According to Vygotsky’s cultural-historical activity theory, pretend play can be an important context for the development of children’s social competence. The aim of this meta-analysis was to synthesize the current evidence about the relation between pretend play and social competence in early childhood (age 3–8 years). A systematic literature search of PsycINFO, ERIC, and Web of Science identified a total of 34 relevant empirical studies. The included studies were systematically coded and categorized for pretend play and social competence. Overall, the findings of this meta-analysis reveal a positive relation between pretend play and social competence, irrespective of how the latter was measured. The relation between pretend play and social competence was slightly negatively impacted by children’s age, suggesting that the relation weakens as children get older. Studies measuring the amount of pretend play found lower correlations between pretend play and social competence than studies measuring the quality of pretend play. Most included studies adopted a cross-sectional design, so claims about causal effects could not be supported. Future research is required to determine the direction of causality and potential mechanisms that may explain the relation between pretend play and social competence.

根据维果茨基的文化历史活动理论，假装游戏可以成为儿童社交能力发展的重要背景。这项荟萃分析的目的是综合关于幼儿期（3-8 岁）假装游戏与社交能力之间关系的现有证据。对 PsycINFO、ERIC 和 Web of Science 的系统文献检索共确定了 34 项相关实证研究。纳入的研究针对假装游戏和社交能力进行了系统编码和分类。总体而言，这项荟萃分析的结果揭示了假装游戏与社交能力之间的正相关关系，无论后者如何衡量。假装游戏和社交能力之间的关系受到儿童年龄的轻微负面影响，这表明随着儿童年龄的增长，这种关系会减弱。测量假装游戏数量的研究发现，假装游戏与社交能力之间的相关性低于测量假装游戏质量的研究。大多数纳入的研究均采用横断面设计，因此有关因果效应的主张无法得到支持。未来的研究需要确定因果关系的方向和可能解释假装游戏与社交能力之间关系的潜在机制。