The phenomenon of imaginary companions has not received a great deal of attention in the psychological literature and is not well understood, so one goal of my research is to provide a definitive description of pretend friends with an eye toward how they might function in development. Studying the ways in which children talk about, and sometimes interact with, imaginary companions has the potential to illuminate how young children understand and think about social relationships in particular. My hope is that by thinking about imaginary companions as relationship partners, I may be able to figure out how they function within children's social networks. Such information could lead to a better understanding of why some children create them.
Imaginary companions come in two forms, invisible companions and personified objects.
Invisible companions are often friends, as opposed to infants or elders, but they need not be human. There are probably as many different kinds of invisible friends in the world as there are children, including humans, animals, monsters and the like. Here is one of my favorite personified objects. His name is Murray. These projects have included an exploration of children's theory of mind, research on children's concepts of their relationships with their mothers, and an analysis of the relation between temperament and popularity in preschool-aged children.