Why Children Love Their Security Blankets

 
A recent study examined Why Children Love Their Security Blankets. This is a subject most parents are familiar with and not just because of Linus. The photo on the left shows my daughter when she was much younger. She was trying to retrieve her pink blanket ("Cubby") after it had been washed and hung out to dry. The photo below is of my son showing off "Baba" after five years of continuous use—I think he still misses Baba. (There're probably going to kill me for posting these photos.)

The study asked whether children felt a special attachment to their favorite things ...

New research, published today in the international journal Cognition, suggests that this might be because children think the toy or blanket has a unique property or ‘essence’.

To support this theory, Professor Bruce Hood from the University of Bristol and his colleague Dr Paul Bloom of Yale University, USA, showed that 3-6 year-old children have a preference for their cherished items over apparently identical duplicates.

Children were introduced to a scientific looking machine that could copy any object but was in fact a conjurer’s cabinet where an accomplice inserted replica items from behind a screen.

Professor Hood said: “When offered the choice of originals and copies, children showed no preference for duplicates of their toys unless the object to be copied was the special one that they took to bed every night. A quarter of children refused to have their favourite object copied at all, and most of those who were persuaded to put their toy in the copying machine wanted the original back.”

Duh!

I have a favorite coffee mug, a favorite chair, a favorite shirt, a favorite pair of sunglasses, and a favorite blogger. I don't want no friggin' copies either and I wouldn't put any of those things in the copy machine. (Well, ... maybe I'd try putting PZ Myers in the copier, just to see what happens .... )

Security blankets and other things don't have any special "essence" that needs to be explained. Their unique property is their history. There's only one thing that was given to you by some special person and uniquely belongs to you. You can't copy that. Children aren't stupid. They know the difference between the original and some cheap copy.

This looks like the kind of study that discovered exactly what everyone expects but they have to hype the results in order to make it look exciting. Did anyone really think that my daughter or my son would have traded their very special blankets for a mere copy? How many of you have tried to con your kids when the security blanket got lost, as they invariably do? Didn't work, did it?

Don't anyone try and swap my coffee mug. If you break it, you die.