Studies show imaginary friends 'good for communication'

Imaginary friends 'good for communication'
By Dani Cooper for ABC Science Online

Posted Tue Jun 2, 2009 7:55pm AEST

Children with imaginary friends are better communicators and become more creative, achievement-oriented adults, according to Australian and British research.

The findings come from two studies conducted by La Trobe University researcher Dr Evan Kidd and colleagues at the University of Manchester.

In the first study, due to be published in the journal Developmental Science, the team compared children aged between four and six years, with and without imaginary friends.

The children had to have maintained the imaginary friend for more than six months.

Dr Kidd says the study showed those with imaginary friends were better able to get their point across in a conversation with an adult.

"They were good at understanding what the conversational partner needed to know," he said.

This skill was enhanced in children with imaginary friends because they became "the writer, producer, director and actor in their own play".

"It is a different form of interaction [than with real friends]. They are creating dialogue for themselves, but also for their imaginary friend.

"They are trying to get into someone else's role [so] they have a better understanding of someone else's mindset."


Quite common

Imaginary friends are very common, says Dr Kidd, with estimates suggesting up to 65 per cent of children have them.

But they are most common among only children or first-borns aged between four and the start of primary school, he says.

Dr Kidd says the prevalence among this group is because they have more opportunity for sole play.

He says the imaginary friend can either be a person or an inanimate object, such as a teddy bear, which is given human qualities.

Among the imaginary friends they encountered in the study were: electricity man, a dog called pencil, and a friend known as "shot through the heart" which the researchers discovered were the lyrics of a Bon Jovi song often played by the child's mother.


Long lasting

The benefits of an imaginary friend may also be long lasting.

In another study, yet to be published, Dr Kidd found adults who remembered having an imaginary friend were more creative, more achievement oriented and more emotionally responsive.

From a group of 330 British undergraduate students, 30 per cent recalled having an imaginary friend as a child, Dr Kidd says.

He says the results are not too surprising as children with imaginary friends are more absorbed in fantasy.

In later life this ability to focus on something could translate into being "more likely to be absorbed in study matter and more likely to see things through".

Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/02/2587323.htm?site=news

I found this interesting. I bet most psychologists shy away from researching the benefits of these sorts of phenomenon purely because the concept is considered a product of imagination and fantasy. What does that concept even mean anyway?

Does anyone know what part of the brain controls 'imagination' and what the neurological function of it is considered to be? I find it quite fascinating ... if no one had ever used their imagination, I don't think we would have evolved very far in terms of intelligence. Doesn't knowledge spring from imagination? I mean, we had to come up with the wheel some how. Imagine that.

There are different ways in which we can use our imaginations.

For some we focus on fantasy, things that are not real in our imaginations become real for others and maybe only a few of us...

We focus on the real and what is taking things that are tangible in our world apart and putting things together in such a way as to create a better item. I use the term item as not all things that are created have to be material, there are ideas and concepts being created to bring about a better world a society that is more civilized than those of the past. Imagine that!

I still have imaginary friends and I am proud of it

I think it is the cerebral cortex that is responsible for imagination and if I had to pin it down to an area within that I would say the frontal lobes as these are responsible for abstract thinking, creativity and personality. Imagination is thought to be an extension of abstract thinking and symbology (the ability to think in abstract terms replacing words or images with symbols that contain more information not readily understood if represented any other way).

I would elaborate but I have an exam to sit and I have to go. I will come back to this later

Good luck with the exam...

I too will be back later, and I look forward to what more you might contribute, I imagine a lot will come forth, this discussion can go far and wide...

Thanks Gary, the exam went well

Now back to the thread at hand...I don't know that scientists are scared to examine these areas so much as unsure how to reach conclusions. Psychology is a science afterall, and it is based in empirical research methods which means needing tangible phenomena to study and retest to get valid results. How do you test the imagination? What sort of scale could you possibly use that would apply to everyone? And how do you record or test an imaginary friend? Can you be sure it is a hallucinatory image projected by the frontal lobes or are these imaginary friends apparitions or beings from other dimensions? Don't think that psychology doesn't go there, because it does. They are still at a loss to explain which part of the brain consciousness is created by and what it's exact function might be (hello, can anyone say 'the human soul'? ).

