Preschool Fantasy-Reality Discrimination: Influences of Trait and Primed Fearfulness

Distinguishing between fantasy and reality is an important developmental milestone, achieved in the preschool years, that has been linked to children's cognitive capabilities and emotional knowledge. The authors examined the influence of both trait and prime fearfulness on preschoolers' ability to differentiate between fantastic and real situations. Forty 3-5-year-old preschoolers were administered a fearfulness assessment, a standard theory-of-mind task, and a fantasy-reality discrimination task (with or without a fear prime). When primed to experience fear, participants who were high in trait fearfulness made more mistakes distinguishing between fantastic and real events than did participants who were low in trait fearfulness. In the absence of a fear prime there was no difference in performance between these two groups. These findings were independent of participants' age, gender, and theory of mind abilities and suggest that preschoolers who are high in trait fearfulness are more prone to difficulty in discriminating between fantasy and reality when actively experiencing fear. This study illuminates important factors that contribute to the errors in fantasy-reality judgments frequently seen in preschoolers.