered identi-
cal with the procedure in the second s e r i e s , the explanation for
the increase in pose-holding time must obviously be sought in
the intrinsic differences between the make -believe situation and
the assignment situation.
What a r e these differences? First, there a r e differences in
motivation, and hence in the meaning for the child of the set
goal, in this case, to hold a specified pose.
When this pose is assigned, the incentive for the child's be-
havior lies in the social interchange effected with the experi-
menter, and the content of what is required from the child is
linked only in an external manner with this incentive.
The specific content of the task the child is to fulfill does not
 SUMMER 1975 93

follow directly from the fact that the child wants to do what the
experimenter asks him to do. The situation is different in the
game situation. In it, the incentive for the four-to-six-year-old
usually lies in carrying out the assumed role. The role itself
contains implicitly the task the child c a r r i e s out in the form of
an underlying principle. For example, in this particular game
one had to stand motionless if one w a s a guard - that w a s the
concrete meaning it had for the child. Nevertheless, this ex-
planation, suggested by the results of our analysis, required
experimental verification. We therefore designed two more
s e r i e s of experiments, a fourth and a fifth.
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The purpose of the experiments in the fourth and fifth s e r i e s

w a s to find out how a creative game structured the voluntary
behavior of children by obliging them to observe the principle
of maintaining a required pose. To do this we had to analyze
the game in detail and single out the aspect of it that w a s re-
sponsible for the sharp increase in pose-holding time in four-
to-six-year -olds.
F i r s t we had to determine whether an appreciable factor in
this outcome w a s the specific features of the motivation for
the game, namely, the circumstance that the child inwardly as-
sumed a role and entered into it, or whether the most important
factor w a s the concrete form taken by the assignment in the
game. In other words, we had to determine whether the better
performance in the game situation was due to the fact that the
child did not have an abstract pose to hold, but rather that in
this case the pose had a specific, definite meaning for him (the
guard, a fly, etc.).
To determine the answer to this question it w a s necessary to
find the child a role that required the same behavior as the
game yet w a s connected with the game in only an outward, ar-
bitrary form (with all other conditions of the game kept un-
changed as far as possible). Accordingly, we devised the follow-
ing procedure:
 94 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

A child who had not yet participated in the game as a guard

and who wanted to play it w a s first asked by the experimenter
to show whether he could be a guard, whether he could stand
guard for a sufficiently long time. Thus, the subject had to
stand guard not as part of a game, but only to meet the demand
of the experimenter as a condition for his further participation
in the game. In this way we were able to compare the pose-
holding time in a real game with that achieved when the child
had to maintain the same pose but not yet as part of a game.
Ninety subjects took part in the fourth series of experiments
(30 in each age group: 4-5, 5-6, and 6-7). The quantitative re-
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sults obtained in this series are given in Table 7 and Fig. 5.

Table 7

Average Pose-Holding Time

(4th Series)

Age (years) Pose-holding time

From 4 to 5 years 24 sec
From 5 to 6 years 2 min, 27 s e c
From 6 to 7 years 12 min

We see that four-to-five-year-olds performed very poorly

and that five-to-six-year-olds did
somewhat better. On the other
hand, the older subjects showed a
sharp increase in pose-holding
time. A look a t the distribution of
the data reveals that the middle
group (five-to-six-year-olds) con-
sists of two subgroups: one with
times nearer those recorded for
Key:-Pose-holding time in four-to-five-year-olds, the other
role proposed by ex-
perimenter (about one-third of the children)
Fig. 5. Pose-holding time with times approaching those of
(4th series). the six-to-seven-year-olds.
 SUMMER 1975 95

Thus, in this s e r i e s of experiments there were essentially

only two groups: younger and older, with low and high pose-
holding times, respectively. To answer the question with which
we a r e concerned, let us compare the results obtained in the
fourth s e r i e s with those obtained in the third series.
As we see in Fig. 6, pose-holding times differed sharply de-
pending on whether or not the pose was part of a game: in four-
to-five-year-olds this difference w a s as much as a factor of
ten, whereas in five-to-six-year-olds i t w a s almost a factor of
five. This means that in itself the role, when not part of a
game, was not able to alter the trend of the children's volun-
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tary performance; hence, the effectiveness of the game cannot

be explained by the fact that through it the task acquired a greater
concreteness. Giving the taskthis concrete form, but not in a game
situation, did not improve performance compared with the second
s e r i e s , and in the youngest children even decreased it.

