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Fact vs. Fairy Tale
Research reveals young children distinguish between fact and fiction
A child's life is filled with wonder and discovery. Doctors take an x-ray that seems to make skin invisible, revealing the inside of the body. Adults tell children intriguing stories about the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. Elmo, a friendly monster, teaches science lessons on "Sesame Street," and Harry Potter, a human child, performs magic spells.
The boundary between fact and fiction is often blurred, and navigating the complex worlds of reality and fantasy is no easy task for a youngster. Or is it? Psychologist Jacqueline Woolley studies how children understand reality and evaluate new information. Her research shows that kids may have a better grasp on reality than adults give them credit for.
Her most recent study found children are able to distinguish between reality and fantasy between the ages of 3 and 5.
"Young children continually are exposed to new information through conversations, books and the media," Woolley says. "Much of the information is factual such as the names of planets, but some is fictional such as the existence of Santa Claus."
By the age of 4, children learn to use the context in which new information is presented to distinguish between fact and fiction, Woolley says. She studied about 400 children between the ages of 3 and 6 who were asked to determine whether a series of new words were real or imaginary. For some children, the researchers presented the words in scientific terms: "Doctors use hercs to make medicine." For others, they introduced the words in fantastical terms: "Fairies use hercs to make fairy dust."
Woolley found when children heard the new words in a scientific context they were more likely to believe the words represented real things than when they heard the words described in a fantastical context.
"These studies provide new insight into the development of children's ability to make the fantasy-reality distinction," Woolley says. "It is clear that young children do not believe everything they hear, and that they can use the context surrounding the presentation of a new entity to make inferences about the real versus fantastical nature of that entity."
Even when children do believe in the fantasy world, they expect certain rules to be followed. In a study examining children's belief in the power of wishing, Woolley found children only gave credence to the validity of wishing when specific conditions were met.
The children watched as someone wished for an object, and then opened a box containing the desired item. Under normal circumstances, children generally believed the wish caused the item to appear. However if the child saw the item in the box prior to the wish being made, or if the child saw someone place the object in the box, he or she was less likely to credit the wish for the appearance of the item.
"Despite wishes belonging to the fantastical realm, children evaluate them based on the rules of the real world," Woolley says. "All reasoning does not go out the window simply because they encounter what they believe to be magic."