Imaginary friends, real benefits
Children with imaginary friends are better at learning to communicate than other children, according to La Trobe University psychologist, Dr Evan Kidd.
Dr Kidd and colleague Anna Roby explored the hidden world of imaginary companions in a bid to understand the benefits. The study of 44 children showed that the 22 children who had imaginary friends were better able to get their point across than were children of the same age who did not have one.
‘Children with imaginary friends have a lot of practice at inventing interactions between their imaginary friends and themselves,’ said Dr Kidd. ‘We think that this is what facilitates their development of conversational skills – being in charge of both sides of the conversation,’ he added.
The researchers also discovered that children with an invisible friend or personified toy had a better social understanding, were generally first born or only children and were very creative.
‘They were all very creative. The children treat these “friends” as real, play with them throughout the day and refer to them in conversation.’
One child reported having a companion named Sarah, who had a pet dragon. Another enjoyed a friendship with an imaginary family, Mr and Mrs Driller who had two children.
‘There was one child who had an imaginary tomato, “Bodder” and a potato called “Bun”,’ said Dr Kidd. The phenomenon of the imaginary friend is really misunderstood, according to Dr Kidd.
‘People think it is rare, when in fact past studies have shown that around 65 per cent of children aged between three and nine had imaginary friends.
‘Others think it is a red flag – thanks to the depiction of imaginary friends in popular culture like Donnie Darko or Drop Dead Fred, where the characters rely on imaginary characters due to some internal malaise’.
Rather, says Dr Kidd, this special type of pretend play appears to be an essential component of normal development.
Dr Kidd has gone on to establish in further research that the benefits of imaginary companions are long-lasting.
His study of university students showed that those who recalled having an imaginary companion in childhood were more creative, more achievement oriented, and more emotionally responsive than students who didn’t have one. Interestingly, however, there was no diff erence between any of the 44 children in listening skills.
Dr Kidd is a Charles La Trobe Research Fellow at the School of Psychological Sciences. His research interests include sentence processing in children and adults, the acquisition of complex sentences and verb argument structure, as well as verbal morphology and how children deal with lexical and syntactic ambiguity. Dr Kidd received his PhD from La Trobe in 2004.
Fresh Scientist
Dr Evan Kidd was chosen as one of Australia’s ‘Fresh Scientists’ in this year’s national ‘Fresh Science’ competition.
For four days in June the event brought together a select group of sixteen scientists and honed their skills as science communicators. He and his colleagues then spoke about their research during an intense round of media engagements and other events including science sessions for schools, a dinner and a ‘science in the pub’ function.
As a result, reports of his work appeared in more than 200 media outlets throughout Australia and world-wide.
Fresh Science promotes new and interesting research by early-career scientists. It is supported by the Australian Government, Museum Victoria and New Scientist magazine to boost the profile of Australian science, encourage debate and provide role models for the next generation of scientists.