-
-
-
-
Key: Pose-holding time
Key: Pose-holding time
on assignment in
in game
presence of other
Pose-holding time
children
in role proposed
rm* Pose-holding time
by experimenter in role proposed
Fig. 6. Pose-holding times by experimenter
(3rd and 4th s e r i e s ) . Fig. 7 . Pose-holding times
(2nd and 4th s e r i e s ) .

The conclusion to be drawn from an analysis of the data is

fully confirmed by observations of the behavior of the subjects.
Let us give several examples from the records of the four-
to-five-year-olds.
Lilya N. (four years, four months), when asked to show whether
 96 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

she could stand guard, said that she wanted to stand "there,"
and pointed toward the children playing "worker." "I can stand;
I already know how." When i t w a s once more explained to her
that she had f i r s t to stand there as a trial, and only then could
she play guard, Lilya reluctantly agreed. Her attention w a s
quickly engaged by the playing children, and within 13 sec she
broke her pose by raising her left hand to her face.
Rena L. (four years, two months) w a s asked to do the same,
whereupon she stood there silently, knitting her brow, looking
at her feet. After a reminder she assumed the required pose,
but continued to look at the floor. She broke the pose after 16
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sec by turning her head toward the playing children.

A s we see from these examples, the children who were as-
signed the role by the experimenter, but not as p a r t of the
game, behaved the same way as when the role w a s assigned to
them in abstract form, i.e., not as a particular role, but merely
as the assignment to stand in such-and-such a position, as in
the second s e r i e s . We also see why four-to-five-year-olds
performed even more poorly in the fourth s e r i e s than in the
second series. Their strong desire to take part in the game
distracted their attention toward the children playing in the
same room.
The oldest children presented a special picture. Their pose-
holding times were the same as in the s e r i e s with the make-
believe situation. This, of course, was not unexpected, since
even in the game these children showed no notable improve-
ment compared with the second s e r i e s , in which they merely
performed an assignment given them by the experimenter. In
both cases they held their poses for completely different rea-
sons, as we have already indicated. We shall have more to say
about this later. Their behavior in the fourth s e r i e s w a s not
appreciably different from their behavior in the second and
third series, s o there is no need to give new examples.
The other hypothesis to explain the improved performance
in the third s e r i e s (with the game) w a s that the decisive factor
here lay in the fact that the game was a group game. In other
words, the children perhaps had much better control over them-
 SUMMER 1975 97

selves in the game not because the pose necessarily followed

from their role in the game, but because holding the pose w a s
part of a group activity, of the social interchange taking place
among the children. To check out this hypothesis we ran a fifth
series of experiments, designed to retain the game role but to
remove the particular child from the group of children a t play.
We proceeded as follows.
While the children were playing guard, the experimenter
would ask a child to stand guard somewhere else, saying that
it was necessary to guard the entrance to the factory - that
that w a s what was always done in real factories; he would lead
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the child out of the room and leave him to stand guard alone
outside the door (where he was observed from a distance). Thus,
the child w a s removed more or l e s s entirely from direct con-
tact with the other children a t play, yet he had to maintain his
role since he w a s still participating in the game, albeit alone.
Of course, by introducing this modification we altered the
conditions of performing the role, even though we kept i t s func-
tion in the game intact. The most important factor w a s that the
child w a s no longer under any external supervision, as he had
been in the third series. We therefore expected that the pose-
holding times would suffer a corresponding reduction, and hence
thought mainly to rely on a qualitative analysis of the children's
behavior. However, the results only partially bore out our hy-
potheses.
As is evident from Table 8 and Fig. 8, the pose-holding times
decreased only for the four-to-five-year-olds; the five-to-six-
year-olds still showed a relatively good performance (6 min,
35 sec), i.e., only 30% shorter times than in the third s e r i e s ,
and almost three times longer than in the second s e r i e s (see
Fig. 2). We considered this result to be of crucial significance.
The explanation for these findings lies in the fact that for
very young preschoolers a game role itself is essentially in-
separable from the external situation. This is a generally ac-
cepted fact. Hence, when a child w a s taken away from the group,
which a t the same time took him away from the external circum-
stances of the game situation (the presence of the factory workers
 98 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

