Maintains that the "getting into shape" hypothesis of explaining the inverted-U distribution of exercise play across age is likely incorrect. Argues that the biological study of human physical activity play, as recommended by Pellegrini and Smith (1998), will reveal whether physical activity play represents an example of…

This paper argues that the emerging discipline of sociobiology has the potential of doing what epistemologists, developmental psychologists, psychoanalysts, and ethologists have been unable to do: to provide a theory documenting our inherited dispositions as reflected in cultural evolution and personal development. Accordingly, the paper begins…