Word: taylorism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...winger replaced freshman Mike Taylor, who had skated 15 games on Harvard’s top line before sitting last night...
Children who play with imaginary companions may have an edge over their peers. They tend to have better verbal skills and are better at understanding other points of view, according to Taylor and Carlson. Earlier studies suggested that children with imaginary friends may have above-average IQs, be more creative and smile and laugh more on the playground than other kids. "Children with pretend friends are actually less shy and more sociable than children without them," says Taylor. "It's almost the opposite of what you might think...
...should parents go to accommodate the demands of pretend friends? Taylor recalls one child who forced her family to wait at restaurants for a table big enough to fit her nonexistent companions. Another little girl's imaginary friend was so ill the child wouldn't leave her unsupervised at home. Taylor's advice is to try to find solutions within the boundaries of a child's fantasy. To handle the sick friend, for example, the parents created another imaginary friend specifically to be a caretaker...
...interplay of real and imaginary doesn't have to stop at the end of childhood. In her newest research, Taylor is interviewing fiction writers and finding that they interact with their characters in some ways that parallel children's make-believe play. Authors often report that their characters seem to have autonomous lives, dictating their own dialogue, controlling the plot of stories and sometimes refusing to do what the authors ask of them. Some writers maintain personal relationships with characters outside their fictions. Novelist Alice Walker says she lived with her characters for a year while writing The Color Purple...
...course, adults have a tendency to overthink these things. Taylor says that during interviews in her lab, as researchers peppered the kids with questions and scribbled down notes, some of the children grew concerned that the researchers were getting confused. One of the kids leaned over and reminded her interviewer, "It's just pretend, you know...