Table 8

Average Pose-Holding Times

(3rd, 4th, and 5th Series)
Pose-holding times
Age 3rd s e r i e s 4th s e r i e s 5th s e r i e s
From 4 to 5 years 4 min, 17 sec 24 s e c 26 sec
From 5 to 6 years 9 min, 5 sec 2 min, 27 sec 6 min, 35 sec
From 6 to 7 years 12 min 12 min 12 min
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and other external factors defining the situation of this game),

he soon fell out of the game role. To put it more simply, with-
out these external circumstances, a child soon ceased to feel
15 himself a guard.
For example, Valya N.
2-10 (four years, two months)
'2v understood the principle
2 of the role but within 18
G 5 sec had turned around and
gone back into the room
where the children were
Key:
0
-
3-4 4-5 5-6
Pose-holding time
6-7 playing. She resumed the
Dose of a -guard next to the
-- in game
Pose-holding time
workers and watched with
interest as they packed
as part of game r o l e ,
butaway f r o m other the goods.
- She did all this
children without showing the least
m, Pose-holding time on
assignment from sign of embarrassment,
experimenter as if that were what she
Fig. 8. Pose-holding t i m e s w a s supposed to do.
(3rd, 4th, and 5th series) Grisha P. (four years,
four months) refused to stand at the door, declaring, "I don't
want to stand here; I want to play."
Most of the four-to-five-year-olds did not understand the
role of a guard isolated from the other children at play. Chil-
dren of this age would usually turn around toward the door
 SUMMER 1975 99

withinin 15-20 sec and often go into the room where the workers
were without an adult's permission, forgetting that they had
been told to stand guard.
At the age of five to six, the game role required much less
support from the external circumstances of the game. Con-
sequently, once having assumed the role of a guard, a child
could maintain it even when he received no direct support from
the external factors of the situation.
The results obtained in the experiments with children of this
age a r e the most important so far as the question posed above
is concerned. The fact that the performance of children in this
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age group w a s relatively good indicates that the most important

factor was not the group nature of the game itself, but the role
as i t was played in the group.
To demonstrate the importance of the game role for holding
a required pose, let us present two different cases as examples:
the f i r s t , a five-to-six-year-old holding the pose as part of a
role, and the second, a child who has forgotten the role, as fre-
quently happened with the younger children, and who hence did
not maintain the motionless position of a guard.
1. Kolya K. (five years, six months) stood a t the door for 10
min in the pose of a guard. The teacher asked him why he w a s
standing a t the door, to which he answered gravely that he w a s
there to see that no one got into the factory without permission,
that he was a guard. Kolya sometimes tried to listen to what
w a s happening in the room, but this in no way interfered with
his maintaining the pose of a guard. An attempt by another child
to call him away from the door w a s unsuccessful.
2 . Lida M. (five years, three months) stood guard well for
about 4 min. Then gradually her attention was drawn toward
the children playing in the yard, and she began to gaze atten-
tively through the window. However, she continued to hold the
pose of a guard, although now only out of inertia. Her entire
behavior showed that she had stepped out of the role: her right
a r m had dropped almost all the way, and her head was turned
toward the window. She paid no attention to a child who had
entered without permission the room where the children were
 100 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

playing. When asked why she had let him into the factory with-
out permission, she answered frankly that she had forgotten.
Thus, a comparison of the children's behaviors in the last
three series of experiments has revealed the unequivocal, em-
pirical fact that the conditions responsible in the third series
(the game series) for the children's very good showing com-
pared with their performance in the pure "assignment" s e r i e s
were part of the role itself, i.e., were linked with the particu-
lars of the child's motivation, and had nothing to do with either
the greater concreteness of the task or with the external inter-
course with the other children in the game.
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In conclusion, let us examine our data from the point of view

of the general development of voluntary behavior in preschool-
age children.
The results of our experiments with the voluntary maintenance
of a pose in a game naturally give r i s e to the question whether
this act is really voluntary. To answer this question we have to
examine our initial notions of what we mean by voluntary be-
havior and its development in childhood.
The results of our very f i r s t experiments (the f i r s t series)
showed that voluntary behavior, in the broadest sense of the
term, occurred in a t least two basic forms.
First, there is behavior conforming to a specific goal the child
must achieve: he must behave in a particular way (in our ex-
periments this meant holding a particular pose). To do this he
must keep the given goal in mind and be able to account for his
behavior.
As we have seen, this behavior emerges gradually in pace
with the child's development (in our experiments it appears in
four-to-five-year-old children) in connection with the develop-
ment of voluntary forms of self-control and with the emergence
of the ability to distinguish not only external goals (e.g., to pick
up a physical object) but also goals requiring the child to be-
have in a given way (e.g., "Hold your a r m bent"). Let us call
this form of voluntary behavior primary.
The second form of voluntary behavior, which emerges much
later (in our experiments we f i r s t observed i t in five-to-six-
 SUMMER 1975 101

year-olds), is characterized by the fact that not only some pur-

poseful action referring to the child or to his own behavior but
also the particular mode of behavior itself is voluntary. In other
words, the voluntary aspect of this type of behavior is the - par-
titular way i t is carried out, regardless of the fact that it may
be directed toward some external, objective goal. In this type
of behavior the child can c a r r y out some action while still main-
taining watch over himself. For example , he may watch what
other children a r e doing while continuing to monitor h i s pose.
We shall call this form of voluntary behavior secondary. It is
this form we have in mind, of course, when we speak of volun-
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tary behavior in the s t r i c t , psychological sense of the term.

