Imaginary Friends and the People Who Create Them

Does your child talk to an imaginary friend? Did you create an imaginary friend as a child? What does having an imaginary friend mean? Is it an early marker of special creativity or a red flag signaling emotional distress? Can an imaginary friend provide support and love that is experienced as real?

In this updated and greatly expanded second edition, Marjorie Taylor and Naomi R. Aguiar provide a comprehensive review of what is known about imaginary friends, including research conducted over the past 25 years since the first edition as published in 1999, as well as the classic early studies.
Imaginary Friends and the People Who Create Them provides rich descriptions of imaginary friends and how they function in the lives of both children and adults. The authors discuss psychological research on imaginary friends and explore connections to related phenomena, such as imaginary worlds, relationships with media characters, and the development of creativity. A discussion of how imaginary friends are related to the creation of characters in fiction writing is informed by interviews with renowned authors including Philip Pullman, Sue Grafton, and P. D. James. Taylor and Aguiar also look ahead to address the future of research on imaginary friends, including relationships with artificial intelligence and the role of imaginary friends in coping with trauma, while dispelling the myths about imaginary friends and the people who create them.

Marjorie Taylor is Professor Emerit of Psychology at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on the development of imagination and creativity, including studies of young children who invent pretend friends, older children who create imaginary worlds, and adult fiction writers who develop relationships with the characters in their novels. Her previous works include Imagination Companions and the Children Who Create Them and she was the Editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Imagination.

Naomi R. Aguiar is the Associate Director of Research in the Research Unit at Oregon State University Ecampus. She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Oregon and served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Children's Digital Media Center at Georgetown University. Aguiar's research investigates children's concepts of real and imaginary others, including real-life peers, imaginary friends, and artificially intelligent agents, as well as children's parasocial relationships with media characters.