Imagination is alive and thriving in the minds of America's school-age children. It is so prevalent that 65 percent of children report that, by the age of 7, they have had an imaginary companion at some point in their lives, according to a new study by University of Washington and University of Oregon psychologists.
The research also indicates that having an imaginary companion is at least as common among school-age children as it is among preschoolers. Thirty-one percent of the school-age youngsters were playing with an imaginary companion when they were asked about such activity, compared with 28 percent of preschoolers.
"This finding is fascinating in that it goes against so many theories of middle childhood, such as those proposed by Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget. Having an imaginary companion is normal for school-age children," said Stephanie Carlson, a UW assistant psychology professor.
Marjorie Taylor, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon, and Carlson are the lead authors of the study published in the current issue of the journal Developmental Psychology.
Having an imaginary companion appears to be an ongoing and changing process because a child doesn't necessarily play with the same imaginary companion throughout childhood. Carlson said some children reported having multiple and serial imaginary companions. The number of imaginary companions described by children ranged from one to 13 different entities.
"It is somewhat of a revolving door. Children are nimble in coming up with these imaginary companions and sometimes we have a hard time keeping up with all of the ones a child has," she said.
The researchers originally recruited 152 preschoolers, ages 3 and 4, and their parents several years ago. Each child and parents were interviewed separately about imaginary companions. The researchers also collected data on the children's verbal ability and gave them a series of standardized tasks to assess development, or what psychologists call theory of mind. Three years later, 100 of those children (50 girls and 50 boys) and their parents volunteered for the newly published study. The children and their parents again were interviewed separately about imaginary companions. Parents also filled out a questionnaire about their child's personality and the children took a series of standardized tasks that measured social understanding.
Children were considered to have imaginary companions if they said they had one and provided a description of it. If the companion was a doll or stuffed animal, children also had to include psychological details (such as "She is nice to me") for it to be considered an imaginary friend.
Imaginary companions described by the children came in a fantastic variety of guises, including invisible boys and girls, a squirrel, a panther, a dog, a seven-inch-tall elephant and a "100-year-old" GI Joe doll. While 52 percent of the imaginary companions that preschoolers played with were based on props such as special toys, 67 percent of those created by school-age children were invisible, according to Carlson.
The study also showed that:
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While preschool girls were more likely to have an imaginary companion, by age 7 boys were just as likely as girls to have one.
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27 percent of the children described an imaginary friend that their parents did not know about.
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57 percent of the imaginary companions of school-age youngsters were humans and 41 percent were animals. One companion was a human capable of transforming herself into any animal the child wanted.
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Not all imaginary companions are friendly. A number were quite uncontrollable and some were a nuisance.