Posted by Dan Lind on December 16, 2004 at 22:27:11 from 70.69.171.153 user captain.
This tidbit is from the Seattle Times
By age 7, more than two-thirds of children report inventing an imaginary friend at some point in their lives, according to a study in the journal Developmental Psychology. University of Oregon professor Marjorie Taylor wanted to find out how children ditched their imaginary friends as they grew up. To her surprise, imaginary friends don't peak at age 3 or 4 as previously believed; in fact seven-year olds were just as likely to play with an imaginary companion. Young children who dropped inaginary friends often created new ones. "It's not a phenomenon that goes away, like people thought," said Prof. Taylor, author of Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them (Oxford). Indeed, she suspects, imaginary companions simply change form. Teens often address their diaries to an imaginary friend, and adult writers complain that their fictional characters take over novels.