It remains now to determine which type of voluntary behavior
is involved in the play situation. The better performance we ob-
served in our make-believe experiments may have been due to
the fact that although the pose entailed by the game role w a s
held for a longer time, it also remained involuntary. Indeed,
in some of the youngest children, playing the spider-and-fly
game, freezing into the prescribed pose w a s something on the
order of an immediate reaction to the situation. However, we
observed this in only a few cases, in which involuntary freezing,
suggested by the immobility of the other children, had only a
very brief effect, i.e., the overallpose-holdingtimes were short.
On the other hand, maintaining a pose for any length of time
required the conscious articulation of a goal, and such a goal
did not follow directly for the children from the intrinsic na-
ture of the guard pose. This w a s brought out clearly by in-
stances in which the guard pose w a s broken in children for
whom the requirement of immobility w a s not specifically ar-
ticulated as the principle of this role.
Thus, the improved performance in the game situation w a s
due to the increased importance of primary, voluntary behavior
in the game. This conclusion accords with the fact that the
greatest difference between the performance obtained in the
experiments with the game and the experiments in which the
child assumed the pose at the behest of an adult occurred in the
four-to-five-year-old age group, for whom voluntary behavior
 102 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

of this type w a s typical.

The situation w a s different with the older subjects, who quite
clearly displayed the secondary form of voluntary behavior
even in the first and second series of experiments. The intro-
duction of the game role caused no appreciable improvement
in their pose-holding time. We may therefore tentatively con-
clude that role-playing is an important condition for the de-
velopment of the primary form of voluntary behavior.
A s we have said, this is easy to understand if we bear in mind
that the specific behavior required in the game is necessarily
entailed by the role the child assumes, whereas voluntary be-
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havior when the pose is assigned to the child is linked to the

motivation in only an external, arbitrary manner.
A new question thus arises: How specific is the influence of
the game situation in this respect? It is still possible that the
intrinsic connection between the motivating factor and the ob-
jective, i.e., the meaning the objective or goal (to hold a motion-
less pose) assumes for the child, may not be of crucial impor-
tance.
It is conceivable that the most important factor here is the
"dynamic" aspects of behavior, so to speak, i.e., the power of
the motivation, of the child's interest in the task itself. In other
words, it is possible that the crucial factor is not the link be-
tween the motivating factor and the goal, but the intensity of the
child's desire, or the strength of the motivating factor in itself.
This is, in our opinion, a very important question; and on its
answer depends our understanding of role-playing in a game.
Moreover, it also has a bearing on an extremely important
pedagogical problem, namely, our concept and assessment of
the general principle of education: In education, is emphasis to
be laid only on creating stronger incentives, or is it necessary
at the same time to create a coherent link between motivating
factors and the goal for the child, as the cognitive principle in
education would require ?
To deal with this question, we continued our experiments.
The task was to compare, in those aspects in which we were
interested, the situation of role-playing in which some specific,
 SUMMER 1975 103

voluntary behavior is concretely linked with the game's incen-

tive and a situation in which the incentive provides a greater in-
ducement to the child than the motivation of a game, but in
which, on the other hand, the link between this incentive and the
goal is much looser and more arbitary. The situation we chose
to fulfill these conditions w a s one in which the children com-
peted with each other in fulfilling the requirement of standing
motionless. These experiments constituted our sixth series.

111. Voluntarv Behavior in a Competitive

Situation. Conclusion
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For this sixth series we had to devise a procedure in which

the holding of a designated pose w a s not necessarily entailed
by the situation serving as an incentive for the child while, on
the other hand, an incentive external to the task of holding a
required pose was as strong as possible.
A s we have said, after a s e r i e s of trials we decided on a com-
petitive situation for our procedure.
This method, which w a s worked out in experiments with five-
to-six-year-olds, consisted of the following. Two to three days
before beginning the experiment with this group of children, w e ,
together with the nursery-school teacher, carefully began to
suggest to the children that i t might be interesting to see which
of them was best able to carry out the task, which of them was
most patient and most persistent. Then we proposed to the chil-
dren that they actually t r y to see which of them w a s best able
to do the task. We selected a small group of children (four to
six subjects) and once again indicated to them that it would be
interesting to see which of them would be the best and then gave
them the assignment: they had to stand without moving as long
as possible. W e gave no reasons why w e had chosen just this
exercise; on the contrary, we tried to create the impression
that we had chosen it from among a number of alternatives
merely as an example that we could use to test them to see
 104 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

which of them would end up in f i r s t place.

