A systematic assessment of the specific fears, anxiety level, and temperament of children with imaginary companions

Abstract

This study investigated the specific fears, anxiety level, and temperament characteristics of children with and without imaginary companions. Mothers of children with and without imaginary companions (37 mothers in each condition) whose children were aged between 3.2 and 8.7 years were asked to complete the Fear Survey Schedule for Children -II Parent (FSSC-IIP), the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale -Parent (RCMAS-P), and the Short Temperament Scale for Children (STSC). Examination of mothers' ratings indicated no differences between groups on the fear and temperament scales. The scores for anxiety were significantly higher for imaginary companion children as a result of differences on the concentration and worry-over sensitivity subscales. However, the mean scores were still within the normal range. Consequently, it is concluded that whereas the presence of imaginary companions may be associated with some difference in levels of anxiety, overall there is no indication that children with imaginary companions experience emotional difficulties.fascinating aspect of children's development involves the occurrence of the imaginary companion. Despite claims that these companions are experienced by as many as 65% of children (Mauro,

Imagination, Personality, and Imaginary Companions

“…Mauro (1991) noted no personality differences on a temperament measure between 4-year-old children with and without imaginary companions except that children with such friends appeared to be better at focusing attention, as mentioned above, and less shy. However, again, these differences had disappeared by the time children were 7, and other researchers have also found no differences in temperament between children with and without imaginary companions (Bouldin & Pratt, 2002;Manosevitz et al, 1973). Taken together, this research suggests that in terms of personality, children with and without imaginary companions seem more similar than different (Taylor, 1999), although children with pretend friends may be more sociable than are those without, particularly with adults.…”

“…Their explanation of this finding is that children with imaginary companions have an orientation that is toward rather than away from contact with others. Support for this interpretation comes from Bouldin and Pratt (2002), who compared children on several measures of anxiety, temperament, and specific fears. They found that children with imaginary companions experienced more concentration anxiety than did their peers, meaning that they had concerns regarding meeting others' expectations and may have been particularly attuned to interactions with others.…”

“…They appear to develop a social orientation early on that includes cooperativeness and easy interactions with adults and little aggression in play (Manosevitz et al, 1973;, as well as concerns regarding meeting adults' expectations (Bouldin & Pratt, 2002). Even in preschool these children may be attuned to the needs of others and inclined to be accommodating.…”

Imaginary Companions and Young Children's Coping and Competence

“…However, the variety of forms and the richness of the details that children provide about their ICs make systematic descriptions of their functional significance rather challenging (Taylor, ; Taylor & Carlson, ). Instead, most studies focus on differences between children with and without ICs (Bouldin & Pratt, ; Manosevitz, Prentice, & Wilson, ; Taylor & Carlson, ), and in fact, Nagera () has suggested that the mere presence of an IC in a child's life, rather than its details, is most revealing with respect to social functioning. In particular, he and others emphasized ICs' role in helping children and adolescents cope with stress, fears, anxiety, and trauma in both pathological and nonpathological contexts (Benson & Pryor, ; Bouldin & Pratt, ; Silberg, ; Taylor, Carlson, & Shawber, ).…”

The Assessment of Elaborated Role‐play in Young Children: Invisible Friends, Personified Objects, and Pretend Identities

“…Finally, for the last 107 participants, we included parent report measures of shyness, extraversion, attentional focusing, agreeableness, and positive affect in order to examine the relation between different types of pretending while controlling for personality variables. Past research has yielded mixed results regarding the association between shyness and role‐play, but overall, most studies have found that children who have imaginary companions are not more shy and possibly less shy than other children (Bouldin & Pratt, ; Gleason et al., ). We expected to replicate this result and extend it by finding that children who engage in any type of role‐play are rated by their parents as less shy than other children.…”