Two distinct models of the predicted relationship between children's TV watching and fantasy life are derived from the literature in this area. The first model predicts a negative correlation between heavy TV viewing and the process of fantasizing, particularly for imaginative enjoyable fantasy. The second model predicts a positive correlation between TV viewing and dysphoric, hostile, ruminative fantasies. Theoretically, both models could apply at once. A study of eighty-two first graders' TV awareness and fantasy styles offered support only for the second model. Television viewing by children as young as six may serve, it is suggested, to drown out and distract them from unpleasant fantasy imagery, but may be unrelated to their production of pleasant, imaginative fantasy.
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