Thus, in the instructions for this experiment i t w a s in all
cases emphasized that the assignment given to the children w a s
merely a device which they could avail themselves of to demon-
strate their skill and to beat the other children in a contest.
Pilot experiments showed that the incentive behind such a
competition is really very strong and has a much greater emo-
tional effect on the child than a request from the experimenter
such as was employed in the f i r s t and second s e r i e s . Some of
the children even declared a t the outset: "I'll be the best of all"
(Zhenya C., Lilya N.).
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In a number of cases we observed that a child who turned out

the victor in the experiment returned to his group and immedi-
ately began to tell the other children and the teacher about his
feat. On the other hand, many of those who could not cope with
the task preferred to remain silent. Indeed, the very way the
"contest" progressed w a s sufficient testimony of how strongly
i t had captured the interest of our subjects, particularly the
older ones. The main question to be answered by the experi-
ments in this s e r i e s was what distinguished the behaviors of
the different age groups from one another under the given con-
ditions (it should be remembered that we r a n our pilot experi-
ments only on the five-to-six-year-olds). We then also wanted
to compare the results with those obtained in the other series.
The total number of subjects participating in this s e r i e s w a s
90, leaving out the youngest children, for whom this procedure
was not at all suitable and who consequently were not included
in the analysis of our results.
A look at the average pose-holding times for the sixth s e r i e s
reveals a sharp rise toward the end of the preschool period
(Table 9 and Fig. 9).
This increase is especially significant inasmuch as in the
method we used the pose-holding times (which, as we have said,
we s e t an arbitrary limit to) were somewhat lower than they
could have been in the last age group.
In other words, if in each instance we had taken the longest
pose time possible f o r the child, our figures would have been
 SUMMER 1975 105

Table 9

Pose-Holding Times (6th Series)

Age Pose-holding time

From 4 to 5 years 2 min, 12 s e c
From 5 to 6 years 8 min, 14 s e c
From 6 to 7 years 15 min
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even higher. This is evident in the distribution of average times

in Table 10.

Thus we s e e that the number of

children holding the pose for more
than 12 min was 28 of 30; but none
of them w a s able to stay motionless
for much longer than our maximum,
i.e., 15 min.
To analyze the results obtained
in our competitive experiment, we
must compare them with the results
of the other series.
Key: 009 Pose-holding time Let us f i r s t compare the results
in contest of the sixth s e r i e s and the f i r s t
Fig. 9. Pose-holding time
(6th series).
s e r i e s for the different age groups.
We have deliberately chosen
this f i r s t s e r i e s because i t was
most like the sixth series. It should be remembered that the
f i r s t s e r i e s differed from the second s e r i e s in that i t did not
involve other, extra children not participating in the experiment
who might serve to distract the subjects from their task. In the
"competitive," sixth s e r i e s , too, only the actual participants
were present. Thus, even if a child's attention was attracted
to the other children, their behavior would not distract his at-
tention but, on the contrary, would focus it even more on the
task before him, by serving as a reminder. In other words,
 106 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

Table 10

Distribution of Average Pose-holding

Times in 6th Series

Wmber of subjects in each age group

Pose-holding time
(min) 4-5 years 5-6 years 6-7 years

To 1 3 - -
From 1 to 2 8 1 -
From 2 to 3 5 3 -
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From 3 to 4 11 3 -
From 4 to 8 3 10 -
From 8 to 12 - 8 2
Over 12 - 5 28

although formally the conditions of the sixth series were similar

to those of the second (i.e., other children were present in the
experiment), in psychological terms the sixth s e r i e s was nearer
the first series. As is evident from Table 11 and Fig. 10, the
four-to-five-year-olds had almost the same showing in the
two series (2 min, 15 sec, and 2 min, 2 sec).
Thus, it is conceivable that for most of the children in this
group, the new incentive, that of competition, which assumes a
definite attitude on the child's part toward his abilities and to-
ward how they a r e assessed, does not yet exist, and that the
most important factor for the children in this instance w a s do-
ing what the adults had asked them to do and obeying the pre-
scribed rule. However, this assumption w a s borne out only in
certain cases, when a subject would take on the assignment but
show no interest in being first, or when he would not be con-
cerned about failure. Such children had the lowest pose-holding
times in their age group.
But the situation was different for most of the children in this
age group. They not only understood the instructions but also
took on the task. For them the incentive of competition w a s
really important, and their behavior had the inherent features
 SUMMER 1975 107

