We Have an Imaginary Friend in Jesus
What Can Imaginary Companions Teach Us About Religion?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.v15i1.61Keywords:
imaginary companions, fantasy play, imaginal dialogue, cognitive theory of religion, source monitoring, religious imagination, social cognitionAbstract
This article investigates the plausibility of using studies of imaginative play to illuminate and explain the contemporary prevalence and popularity of religious imaginal dialogue. Emphasis is given to conceptual considerations arising from the application of recent findings in the neuroscience of social cognition and cognitive theories of childhood development to the study of religion.References
Bado-Fralick, Nikki, and Rebecca Sachs Norris. 2010. Toying with God: The World of Religious Games and Dolls. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.
Barrett, Justin L. 2008. “Why Santa Claus is Not a God.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 8(1–2): 149–161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156770908X289251
———, and Frank C. Keil. 1996. “Conceptualizing a Non-natural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts.” Cognitive Psychology 31: 219–247. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/cogp.1996.0017
Batkowski, John P. 2004. The Promise Keepers: Servants, Soldiers, and Godly Men. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Best, Nicole T., and Peter Mertin. 2007. “Correlates of Auditory Hallucinations in Nonpsychotic Children.” Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry 12(4): 611–623. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1359104507080996
Bloom, Paul. 2010. How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like. New York: Norton.
Bogdan, Radu J. 2005. “Pretending as Imaginative Rehearsal for Cultural Conformity.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 5(1–2): 191–213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1568537054068651
Boyer, Pascal. 2001. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Byrne, Ruth M. J. 2005. The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Campbell, Susan. 2009. Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Carruthers, Peter. 2002. “Human Creativity: Its Cognitive Basis, Its Evolution, and Its Connections with Childhood Pretence.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53(2): 225–249. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjps/53.2.225
Caughey, John L. 1984. Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Clark, Cindy Dell. 1995. Flights of Fancy and Leaps of Faith: Children’s Myths In Contemporary America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Dennett, Daniel C. 1991. Consciousness Explained. Boston, MA: Black Bay Books.
Garrett, Michael, and Raul Silva. 2003. “Auditory Hallucinations, Source Monitoring, and the Belief that ‘Voices’ are Real.” Schizophrenia Bulletin 29(3): 445–457. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.schbul.a007018
Gazzaniga, Michael S. 2008. Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique. New York: Harper Perennial.
Giles, David C. 2002. “Parasocial Interaction: A Review of the Literature and a Model for Future Research.” Media Psychology 4(3): 279–305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S1532785XMEP0403_04
Gleason, Tracy R. 2002. “Social Provisions of Real and Imaginary Relationships in Early Childhood.” Developmental Psychology 38(6): 979–992. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.38.6.979
———. (forthcoming). “Imaginary Relationships.” In Oxford Handbook of the Development of Imagination, edited by Marjorie Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———, and Lisa M. Hohmann. 2006. “Concepts of Real and Imaginary Friendship in Childhood.” Social Development 15(1): 128–144.
Goldman, Alvin I. 2006. Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gopnik, Alison. 2009. The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Gopnik, Alison, Andrew N. Meltzoff, and Patricia K. Kuhl. 1999. The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind. New York: Harper Perennial.
Goswami, Usha, ed. 2004. Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development. Oxford: Blackwell.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1970. “On Systematically Distorted Communication.” Inquiry 13(3): 205–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00201747008601590
———. 2008. Between Naturalism and Religion. Translated by Ciaran Cronin. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Harding, Susan F. 2000. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Harris, Paul L. 2000. The Work of the Imagination. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
———, Elisabeth S. Pasquini, Suzanne Duke, Jessica J. Asscher, and Francisco Pons. 2006. “Germs and Angels: The Role of Testimony in Young Children’s Ontology.” Developmental Science 9(1): 76–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00465.x
——— and Melissa A. Koenig. 2006. “Trust in Testimony: How Children Learn about Science and Religion.” Child Development 77(3): 505–524. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00886.x
———, T. German, and P. Mills. 1996. “Children’s Use of Counterfactual Thinking in Causal Reasoning.” Cognition 61: 233–259. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(96)00715-9
Hewitt, Marsha Aileen. 2008. “Attachment Theory, Religious Beliefs, and the Limits of Reason.” Pastoral Psychology 57: 65–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11089-008-0136-z
Hood, Bruce M. 2009. Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable. New York: HarperOne.
Huizinga, Johan. 1955. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Iacoboni, Marco. 2008. Mirroring People: The Science of Empathy and How We Connect with Others. New York: Picador.
