An experiment

My daughter has all the makings of a future researcher. The other day she took all her stuffed animals into the kitchen one by one. She lined them up side by side along one wall facing the center of the kitchen. Trip after trip, animal after animal, she traveled from the living room to the kitchen and carefully selected a spot for each animal. If an animal fell over to the side, she repositioned it so it was upright and facing the center.

In the center of the kitchen were two animals separated from the pack: a black dog and a white sheep. Both animals were facing the same direction as the others, meaning their backs were to the group. It looked like they were being ostracized, like they weren't welcome with the others. Trip after trip, she walked past the dog and the sheep to carefully line up her many other animals. When she ran out of space along the wall, she started cramming the remaining animals into a corner, and at the end she had a giant frog crowdsurfing everyone.

I watched all this and even helped transport a few animals, but I consistently wondered about the ostracized dog and sheep. I said, "Don't you think the dog wants to play with everyone else? Why don't you move him over there?" She ignored me and kept working with the others. I continued to ask about the dog, as did Tiffanie. Nothing. She ignored our requests. So to see what would happen, I simply rotated the dog in the center of the room so it could face the others along the wall. On her next trip into the kitchen, she stopped in the middle, bent down, and turned the dog back around the way it had been.

I walked into the living room and said, "Man, we've got some social experimentation going on in there."