Egocentrism - Piaget essay PDF

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Egocentrism is the inability to distinguish between self and someone else. More precisely, it is the inability to untangle emotional schemes from objective fact and the inability to believe or consider any other viewpoint but one's own accurately. Although egocentric behaviors are less prominent in adulthood, the existence of some forms of egocentrism in adulthood indicates that overcoming egocentrism may be a lifelong development that never achieves completion. Adults appear to be less egocentric than children because they are faster to correct from an initially egocentric perspective than children, not because they are less likely to initially adopt an egocentric perspective. Therefore, egocentrism is found across the life span: in infancy, early childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

It contributes to the human cognitive development by helping children develop theory of mind and self-identity formation. Although egocentrism and narcissism appear similar, they are not the same. A

person who is egocentric believes they are the center of attention, like a narcissist, but does not receive gratification by one's own admiration. Both egotists and narcissists are people whose egos are greatly influenced by the approval of others, while for egocentrists this may or may not be true. During infancy The main concept infants and young children learn by beginning to show egocentrism is the fact that their thoughts, values, and behaviors are different from those of others, also known as the theory of mind. Initially when children begin to have social interactions with others, mainly the caregivers, they misinterpret that they are one entity, because they are together for a long duration of time and the caregivers often provide for the children's needs.

For example, a child may misattribute the act of their mother reaching to retrieve an object that they point to as a sign that they are the same entity, when in fact they are actually separate individuals. As early as 15 months old, In children's social development, the infancy is the period where the individual performs very few social functions due to the conscious and subconscious concern with the fulfillment of physical needs. During childhood According to George Butterworth and Margaret Harris, during childhood, one is usually unable to distinguish between what is subjective and objective. According to Piaget, "an egocentric child assumes that other people see, hear, and feel exactly the same as the child does." Jean Piaget developed a theory about the development of human intelligence, describing the stages of cognitive development.

He claimed that early childhood is the time of pre-operational thought, characterized by children's inability to process logical thought. According to Piaget, one of the main obstacles to logic that children possess includes centration, "the tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of others." A particular type of centration is egocentrism – literally, "self-centeredness." Piaget claimed that young children are egocentric, capable of contemplating the world only from their personal perspective. For example, a threeyear-old presented his mother a model truck as her birthday present; "he had carefully wrapped the present and gave it to his mother with an expression that clearly showed he expected her to love it."

The three-year-old boy had not chosen the present out of selfishness or greediness, but he simply failed to realize that, from his mother's perspective, she might not enjoy the model car as much as he would. Piaget was concerned with two aspects of egocentricity in children: language and morality. He believed that egocentric children use language primarily for communication with oneself. Piaget observed that children would talk to themselves during play, and this egocentric speech was merely the child's thoughts. He believed that

this speech had no special function; it was used as a way of accompanying and reinforcing the child's current activity. He theorized that as the child matures cognitively and socially the amount of egocentric speech used would be reduced. It is thought that Piaget overestimated the extent of egocentrism in children. Egocentrism is thus the child's inability to see other people's viewpoints, not to be confused with selfishness. The child at this stage of cognitive development assumes that their view of the world is the same as other people's. In addition, a more well-known experiment by Wimmer and Perner called the false-belief task demonstrates how children show their acquisition of theory of mind as early as 4 years old. David Elkind was one of the first to discover the presence of egocentrism in adolescence and late adolescence.

He argues, "the young adolescent, because of the physiological metamorphosis he is undergoing, is primarily concerned with himself. Accordingly, since he fails to differentiate between what others are thinking about and his own mental preoccupations, he assumes that other people are obsessed with his behavior and appearance as he is himself." This shows that the adolescent is exhibiting egocentrism, by struggling to distinguish whether or not, in actuality, others are as fond of them as they might think because their own thoughts are so prevalent. Adolescents consider themselves as "unique, special, and much more socially significant than they actually are." In the invincibility fable, the adolescent believes in the idea that he or she is immune to misfortune and cannot be harmed by things that might defeat a normal person.

Development of the adolescent's identity may lead to the individual experiencing high levels of uniqueness which subsequently becomes egocentric – this manifests as the personal fable. Parental rejection may lead to the adolescents experiencing high levels of selfconsciousness, which can lead to egocentrism. Gender differences have been found in the way egocentrism manifests. Transient Self, as

defined by Elkind and Bowen in 1979, refers to impermanent image of self that is mainly relative to one-time behaviors and temporary appearance, and, adolescent females have a higher tendency to consider themselves to be different from others, and tend to be more self-conscious in situations that involve momentary embarrassments, than their male peers. Another study conducted by Goossens and Beyers using similar measuring instruments found that boys have stronger beliefs that they are unique, invulnerable and sometimes omnipotent, which are typical characteristics of personal fable. This again exemplifies the idea that egocentrism is present in even late adolescence. Results from other studies have come to the conclusion that egocentrism does not present itself in some of the same patterns as it was found originally.

More recent studies have found that egocentrism is prevalent in later years of development unlike Piaget's original findings that suggested that egocentrism is only present in early childhood development. Egocentrism is especially dominant in early adolescence, particularly when adolescents encounter new environments, such as a new school or a new peer group. and higher self-identity achievement was found to be correlated with heightened egocentrism. During adulthood The prevalence of egocentrism in the individual has been found to decrease between the ages of 15 and 16. However, adults are also susceptible to be egocentric or to have reactions or behaviours that can be categorized as egocentric....