Table 11

Pose-holding times
Age 1st series 6th s e r i e s
From 4 to 5 2 min, 15 s e c 2 min, 12 s e c
From 5 to 6 5 min, 12 s e c 8 min, 14 s e c
From 6 to 7 12 min 15 min
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of competitive behavior. The subjects sometimes again asked

the experimenter the conditions of the contest and expressed
their confidence that they, of course, would stand longer than
the others, and sometimes would even point to one of the other
participants: "I'll be better than Valya," said Zhenya, for ex-
ample (four years, five months). The attitude of children of this
age group toward competition also showed up in the quantitative
data. The distribution of the results shows that the number of
children with lowest pose-holding times w a s l e s s in the sixth
series than in the f i r s t and that the maximum pose time w a s
higher.
Thus, we see that the incentive
of competition is frequently a much
stronger driving force for children
of this age than the motivating force
of having been given an assignment
by an adult - in any case, i t at
least is not weaker. However, the

Key:-
3-4 4-5 5-6
Pose-holding time
6-7 average pose-holding times in the
sixth s e r i e s were not higher than
- in contest
Pose-holding time
in assignment in
in the f i r s t s e r i e s for this group.
If w e bear in mind that the incen-
presence of ex- tive of competition is of indubitable
perimenter only importance for children of this
Fig. 10. Pose-holding times age, this relativelypoor performance
(1st and 6th series).
 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

still requires an explanation. It must be taken into account that

the effectiveness of an incentive does not depend merely on the
incentive itself but also on how it is tied in with the particular
goal or task at which it is aimed. In the sixth series this link
w a s just as external and loose as in the first series. The ob-
jective was not necessarily contained in the incentive as it w a s ,
for example, in the game situation. This, then, would explain
the relatively poor showing of four-to-five-year-olds in the
sixth series. The five-to-six-year-old group presented a differ-
ent picture.
In this group the pose-holding times were almost one and a
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half times longer in the sixth than in the first series (5 min,
12 sec, and 8 min, 14 sec).
A s an analysis of the behavior of children of this group shows,
the incentive of competition has not lost any of its driving force
for them. On the contrary, it is even more pronounced. The
chief difference is not so much how the children accept the task
at the outset as that the incentive retains its influence to the
very end of the experiment, in contrast to the case with four-
to-five-year-olds. Indeed, not only does the influence not wane
but it even intensifies as the experiment proceeds.
There thus appears to be a qualitative change in the behavior
of children in this age group. Once again, we must ask whether
the marked improvement in pose-holding time was due exclu-
sively to a change in the driving force of the incentive for the
child.
Observations show that in this case, too, the principal factor
is the emergence of new features in the internal structure of
the child's behavior. At this point the external and arbitrary
nature of the connection between the incentive and the goal no
longer interferes with the child's intentions, nor does it actually
disrupt his behavior. In this group we find for the first time
cases in which the pose -holding time achieved is, within certain
limits, a matter of indifference to the child. For the first time,
the children appear to have acquired complete control over
themselves, a capacity that is limited only by natural physical
fatigue and the extent of the child's interest in the final result,
 SUMMER 1975 109

the only factor able to offset the monotony and senselessness

of the required behavior. That this assumption is correct will
become evident from the following.
The picture w a s essentially the same for six-to-seven-year-
olds. A s we have said, the average pose-holding times in the
sixth series of experiments for this group were based on mea-
surements made under conditions in which a limitation w a s
placed on the maximum possible time; this naturally lowered
the results. However, we also noted a new behavioral trait that
w a s typical of a t least most of the oldest subjects in this group,
namely, that the subjects seemed to be more consciously con-
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cerned with their abilities, a phenomenon reflected in their

marked personal interest in the outcome of their competition
with the other children. Let us take as an example Sveta B.'s
case (six years, seven months), which exhibits this new trait
especially clearly. She broke the rule of not moving almost a t
once and hence w a s eliminated. However, instead of returning
to h e r group or staying as a spectator for the r e s t of the con-
test, she again assumed the required pose and continued to hold
it, although she now had no chance of winning. This subject w a s
willing to continue standing there motionless even after we had
terminated the experiment. Apparently, for her the meaning f o r
this behavior lay in her attitude toward her own abilities and in
the need to demonstrate them, regardless of whether or not they
received formal recognition.

