Childhood Imaginary Partner Relationship With The College Students' Creative Personality Research

Children have invisible friends, we can see this interesting phenomenon in some movies. Look around our daily life, we can also find similar scenarios, such as children talk to the air when they are playing alone, or children treat toys as they have character or even can think. Psychologists named this special kind of friend as "Imaginary Companions", including two different forms, the "personified object partners" and the "invisible partners"Imaginary companions are created in imagine, not only children but also adults may have this creative activity. Do individuals who have imaginary companions may have some different characteristics with other people? To be clearly, do they have the personality about imagination and creativity, named "creative personality"? This study made an investigation of contemporary college students, try to describe the distribution and features of imaginary companions in their childhood, and find the relation of imaginary companions and creativity personality.This study uses a questionnaire survey, designs the Imaginary Companions Questionnaire, uses the Creativity Assessment Packet, CAP, which designed by F.E.Williams, and the Fantasy Scale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index-C,IRI-C, which designed by Davis. The study selects5301-4grade college students from Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing Forestry University, and Nanjing Art Department.448valid questionnaires are recovered.This study finds:(1) A certain proportion of college students had imaginary companions in their childhood, and some of then keep their imaginary companions until adulthood.(2) More girls have imaginary companions-than boys, and girls’ imaginary companions tend to be the "personified object partners", while boys’tend to be the "invisible partners".(3) Art major students are more inclined to have imaginary companions than other students.(4) There is a close relation between imaginary companions and creativity personality.(5) Imaginary companions in childhood have positive prediction influence on creativity and fantasy.(6) The more specific of the imaginary companions, the more obvious of the creativity personality characteristics.