Johnson, Marcia K., S. Hashtroudi, and D. S. Lindsey. 1993. “Source Monitoring.” Psychological Bulletin 114: 3–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.114.1.3
———, and Carol L. Raye. 1981. “Reality Monitoring.” Psychological Review 88(1): 67–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.88.1.67
Kirkpatrick, Lee A., and Phillip R. Shaver. 1990. “Attachment Theory and Religion: childhood Attachments, Religious Beliefs, and Conversion.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 29(3): 315–334. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1386461
Klausen, Espen, and Richard H. Passman. 2007. “Pretend Companions (Imaginary Playmates): The Emergence of a Field.” The Journal of Genetic Psychology 167(4): 349–364. http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/GNTP.167.4.349-364
Lillard, Angeline S. 1993. “Pretend Play Skills and the Child’s Theory of Mind.” Child Development 64: 348–371. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1131255
———. 2004. “Pretend Play and Cognitive Development.” In Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development, edited by Usha Goswami. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lincoln, Bruce. 1999. “Theses on Method.” In The Insider/Outside Problem in the Study of Religion: a reader, edited by Russell T. McCutcheon. New York: Cassell.
Linn, Susan. 2008. The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World. New York: The New Press.
Luhrmann, Tanya M. 1989. Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 2004. “Metakinesis: How God Becomes Intimate in Contemporary U.S. Christianity.” American Anthropologist 106(3): 518–528. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2004.106.3.518
Meltzoff, Andrew N. 2004. “Imitation as a Mechanism of Social Cognition: Origins of Empathy, Theory of Mind, and the Representation of Action.” In Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development, edited by Usha Goswami, 6–25. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mills, Antonia. 2003. “Are Children with Imaginary Playmates and Children Said to Remember Previous Lives Cross-Culturally Comparable Categories?” Transcultural Psychiatry 40(1): 62–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1363461503040001005
Morison, Patricia, and Howard Gardner. 1978. “Dragons and Dinosaurs: The Child’s Capacity to Differentiate Fantasy from Reality.” Child Development 49: 642–648. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1128231
Nye, Malory. 2008. Religion: The Basics. New York: Routledge.
Oppenheimer, D. M. 2008. “The Secret Life of Fluency.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12: 237–241. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.02.014
Proskauer, S., E. T. Barsh, and L. B. Johnson. 1980. “Imaginary Companions and Spiritual Allies of Three Navajo Adolescents.” Journal of Psychological Anthropology 3: 153–174.
Rochat, Philippe. 2009. Others in Mind: Social Origins of Self-Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosengren, Karl S., Carl N. Johnson, and Paul L. Harris. 2000. Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511571381
Schjoedt, Uffe. 2009. “The Religious Brain: A General Introduction to the Experimental Neuroscience of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 21(3): 310–339. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006809X460347
———, Hans Stodkilde-Jorgensen, Armin W. Geertz, and Andreas Roepstorff. 2009. “Highly Religious Participants Recruit Areas of Social Cognition in Personal Prayer.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 4(2): 199–207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsn050
Seligman, Adam B., Robert P. Weller, Michael J. Puett, and Bennett Simon. 2008. Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336009.001.0001
Sharon, Tanya, and Jacqueline D. Woolley. 2004. “Do Monsters Dream? Young Children’s Understanding of the Fantasy/Reality Distinction.” British Journal of Developmental Psychology 22: 293–310. http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151004323044627
Singer, Dorothy G., and Jerome L. Singer. 1990. The House of Make-Believe: Play and the Developing Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Skolnick, Deena, and Paul Bloom. 2006. “What Does Batman Think about SpongeBob? Children’s Understanding of the Fantasy/Fantasy Distinction.” Cognition 101: B9–B18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.10.001
Stern, Daniel. 1985. The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View From Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books.
Taves, Ann. 2009. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Taylor, Charles. 2004. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Taylor, Marjorie. 1999. Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them. New York: Oxford University Press.
———, Sara D. Hodges, and Adèle Kohányi. 2002–2003. “The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?” Imagination, Cognition and Personality 22(4): 361–380. http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/FTG3-Q9T0-7-U26-5Q5X
———, and Candice M. Mottweiler. 2008. “Imaginary Companions: Pretending They Are Real but Knowing They Are Not.” American Journal of Play 1(1): 47–54.
Tomasello, Michael. 1999. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Turner, Mark. 1996. The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vaden, Victoria Cox, and Jacqueline D. Woolley. 2011. “Does God Make It Real? Belief in Religious Stories from the Judeo-Christian Tradition.” Child Development 82(4): 1120–1135. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01589.x
Watkins, Mary. 2000. Invisible Guests: The Development of Imaginal Dialogues. Putman: Spring Publications.
Whitehouse, Harvey. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Lanham: AltaMira Press.
