# playful (behavioral)

a lighthearted, spontaneous disposition arising from unstructured social play

- Computed level: L13 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: behavioral  ·  Arena: playful

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [game](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-game.playful), [free](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-free.unconstrained), [interacting](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-interacting.social), [play](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-play.game), [state](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-state.condition), [time](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-time.dimension), [social](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-social.relational)

**Through:** A free attitude combined with play activity generates a lighthearted, spontaneous disposition.

**Novel properties:**
- spontaneous engagement
- mutual enjoyment
- role fluidity

## Examples
- Children laughing during an impromptu game of tag in a Tokyo park on a rainy afternoon. *(everyday life)*
- Dolphins tossing a jellyfish back and forth like a toy off the coast of New Zealand. *(biology)*
- Open-source developers at a Berlin hackathon debugging a chatbot with joke commands and emoji replies. *(computing)*

## Used by
- [toys](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-toys.play) (L14)

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-playful.behavioral*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-playful.behavioral.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*