Abstract
It has been shown that there is a significant relationship between children's mentalizing skills and creation of an imaginary companion (IC). Theorists have proposed that interaction with an IC may improve mentalizing skills, but it is also possible that children's mentalizing skills affect their creation of an IC. In this longitudinal study, we examined whether goal attribution in infants younger than 1 years old (Time 1) predicted their creation of ICs at 48 months old (Time 2). At Time 1, infants' goal attribution was measured in an action prediction experiment, where infants anticipated three types of action goals: (1) another person's goal-directed action (GH condition); (2) another person's non-goal-directed (BH condition); and (3) a mechanical claw's goal-directed action (MC condition). At Time 2, parents completed questionnaires assessing whether their children had ICs. The path analyses using Bayesian estimation revealed that infants' anticipation in the MC condition, but not in the GH and BH conditions, predicted their later IC status. These results indicate that infants' goal attributions to non-human agents may be a strong predictor of their later IC creation. Early mentalizing skills toward non-human objects may provide children with a basis for their engagement in imaginative play.
Highlights
Young children enjoy playing with Imaginary Companion (IC) (Bouldin and Pratt, 1999; Taylor, 1999; Gleason et al, 2000; Taylor et al, 2004, 2013; Gleason, 2004a; Moriguchi and Shinohara, 2012; Moriguchi et al, 2015)
The number of children with ICs was relatively high compared to previous studies, but the fact that these Japanese children were more likely to have personified objects than invisible friends is consistent with previous studies (Moriguchi and Shinohara, 2012; see Discussion)
We examined whether infants’ ability to predict another person’s goal-directed action (GH condition), another person’s non-goal-directed action (BH condition), and a mechanical claw’s goal-directed action (MC condition) affected their later IC status
Summary
Young children enjoy playing with Imaginary Companion (IC) (Bouldin and Pratt, 1999; Taylor, 1999; Gleason et al, 2000; Taylor et al, 2004, 2013; Gleason, 2004a; Moriguchi and Shinohara, 2012; Moriguchi et al, 2015). It has been shown that there is a significant relationship between IC play and mentalizing in young children (Taylor and Carlson, 1997; Roby and Kidd, 2008; Giménez-Dasí et al, 2014), there is still controversial discussion about the issue (Fernyhough et al, 2007; Davis et al, 2011, 2014). Taylor and Carlson (1997) classified children into high and low fantasy orientation groups based on children’s play, such as IC play, and examined whether there were differences in performance on mentalizing tasks (e.g., false belief tasks) between groups. The results revealed that children with high fantasy orientation performed better on mentalizing tasks than those with low fantasy orientation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
