While not always faithful to the professional field of developmental psychology, Howard Gardner treasures the concept of development – which was introduced to him through the writings of Heinz Werner, and was embodied by his first teachers, Jerome Bruner, Erik Erikson, and Jean Piaget. As soon as he joined Project Zero, a research group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Gardner proposed that “participation in the arts” is a viable end-state for a developmental perspective; with Ellen Winner and other colleagues, he sought to lay out a “developmental psychology of the arts.” Drawing on various disciplines, Gardner then introduced the concept for which he is best known –multiple intelligences.  Ironically, “multiple intelligences” does not describe his own mind particularly well. Like most scholars and writers, he traffics in linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences.  Instead, his approach is better described as an effort to synthesize bodies of information in a way that is illuminating and that raises new questions, that he and his colleagues can ponder and pursue.

The invention of imaginary worlds may be understood as a powerful tool for exploring experience, discovering the self, and creating knowledge and meaning. An imagined world is an earth or universe or a system of make-believe ideas and things that may be contemplated in the mind, though it remains veritably unexperienced. In childhood, worldplay (paracosm play) refers to imaginative pretense that is persistent, cumulative, and constructive (maps, stories, drawings, and more may be generated). In adulthood, worldplay refers to the world-building narratives of writers and artists; to the plausible reconstructions, scenarios, and probable worlds of social scientists; and to the theoretical suppositions and possible worlds of scientists. As such, worldplay presents a unique opportunity to probe what-if cognition. Indeed, as the history of its study indicates, world invention as play and as creative strategy tells us much about development of imaginative thinking and the growth of creative competence across the lifespan.