Make believe, also known as pretend play or imaginative play, is a loosely structured form of play that generally includes role-play, object substitution and nonliteral behavior. What separates play from other daily activities is its fun and creative aspect rather than being an action performed for the sake of survival or necessity. Children engage in make believe for a number of reasons. It provides the child with a safe setting to express fears and desires. When children participate in pretend play, they are integrating and strengthening previously acquired knowledge. Children who have better pretense and fantasy abilities also show better social competence, cognitive capabilities, and an ability to take the perspective of others. In order for the activity to be referred to as pretend play, the individual must be intentionally diverting from reality. The individual must be aware of the contrast between the real situation and the make believe situation. If the child believes that the make believe situation is reality, then they are misinterpreting the situation rather than pretending. Pretend may or may not include action, depending on whether the child chooses to project their imagination onto reality or not.

The interest in pretend play advanced through three significant stages, though it has likely existed since the dawn of humanity, as children tend to do this naturally on their own, without coercion, or needing a term to describe what they are doing. The initial stage was during the 1920s and 1930s when research in play had gained popularity. During this time, there were little or no empirical findings specifically about pretend play. A revival of interest starting in the late 1940s signified the second stage. The new mission was to find how pretend play related to the developing personality of a child. A common hypothesis during this period was that pretend behavior projected a child's inner feelings and reflected their experiences in their everyday lives. The most recent stage, which persists until today, began in the 1970s. Research in this stage is greatly influenced by Jean Piaget's studies and theories, either in terms of finding evidence to support it or to falsify it. Despite the cultural jargon on the issue, the history of playing make believe may indeed have originated at the dawn on consciousness, itself.^{[citation needed]}

The act of pretending is believed to be inbuilt because it occurs universally and begins promptly between the ages of 18 and 24 months (Lillard, Pinkham & Smith, 2011) . The prevalence and frequency of pretense increases between 1 and a half to 2+1⁄2 years of age. The first stage of pretense generally starts with object substitution. By 3 years, a child can easily distinguish between real life events and pretense. Children within 3 to 6 years, who have acclimated to pretend play, show an increase in interactive pretend play. This means that they participate in self-other relations, giving the doll a more active role (e.g., driving a car) instead of a passive recipient role (e.g., being fed). At the age of three, children's pretense remains close to their real life experiences. A three-year-old girl may pretend that she and her mother are going grocery shopping. In this case, both her role in the relationship and the activity she is taking part in are literal. There is then an increase in the mastery of role play within the ages of 4 and 5 years. During the fifth year, the child shows ability to incorporate forms of relationships into their play. They are no longer limited to the role of child, instead, they can be a parent or a spouse, or expand further by adopting the role of members in society such as policemen, doctors and so forth.

When children participate in social role enactment, or role-play, they are portraying the identity or certain traits of another individual. This includes representing both external and internal qualities. When a child role-plays alongside one or more other individuals, they are engaging in an activity called sociodramatic play. Sociodramatic play emerges at around three years, and sometimes earlier for children who have older siblings. During its early stage, it follows a very strict script, sticks closely to existing roles and includes more parallel play than interactive play. By the age of 5, children begin to deviate from the strict roles and scripts. They start to integrate more imagination into their roles and build off of their partner's creations.

Role play exists in three forms. Relational role-play, usually the first to emerge, is based on relationships that the child observes or experiences. Such relationships include mother and child, father and child, husband and wife, etc. Functional role-play emphasizes on the jobs and actions that the character usually performs. Character role play portrays the character's stereotypical features usually determined by society's representation of them.

Pretend play allows for children in low socio-economic backgrounds not to miss out on important developmental milestones, as all a child needs to pretend is their own imagination. Skills that would otherwise require being fostered by educational toys may be developed through pretend play since it is not limited by the child's financial background.

Complex forms of role-play involve the ability of the child to represent another individual's mental representation. This skill appears when a child is around 5 years of age. This strengthens the child's social ability by allowing him/her to take another individual's perspective and can therefore understand and cooperate with others.

Five recurring behaviors in pretend play that indicate its nonliteral aspect will be explained. The first behavior is the tendency of performing a task without the presence of a necessary instrument, such as pretending to make a call without using an actual phone. The second behavior is substitution, in that the child might use a block rather than a telephone to make a phone call. The third behavior, discussed in the section above, is when a child takes the role of another individual and performs their usual actions, such as pretending to be a firefighter and extinguishing a fire. The fourth behavior is when a certain action results in an unrealistic outcome, such as a child pretending to clean the room by simply snapping a finger. The fifth behavior will be discussed in depth in the following section and it involves giving an inanimate object, such as a doll, animate qualities, such as talking and drinking tea.