Professor to study whether St Nick myth causes ‘psychological harm’

The shock at finding out as a child that Father Christmas is not real is to be the subject of an academic study by a psychologist.

Professor Chris Boyle, from the University of Exeter, is to explore whether discovering the myth of Saint Nick can cause psychological harm and lead to a backlash against parents, long-term resentment or betrayal of trust.

The survey of people’s experiences of Santa in countries around the world is designed to find out at what age, on average, children learn the truth about Father Christmas and whether this differs 0 The study will look at issues of trust around the Santa story according to their location.

It will also measure whether the disclosure ruined the magic of Christmas and will ask children if they just played along after finding out.

Prof Boyle will look at whether children reacted angrily to the revelation and how they found out Santa was not real.

The study follows an essay by Prof Boyle last year that explored whether telling a white lie about Father Christmas was good for children, especially as the falsehood was bound to be revealed.

“When I wrote the essay, I was overwhelmed by people emailing me to say that they had been affected by finding out about Santa,” Prof Boyle said.

“It seemed to be more about the issue of trust rather than about Santa not being real.”