The general picture of the changes that appeared in the volun-

tary behavior of our subjects in the sixth s e r i e s , such as those
revealed by comparing the results of this s e r i e s with those of
the f i r s t series, acquired further definition from a comparison
with the results of the third (game) series.
It should be remembered that the third s e r i e s differed from
the competition s e r i e s primarily in the nature of the relation-
ship between the incentive and the goal. The relationship in this
case w a s an intrinsic one that created an internal link between
 110 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

the role assumed by the child and the guard behavior that that
necessarily entailed.
As is evident from Table 12 and Fig. 11, which compare the
results of the first, third, and sixth s e r i e s , the relationships
between the pose-holding times as well as the times themselves
vary for the different age groups.

Table 12

Average Pose-Holding Times (6th Series)

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Pose-holding times
6th s e r i e s
2 min, 1 2 s e c
8 min, 14 s e c
2 min 15 min

Let us f i r s t examine this relationship in the experiments with

the four-to-five-year-olds. It was characteristic of this group
that their highest pose-holding
15 times were achieved in the third
s e r i e s (game situation). This
3 10 means that the experiments of
E
v this s e r i e s contained that condi-
2 tion which for the particular age
G 5 group led to the most effective
result, i.e., permitted the child

-
0 to maintain the required pose
Key:
3-4 4-5 5-6 '-'
Pose-holding time
voluntarily for the longest time.
for role i n a game
We already know what this con-
Pose-holding time on dition is: that there must be an
assignment in the presence intrinsic connection between the
Of the experimenter Only incentive of the voluntary behav-
-Pose-holding time in ior - in this case the role in the
competitive situation
Fig. 11. Pose-holding times game - and the immediate ob-
(lst, 3rd, and 6th series). jective of that behavior - here,
 SUMMER 1975 111

to stand motionless. On the other hand, the specific difference

between the first and sixth s e r i e s of experiments had no influ-
ence on the results of the experiments. In other words, the
greater motivating force of the incentive in this case w a s not a
decisive factor.
This statement seems somewhat paradoxical and deserves
some clarification. Despite the indubitably greater motivating
force of the incentive in the sixth s e r i e s , i t w a s still not suffi-
cient to achieve an improvement in the pose-holding times,
which was the criterion we used in this case. However, its ef-
fect did show up in the intensity of interest shown by the chil-
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dren a t the beginning of the game. We might say thatthe strength

of the motivating force had the function of "getting things go-
ing." Thus, we find that among children of this age the strength
of the incentive affected their behavior, but that the criteria we
used did not capture this effect. However, given the purpose of
the present study, this w a s , if anything, a positive considera-
tion. After all, our purpose was to study the development of
voluntariness in the narrow psychological sense of the term,
and in that respect it is the duration over which a specified be-
havior is maintained, not the setting of things into motion, that
is of most interest.
The relationships between the pose -holding times obtained
in experiments with four-to-five-year-olds will provide us with
a picture of the general characteristics of this stage in the de-
velopment of voluntary behavior. In contrast to our youngest
subjects, these children already showed evidence of having some
voluntary control over themselves, although this control had
some unique features. It w a s based on the psychological traits
implicitly contained in the child's overall behavior. A child
would hold the pose of a guard or fly for a long time because
he had taken on that role, because this role defined the contours
of his overall behavior. W e could say that in this case his self-
control was mediated by his relation to the behavior he had as-
sumed, to its content as expressed in playing the role of some-
one of fulfilling some function, a function that was essentially
-
social.
 112 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

It is thus conceivable that initially control over one's behavior

emerges from the child's becoming aware of the substance of
particular human social functions - for example, a guard is
someone who stands watch without moving and who must not
speak, etc.
Relationships between pose-holding times are different for
five-to-six-year-olds. The difference between the third and
sixth series is almost gone.
It appears that the game situation itself no longer is of im-
mediate, major importance. For a child to maintain a pose
voluntarily it is no longer necessary for this task to follow
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necessarily from the particular content of the behavior assumed

by the subject in a role. This is clearly shown by the relatively
high pose-holding time in the f i r s t series. Even if i t is still
lower than the time in the third s e r i e s , this means only that the
task of keeping an eye on one's behavior when this is not part
of a game is still more difficult for a child of this age. On the
other hand, the higher pose-holding time in the sixth s e r i e s
compared with the first series reflects the importance of the
strength of the motivating factor.
A s we have already pointed out a number of times, this age
group represents a position right before the transition to a new
stage in the development of voluntariness, a stage that becomes
quite prominent in the next age group (six to seven years).
Hence, let us go directly to an analysis of this group.
If we look at the relationships between the pose-holding times
for the oldest group of subjects, we find the highest in the sixth
series. Whereas f o r the youngest age group it was the f i r s t
s e r i e s that had the highest pose-holding times and there w a s a
considerable difference between the latter and those in the third
s e r i e s , for this oldest group the third s e r i e s and f i r s t s e r i e s
pose-holding times were almost the same, and quite a bit lower
than those in the sixth s e r i e s , which, as we said, were the high-
est. Moreover, as we have pointed out, the real differences
are greater than is evident from the figures. What does this
mean? More surely seems to be involved here than the mere
fact that the game situation no longer offered any advantages.
 SUMMER 1975 113

