What storytelling tells us about fantasy: parent-child stories about emotionally-charged real and fantastic events

ABSTRACT

This study examined parent-child storytelling for insights into children’s fantastical thinking. We targeted differences in storytelling based on story genre (fictional-reality and fictional-fantasy) emotion, and storyteller, and how dyads treated fantasy within the stories. 49 3- to 5-year-olds and their parents told stories based on images that depicted either human or anthropomorphic animal protagonists who expressed happiness, fear, or sadness. Results reveal that variations in storytelling varied mainly by emotion and storyteller and less by story genre, and that fantastic information was treated somewhat conservatively. Findings point to storytelling as a context in which focus is placed on reality more than fantasy.

KEYWORDS:

• Discrete emotions
• fantasy-reality distinction
• parent–child narrative
• storytelling

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Terri Patchen and Kate Bono for their feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript. This work was supported by a California State University Fullerton Intramural Grant.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a California State University Fullerton Intramural Grant.

Notes on contributors

Nathalie Carrick

Nathalie Carrick, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Studies at California State University Fullerton. Her research interests include the role of contextual factors on children’s imagination and understanding of fantasy.

Rebecca Richmond

Rebecca Richmond is a graduate student in the School Psychology programme at California State University, Long Beach. Her interests focus on promoting inclusive environments for children in educational settings.