Oh no monster! Do imaginative fears trigger creative imagination?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to identify the children suffering from imaginative fears and to determine whether or not children having these fears are different from the children have no such fear in terms of their creative imagination. For this purpose, 233 children from the age group of five-six years in a kindergarten in the southwestern Turkey participated in the study. The data were collected by using the Koala Fear Questionnaire, which was developed by (Muris, P., Meesters, C., Mayer, B., Bogie, N., Luijten, M., Geebelen, E., … Smit, C. (2003). The koala fear questionnaire: a standardized self-report scale for assessing fears and fearfulness in pre-school and primary school children. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 41, 597–617.) and whose Turkish validity and reliability studies were conducted, as well as Test of Creative Imagination- Child Form, which was developed by (Gündoğan, A. (2017). The test of creative imagination: making the test suitable to the age group of 5–6 years. Early Child Development and Care. doi:10.1080/03004430.2017.1372429). At the end of the study, it was found that creative imaginations of the children suffering from imaginative fears were also high. Furthermore, five-six year-old children suffering from imaginative fears were determined to use behavioural and pretense strategies rather than cognitive strategies.