Santa impersonators do not stop children believing Father Christmas is real

Young children can spot an imposter Santa, realising it is someone dressed up, and will still believe there is a real Father Christmas, according to a new study.

The research carried out by Winchester University and Harvard University involved 60 three- to five-year-old children being shown paired photographs of fictional characters (such as Bob the Builder) and people dressing up as those characters (a person wearing a Bob the Builder costume. They were asked whether each depicted character lives in ‘the real world’ and whether each character is ‘the real’ fictional character and why.

The results showed 75 per cent of the children could identify an impersonator. However, two-thirds of the three- to four-year-olds continued to think their fantasy heroes were real, without recognising the flaw in their beliefs. In contrast, only a third of the five-year-olds wrongly believed that fictional characters lived in the real world. Previous studies have shown improvement occurs at around the age of four years in children's ability to categorize a range of characters and events as real or fantastical.

Dr Louise Bunce, a senior lecturer at the University of Winchester, said: “Parents may worry that if their child sees lots of different people dressing up as Santa then this will erode their child's belief in him.

“However, my research suggests that young children are good at spotting when people are just dressed up as fictional characters, and this does not affect their belief that those characters are ‘real’.”

Dr Bunce, who is a chartered psychologist, added: “The scientific study of child development is vitally important for understanding how we think and learn. Psychology has revolutionised our ideas about how the human mind develops and this knowledge can be applied to improving all areas of children's lives.”

Dr Bunce previously found that children often ask ‘Is Father Christmas real?’, but mean ‘Is he the real one, or just someone dressing up as him?’ So despite having doubts about whether a particular version of him is genuine, they still believe in the real Father Christmas.

Dr Bunce and Professor Harris’ research paper, entitled ‘Is it real? The development of judgments about authenticity and ontological status’, has been published in the journal Cognitive Development.