A Cross-cultural Comparison of Objectivity in Childhood Games: Iran and the United States

Games have been introduced as a means for studying cross-cultural differences and societies. This paper presents a case study in analogous games played by children in two different countries with two different cultures – Iran and the United States. Four examples are presented to demonstrate that games played by Iranian children are subject to less objectivity in their rules. Therefore, nonobjectivity may be a phenomenon that has roots in the society and the many differences between the two societies may very well be the results of this fundamental difference. If the presence of objectivity in childhood game rules could be, in actuality, indicative of objectivity in social and civil interactions in the everyday lives of the people, the direction of causality remains to be established. In other words, it remains unclear whether the games influence the culture or are influenced by the mandates of the society.