Much research is going on in these areas but it takes years to refine hypotheses and test and retest them and alter procedures and methods to arrive at scientific results that have any real meaning. One example of this was the decision in 1994 to change the name of a condition known as Multiple Personality Disorder to the more appropriate Dissociative Identity Disorder after research revealed it was more validly linked to changes in degree of consciousness or awareness than actual splitting of the personality. Reading between the lines, this is more a survival mechanism than it is a mental illness and has now gained a little more credibility in professional circles. Up until the name change, psychologists and psychiatrists were still arguing whether it even existed at all!

One thing I have noticed in my studies is that anything related to what is deemed 'paranormal' or 'supernatural' phenomena usually occurs in the frontal lobes, particularly the right frontal lobe. I don't know how many shows I have seen where the person develops psychic abilities or can see ghosts and then discovers either a tumour or growth on their frontal lobes! The questions are being asked, we just don't have the methods to get the answers yet. Is it a coincidence that the third eye sits smack bang between the lobes?

And guess where inspiration and artistic talent comes from? The frontal lobes. Abstract thinking, writing and other talents - frontal lobes! Imagination, psychic experience, imaginary friends, dissociation....yep, frontal lobes. Take a look at aliens - which part of their heads is usually most pronounced? Frontal lobes!! Extra large, in your face big foreheads....which leads me into even more ideas of how they can appear to us through using some of the functions of the frontal lobes like thought projection, dissociating their forms and projecting them in 3D holograms that appear real...and why we have visions on our inner screen which appears in our third eye over the frontal lobes.

Are we sick of the frontal lobes yet? Okay, I'll stop typing and let you digest my post. This is all very interesting territory to explore.

Quote :

Take a look at aliens - which part of their heads is usually most pronounced? Frontal lobes!! Extra large, in your face big foreheads....which leads me into even more ideas of how they can appear to us through using some of the functions of the frontal lobes like thought projection, dissociating their forms and projecting them in 3D holograms that appear real...and why we have visions on our inner screen which appears in our third eye over the frontal lobes.

I gotta run so just a short comment for now, but YES!! This is exactly what I was trying to explain in that bizarre holigram theory I was trying to pitch a while back after I had those crazy Sirius experiences (haven't had one since either ) ... but I just could not for the life of me explain it in scientific terms that actually made sense as I have no knowledge whatsoever of the functions of the brain. But how you have described it there goth is pretty much how it was explained by them to me when I first had one of those strange experiences. I remember quite clearly because I was completely freaking out that I had finally lost my sanity and I needed some sort of explanation of a concept to grasp onto to explain how the hell this could realistically be happening. And so "they" explained it as them being as 'projected holigraphic forms' that by their very nature, defy the laws of physics/space/time (and will, I hope, one day be truly explained through the field of particle physics).

It sounded crazy, even I could admit that, but there is no doubt in my mind that this is the true nature of ET contact - but whether ET contact itself is actually due to fantasy prone behaviour/frontal lobe hallucinations/ or really truly contact with interdimensional entities I still have trouble grasping sometimes (except when you wake up with a mysterious complementary triangle scar that disappears later in the day ... thats just flat out weird shit). But yay I am so very excited to learn about the frontal lobes in relation to this! haha! Definately looking forward to some more discussion about this whole topic!

...

Ah yes, the ageold debate - is it real or have we created it with the power of our own minds? That one gets me too. Especially about ghosts and near death experiences (which scientifically are put down to the brains way of gently easing us into our demise rather than scaring the hell out of us with our extinction). In a sense, I guess other beings are us because we are all from one source but then who created them - the source or our minds? There's a paradox waiting to twist many thoughts into an infinite loop! I used to have the same dilemma when trying to imagine how big the universe was and what it looked like and who created it and then who created the creator of the universe...kind of gives weight to Gary's theory that it simply always existed and just 'is'.

Very good thanks for the acknowledgment of having a theory... Here is the real test, I've been really busy today, so I'm cutting this very short...

My Daughter had her graduation cerimony today, I met my son for the first time since Thanksgiving of last year, he missed me and asked me some questions one of which was how do you know what the truth is? He seems to have this idea that he came to the conclusion all on his own that their is more than one available truth...

The door is open that we will soon get together on Sunday Father's day where I think we will find common ground, he said to me that his mother is taking him to church services and what they preach does not align with the scientific theories... Smart child I have there...

Phew I have a lot of work to do...

I always forget your Father's Day is different from ours - we don't have it until the first weekend in September Hope it went well for you Gary, and Happy Father's Day

Yeah' that would be confusing the day went well I put a synopsis in my notes about it... I have organized my notes under current events... I'm moving right along there on that blog to beat all blogs...

Good for you.