2004/05/05 by Tanya Sharon, Jacqueline D. Woolley · 2 citations
Psychology · Arts and Humanities · #Child and Animal Learning Development #Media Influence and Health #Educational Strategies and Epistemologies #Fantasy #Psychology #Dream #Categorization #Attribution #Reality testing #Task (project management) #Developmental psychology #Social psychology #Cognition #Epistemology #Art #Literature #Psychotherapist
paper · doi:10.1348/026151004323044627
openalex publication_date 2004/05/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Young children are often thought to confuse fantasy and reality. This study took a second look at preschoolers' fantasy/reality differentiation. We employed a new measure of fantasy/reality differentiation—a property attribution task—in which children were questioned regarding the properties of both real and fantastical entities. We also modified the standard forced‐choice categorization task (into real/fantastical) to include a ‘not sure’ option, thus allowing children to express uncertainty. Finally, we assessed the relation between individual levels of fantasy orientation and fantasy/reality differentiation. Results suggest that children have a more developed appreciation of the boundary between fantasy and reality than is often supposed.