IMAGINATION, PERSONALITY, AND IMAGINARY COMPANIONS

A sample of 102 college women completed a set of imagination and personality measures and reported whether they had ever had imaginary companions during childhood. Participants who reported imaginary companions scored higher than did those who did not on measures of imagination including imagery use, hostile daydreams, and vivid night dreams, and on personality scales including dependent interpersonal styles and internal-state awareness. Participant groups did not differ significantly on shyness, other interpersonal styles, or measures of self-concept. Comparison of these results with research on children and adolescents with imaginary companions suggests a coherent developmental pattern in social orientation characterized by sensitivity and accommodation to others' needs.

Keywords: imaginary companion, imagery, shyness, personality, interpersonal style.

A common question addressed in the literature on imaginary companions concerns whether individuals who create pretend friends differ from those who do not. Some investigations (e.g., Manosevitz, Prentice, & Wilson, 1973) have examined features of children's social environments, hypothesizing that having fewer available playmates, no siblings, or having lost a parent might prompt a child to create an imaginary friend. These investigations have not consistently distinguished between those with and without imaginary companions except with respect to birth order: compared to children without imaginary companions, children with imaginary companions are more frequently only and first-born children or those with siblings far apart in age (Bouldin & Pratt, 1999; Singer & Singer, 1990). Nevertheless, even this finding is not ubiquitous (Hurlock & Burstein, 1932). Consequently, some researchers have addressed the role of intrapsychic features of the individual in the development of imaginary companions. Two primary factors have been proposed: imagination and personality.

IMAGINATION

Many creators of imaginary companions report that their pretend friends are accompanied by vivid auditory and visual imagery (Dierker, Davis & Sanders, 1995; Hurlock & Burstein, 1932). Empirical evidence suggests that the presence of imagery of this kind might be indicative of individual differences in imagery use and type. For example, Meyer and Tuber (1989) found that the Rorschach scores of 4- and 5-year-old children with imaginary companions are indicative of superior symbolic representation and unusual imaginative resources compared to norms established for this age group. Although the capacity to engage in imagined dialogues with others is universal, and most individuals - even those without pretend friends - spend time engaged in this type of fantasy (Caughey, 1984; Watkins, 2000), those who create imaginary companions might be particularly prone to engaging in fantasy. Evidence for such group differences has emerged in research with both children and adults.

In infancy, children who later develop imaginary companions show a preference for fantasy- over reality-based toys (Acredolo, Goodwyn, & Fulmer, 1995). These differences have also emerged between preschool-aged children with and without imaginary companions. According to parent reports, young children with such friends are more likely to incorporate myth into their play, to explain events as magical, to play imaginatively (Bouldin & Pratt, 1999) and to engage in pretense in an experimental situation than are their peers (Taylor, 1999).

Children with and without imaginary companions may also differ in concentration and focusing attention, skills that might tap imaginative abilities. For example, Singer (1961) evaluated 6- to 9-year-old high- and low-fantasy children's ability to wait patiently during a game. Children classified as high-fantasy, a category partly determined by whether or not a child had an imaginary companion, were able to wait longer than were those classified as low-fantasy. Singer proposed that the patience of the high-fantasy children might be related to their use of imagination to distract themselves while waiting. Mauro (1991) also found differences in this kind of attentional focusing between children with and without pretend friends in a sample of 4-year-olds, but in a follow-up session when the children were 7 these differences had disappeared. Differences in attentional focusing were also not replicated in another study of children (average age 5.9) with and without pretend friends (Manosevitz, Fling, & Prentice, 1977).

While findings for differences in imaginative skills in children with and without imaginary companions might be ambiguous, research on adolescents and adults suggests that any variation present in childhood becomes more pronounced with development. For example, some adolescents create imaginary companions to whom journal entries are addressed, and the best predictor of this behavior is a propensity for daydreaming (Seiffge-Krenke, 1993; 1997). In two self-report studies involving comparisons between college students with and without memories of imaginary companions, Dierker, Davis and Sanders (1995) found differences on measures of imaginative involvement, such as interest in and use of fantasy and belief in the paranormal, among women and on measures of normative dissociation among both genders. Differences also emerged between women with varying degrees of vividness in their memories of their imaginary companions. High-vividness participants, who reported seeing and hearing their companions and believing they were real, had significantly higher imaginative involvement than did either low vividness participants or women who had not had imaginary companions as children.