From Boing Boing:
Sixty-five percent of children say that by age seven, they’ve played with an imaginary companion. Children interviewed for a study by psychologists at the University of Washington and University of Oregon were considered to have an imaginary companion if they were able to discuss its psychological traits, “such as ‘She is nice to me.'”
The study also showed that:
- While preschool girls were more likely to have an imaginary companion, by age 7 boys were just as likely as girls to have one.
- 27 percent of the children described an imaginary friend that their parents did not know about.
- 57 percent of the imaginary companions of school-age youngsters were humans and 41 percent were animals. One companion was a human capable of transforming herself into any animal the child wanted.
- Not all imaginary companions are friendly. A number were quite uncontrollable and some were a nuisance.