Fantasy Orientation in Children

2008 Words5 Pages

Creating a questionnaire to measure fantasy orientation in children is rather an interesting task. We all have heard stories, believed in fairy god mothers, feared monsters and waited eagerly for the Santa. Have you ever wondered when we started distinguishing the reality from the fantasy and how stopping being a child influenced our growth. The purpose of the fantasy orientation questionnaire is to explore the same with the help of relevant literature and various scholarly researches. This essay starts with a critical discussion of what Fantasy orientation is, drawing significant points from various studies conducted on the matter. It continues to conduct an elaborate research with a group of 50 pre-school and kinder garden children aged 2 to 5. It presents arguments on how this questionnaire is relevant in measuring the fantasy orientation among children effectively than other methods.
Introduction
The ability to distinguish between what is fantasy and what is reality is one of the most basic human cognitive functions; it signifies an understanding of what is ‘real’ and ‘not real’. However there are certain individuals who are geared more towards a greater affinity for the imaginative and the creative. This affinity or gearing towards getting lost in fantasy or towards a high level of imagination is what is known as fantasy orientation, it is often seen as a measure of how much an individual sees themselves as discerning between reality and fantasy. Children have often observed the confusing boundary between reality and perception (Piaget 1930). Dawkins (1995) held that children don’t only confuse fantasy and perception but the tangible and intangible, drams and reality since a very young age. This influence of children’s perc...

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...Research Digest. Retrieved 17th April from the Research Digest Website: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.in/2011/08/fantasy-prone-children-struggle-to.html
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