Monsters, ghosts and witches: Testing the limits of the fantasy—reality distinction in young children

Abstract

Estes, Wellman & Woolley (1989) have shown that children as young as 3 years of age can distinguish between mental entities such as an image or dream of an object and a real object. Nevertheless, children often show persistent fear of imaginary creatures, particularly monsters (Jersild, 1943). To find out what conception children have of such imaginary creatures, 4‐ and 6‐year‐olds were questioned about three types of item: real items (e.g. a cup), ordinary imagined items (e.g. an image of a cup) and supernatural imagined items (e.g. an image of a monster). In two experiments, both age groups sharply differentiated the real items from both types of imagined item. Despite this apparently firm grasp of the distinction between fantasy and reality, two further experiments showed that 4‐ and 6‐year‐olds are not always certain that a creature that they have imagined cannot become real. Having imagined a creature inside a box, they show apprehension or curiosity about what is inside the box, and often admit to wondering whether the creature is actually inside. The experiments suggest that children systematically distinguish fantasy from reality, but are tempted to believe in the existence of what they have merely imagined.

Where Is the Real Cheese? Young Children's Ability to Discriminate Between Real and Pretend Acts

“…Past research suggests that children ages 3 -7 sometimes believe that what they have imagined may turn out to be true. For example, after pretending that there is a creature inside an empty box, children may peek into the empty box rather than an irrelevant box when left alone as if they thought the imagined creature might have crossed the boundary from pretend into real (Harris et al, 1991;Johnson & Harris, 1994). To our knowledge, no such study has been conducted with children under age 3, but it is quite possible that 2-year-olds may be credulous toward pretense transmigration as well.…”

“…When left alone with the pretend box and a neutral box that was not involved in pretense, children approached the pretend box more quickly and touched and opened it more often than the neutral box. As Harris et al (1991) suggested, young children might believe that pretend entities can "transmigrate" into the real world.…”

“…When asked whether the object was real or pretend, many young 3-year-olds erred by judging that the object was real. Even older children may sometimes experience similar confusion (Harris, Brown, Marriott, Whittall, & Harmer, 1991;Johnson & Harris, 1994). For example, Harris et al (1991, Experiment 4) asked 4-and 6-year-olds to look into an empty box and pretend that a creature (e.g., a rabbit or a monster) was inside it.…”

“…Young children may have the pretense -reality boundary "in place," but it is not yet firm, so that under some circumstances children become confused about certain elements of pretense and reality. As a result, features of pretense may sometimes cross the boundary and "seep into reality" (Harris et al, 1991;Lillard, 1994;Woolley, 1997).…”

The Permanence of Mental Objects: Testing Magical Thinking on Perceived and Imaginary Realities.

“…3 Harris, Brown, Marriott, Whittall and Harmer (1991) found that 4-and 6-year-olds are capable of distinguishing between perceived objects (a perceived cup), imagined physical objects (an imagined cup) and fantastic objects (a witch flying in the sky). Five-year-olds are as good as adults are at differentiating between fantastic and real objects (Sharon and Woolley, 2003).…”