Play has gained increasing interest among progressive-minded managers as an important driver of motivation and productivity in work contexts. Despite its popularity in contemporary organizations, there is little consensus in the academic literature about the role of play in the workplace. This review organizes and synthesizes the current state of knowledge of play at work in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of what play at work is, when individuals engage in play at work, and the effects of workplace play on work outcomes. First, we review existing definitions of play and their limitations. We then introduce a recent conceptualization of play in adulthood that defines play based on three core features and discuss its relevance in the workplace. Second, we review theoretical perspectives on play and extant empirical research on the antecedents and consequences of play at work, organizing it according to three levels of analysis. Third, we propose a promising agenda for future research by focusing on a number of important issues that have emerged from our review of existing work. These issues are organized into two sections: refining and extending the current research on play, and generating novel ideas and new research directions on unexplored areas of inquiry. We believe this review makes important and timely contributions to the research on play at work by providing comprehensive analysis of the diverse and fragmented literature on play in the workplace.

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Recent studies reveal spontaneous implicit false-belief understanding in infancy. But is this early ability genuine theory-of-mind? Spontaneous tasks may allow early success by eliminating the selection-response bias thought to underlie later failure on standard (verbal) tasks. However, using anticipatory eye gaze, we find the same bias in non-verbal tasks in both preschoolers and adults. We argue that the bias arises from theory-of-mind competence itself and takes the form of a rational prior to attribute one's own belief to others. Our discussion then draws attention to a number of other inferential hallmarks of early belief-desire reasoning that together suggest it is the real deal.

Filial piety (FP) was formerly a Confucian concept that specifies how children should treat their elders. In recent years, some psychologists have postulated that there are considerable overlaps between Chinese FP and notions found in other cultures. They have redefined FP as a contextualized personality emphasizing the psychological schema of parent-child interaction so that it fits universal cultural contexts. Based on this theory construction, this study aimed to examine the effects of reciprocal FP and authoritarian FP on life satisfaction and the mediating roles of individuating autonomy and relating autonomy therein. To do so, we recruited and surveyed 360 high school students in China. Subsequently, a mediation model based on the Dual Filial Piety Model and previous studies was tested. Results demonstrate that reciprocal FP predicted life satisfaction positively and that both individuating autonomy and relating autonomy played significant mediating roles in the relationship between reciprocal FP and life satisfaction. Moreover, authoritarian FP had a negative indirect effect on satisfaction through the mediating role of individuating autonomy, while authoritarian FP had a positive indirect influence on satisfaction through the mediating role of relating autonomy. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

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