The authors propose an interesting answer to the important question of why people imagine. From our perspective as developmental psychologists, however, there are several aspects of their arguments that do not fit with what we know about how children imagine. The failure of the authors to consider the ways that children engage in and understand imagination makes us question the generalizability of their arguments. To illustrate this concern, here we will focus whether children are more attracted to imaginary worlds than realistic ones.

Based on their arguments linking imagination to exploration, the authors predict that children will be especially attracted to fantastical fiction. As a primary piece of evidence, they note that many fictions aimed at children are fantastical (see target article, sect. 5.2, but also Harry Potter, The Little Prince, and The Adventures of Pinocchio, just to name several of the bestselling children's books of all time). This argument, however, ignores the fact that these fictional worlds were created by adults and presented to children by adults. These stories thus potentially reflect adults’ assumptions about children's preferences, rather than necessarily capturing children's preferences.

Indeed, there is much evidence to suggest that children may be more reality-prone than fantasy-prone. For example, Weisberg, Sobel, Goodstein, and Bloom (Reference Weisberg, Sobel, Goodstein and Bloom2013) showed preschool-aged children a story that either had only realistic elements or that included fantastical elements (e.g., a character walked to the store or teleported to the store). At various points in the story, children were asked to choose which of two events should come next: a realistic one or a fantastical one. Regardless of which story they had heard, children were more likely to choose the realistic event. Similarly, Sobel and Weisberg (Reference Sobel and Weisberg2014) asked preschool-aged children to create their own stories by choosing between pairs of events, one of which was realistic (e.g., a character walked through a door) and the other of which was fantastical (e.g., a character walked through a wall). While 3-year-olds responded randomly in their story construction, older children were coherent in the fictional worlds they created: 80% of the 4-year-olds in this sample constructed stories that were made up of mostly (or exclusively) realistic events.

Other studies have found that, when preschoolers are asked to choose which stories or which events they prefer, they tend to choose more realistic than fantastical stories or events (Barnes, Bernstein, & Bloom, Reference Barnes, Bernstein and Bloom2015; Weisberg et al., Reference Weisberg, Sobel, Goodstein and Bloom2013). Children also report that they prefer engaging in real activities rather than in pretend activities (Taggart, Heise, & Lillard, Reference Taggart, Heise and Lillard2017; Taggart, Becker, Reuen, Al Kallas, & Lilliard, Reference Taggart, Becker, Rauen, Al Kallas and Lillard2020). This work generally challenges the authors’ claims that children are attracted to fictions with imaginary worlds, weakening their argument about the importance of exploration in the preference for such fictions.

Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, the argument that people (especially children) prefer to explore fictions with imaginary worlds is in direct conflict with empirical work on other cognitive capacities that rely on imagination. There is a large body of evidence demonstrating that there are important links between imagination and the ability to reason counterfactually and hypothetically (e.g., Buchsbaum, Bridgers, Weisberg, & Gopnik, Reference Buchsbaum, Bridgers, Weisberg and Gopnik2012; Gopnik & Walker, Reference Gopnik and Walker2013; Nyhout & Ganea, Reference Nyhout and Ganea2019; Schacter, Reference Schacter2012; Weisberg & Gopnik, Reference Weisberg and Gopnik2013). This work posits that part of the utility of our imaginative abilities is that they allow us to make sense of reality. Imagination does allow us to explore fantastical fictional worlds, as the authors argue, but imagination also allows us to regret, to imagine alternatives to past events, and to consider different hypotheses for how the world might work. Because of this, many – perhaps even a majority – of our imaginative activities involve mundane situations, as we consider what we should have done in a past situation or rehearse what we might do in the future.

In order to engage in such reasoning, both adults and children must appropriately constrain the worlds that they imagine so that these possible worlds reflect how reality could work (e.g., Seelau, Seelau, Wells, & Windschitl, Reference Seelau, Seelau, Wells, Windschitl, Roese and Olson1995; see also Weisberg, Reference Weisberg, Levy and Godfrey-Smith2020). The kind of overriding preference for exploring imaginative worlds that the authors argue for would undermine these crucial functions. The authors do not consider these vital aspects of how the imagination works, making some of their arguments less credible.

In general, we encourage the authors to integrate their arguments more with the developmental literature, to ensure that their claims about the role of exploration in imagination align with what we know about how children imagine. In doing so, perhaps a middle ground can be found in work on fantasy orientation, which measures individual children's level of attraction to imaginative scenarios in media or in their play (e.g., Bunce & Woolley, Reference Bunce and Woolley2021; Pierucci, O'Brien, McInnis, Gilpin, & Barber, Reference Pierucci, O'Brien, McInnis, Gilpin and Barber2013; Thibodeau, Gilpin, Brown, & Meyer, Reference Thibodeau, Gilpin, Brown and Meyer2016). For example, work on children's creation of imaginary companions or paracosms finds that a stable minority of children (about 20%) tend to do so (Taylor, Reference Taylor1999; Taylor, Mottweiler, Aguiar, Naylor, & Levernier, Reference Taylor, Mottweiler, Aguiar, Naylor and Levernier2020). Similarly, in the study on story construction described above (Sobel & Weisberg, Reference Sobel and Weisberg2014), while 80% of the 4-year-olds created their stories out of realistic events, the other 20% chose mostly fantastical events. That is, some children – but certainly not all – might be highly engaged by fantastical fiction. Considering why these individual differences occur and how they relate to children's other capacities and preferences could be a fruitful way for the authors to begin to incorporate more of a developmental perspective into their theory.