The relationship of pose-holding times in the sixth s e r i e s re-

quires that a positive explanation be given for the fact that the
incentive introduced into the sixth s e r i e s w a s strong enough to
bring about a better performance than even in the game series.
This improved performance indicates that the incentive in the
sixth series, with its strong driving force, exerted i t s influence
not only on the beginning of the experiment but throughout its
course.
The behavior of the oldest subjects in the sixth s e r i e s pro-
vides a key to understanding the new feature emerging a t this
stage of development, specifically, that another internal mech-
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anism seems to have taken over in the subjects' control of their

behavior. Whereas in the younger children voluntary control
over oneself flows from, and is mediated by, the child's rela-
tionship to the behavior he has to c a r r y out in fulfilling a social
role (the game role in our experiments), now the opposite is the
case. The child imbues his behavior with a meaningful content
on the basis of his relationship to himself, to his own abilities,
to a behavioral model, a relationship that is, of course, by its
very nature, social. This is why children of this age continue
to test themselves even after they have abandoned the assign-
ment imposed on them by the experiment.
In our view, this mechanism of voluntary behavior is intrinsic
and constitutes the substance of real voluntariness, i.e. , volun-
tariness not in the process of development, but in its fully de-
veloped form.

Thus our study has brought to light the following stages in the
development of voluntary behavior.
An analysis of the behavior of three-to-four-year-olds shows
that children of this age group a r e still unable to monitor their
own motor behavior, even for a very short time. This age group
is characterized, then, by unmonitored behavior.
Apparently, in three-to-four-year-olds,the physiological
mechanisms of voluntary behavior a r e not yet fully formed.
 114 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY

A . R. Luria studied the cerebral mechanism involved in the de-

velopment of purposeful activity (which he linked to the develop-
ment of frontal lobes) and found that "the frontal lobes a r e not
finally formed until the fourth or fifth year'' (12).
In four-to-five-year-olds, the almost completely unmonitored
nature of motor behavior noted in the youngest children (three-
year-olds) is no longer evident. An elementary form of control
appears, although it is observed only sporadically. In our ex-
periments this type of control involved principally visual per-
ception of a r m position, and the role of proprioception of body
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position became evident only when the pose was grossly broken.
Thus, we find that this age group already possesses the most
elementary form of control, although i t is still very limited,
both with respect to the very form in which it occurs and in its
scope, i.e., the capacity of the child to keep check on the various
parts of his body (torso, a r m s , head) simultaneously. We have
called this type of voluntary behavior, characteristic of four-
to -f ive -year - olds , primary voluntary behavior.
A new feature emerges in the behavior of five-to-six-year-
olds, namely, a kind of automatic, proprioceptive control of
body position. These children frequently exhibited a restraint
-
of involuntary movements to chase away a fly, scratch one's
cheek, wipe one's nose, look to the side, etc. However, it was
still difficult for children of this age group to monitor their
pose. Another typical feature of this age group w a s that the
children for the first time began systematically to use certain
devices to prevent themselves from being distracted: they looked
downwardor at a fixed point directly in front of them; sometimes
they looked directly at the experimenter, which was also a kind of
device for avoiding distraction. This is a transitional period,
The voluntary behavior of six-to-seven-year-olds is quite con-
sistent. This is the period in which the new types of behavior
that first emerged in the preceding stage, in five-to-six-year-
olds, are finally developed and consolidated.
Six-to-seven-year-olds displayed a stable, undeterrable be-
havior in the different experimental series. This observation
confirms the findings of Krasnogorskii, who noted that "from
 SUMMER 1975 115

the age of seven, regulative, inhibitory control of the cerebral

cortex acquires increasing power over instinctive and emotional
reactions" (8). This author goes on to s t r e s s that this is the
age at which special emphasis should be placed on educative ef -
forts, on training and disciplining of children to ensure com-
prehensive development of the regulatory functions of the brain.

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Translated by
Michel Vale