Play, Social Capital, Trust

Abstract

The article discusses the role of play in the formation and accumulation of social capital understood as an aggregate of social norms, social networks and trustworthiness. It is shown that play is the primary space of accumulation of social capital. The child in play learns how to observe voluntarily regulations and create social norms. In addition, play, familiarizing relations and destroying hierarchical structures, contributes to the formation of horizontal networks supporting social capital. For this reason, play today is the main space for social capital building. Finally, play stimulates the development of various levels of trust: to co-players, opponents, people in general, player and the institution of play. The latter, in its turn, helps to enforce credence to other social institutions. The author shows that the difference between types of trust depends on the conditions in which social capital is formed. The trust built in the situation of play differs from the trust built in other activities and in closed group. Play trust is the trust in its pure form, not mixed with cost-benefit considerations and external circumstances. It goes beyond the narrow-group (ethnic, confessional, gender, etc.) identity, helping to establish good relations between members of different social groups. In addition it allows playing numerous scenarios, including those that are unlikely to happen or even completely impossible in real life. It helps to highlight each player from all possible angles and to understand whether he or she is really trustworthy.