“It’s Just Instinctive”: Non-human Animal Play in the Eyes of Humans

'Instinctive' stands in opposition to thoughtful and thorough. It is free from causal reasoning and deductive logic that is based on knowledge from past experiences (Garrett 1997). Yet, when brought to the context of play where irrational and spontaneous meets planning and learning, the two seem to operate seamlessly together without clear distinction. Non-human animal play creates an even more specific case for studying when and how play is based on instinctive behavior. This can be reflected in our everyday use of the concept to highlight (or falsely establish) the difference between human and non-human play behaviour.

My talk explores how humans utilise the idea of instincts to reject an uncomfortable alignment between human and non-human behaviour and thus to reinforce human superiority regarding cognitive capacity. I argue that the presence/absence of instinct highlights some of the core aspects of animal play and that scrutinizing the everyday use of the concept helps us unpack the uncanniness of non-human animal play from human perspective. Then, how to use the concept in the study of animal play? And what do experience designers mean when they aim at instinctiveness in games? To address the questions, my talk draws on cultural studies, game studies, and different streams of non-human animal research.

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