Egocentrism
[citation needed] A person who is egocentric believes they are the center of attention but does not necessarily find gratification in others' admiration.
[citation needed] When infants and young children begin to show egocentrism they learn that their thoughts, values, and behaviors are different from those of others, also known as the theory of mind.
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.
[13] 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".
[15] 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.
He put children in front of a simple plaster mountain range and then asked them to pick from four pictures the view that he, Piaget, would see.
In addition, a more well-known experiment by Wimmer and Perner (1983) called the false-belief task demonstrates how children show their acquisition of theory of mind (ToM) as early as 4 years old.
The results show that children younger than 4 answer that the character would look inside the box, because they have the superior knowledge of where the marble actually is.
It shows egocentric thinking in early childhood because they thought that even if the character itself did not see the entire scenario, it has the same amount of knowledge as oneself and therefore should look inside the box to find the marble.
As children start to acquire ToM, their ability to recognize and process others' beliefs and values overrides the natural tendency to be egocentric.
Although most of the research completed on the study of egocentrism is primarily focused on early childhood, it has been found to also occur during adolescence.
[14] Egocentrism in adolescence is often viewed as a negative aspect of their mental state because they become consumed with themselves and function more poorly in society due to their skewed version of reality and cynicism.
Transient Self, as defined by Elkind and Bowen in 1979, refers to an impermanent image of self that is mainly relative to one-time behaviors and temporary appearance.
[25] Adolescent females have a greater tendency to view themselves as different from others and tend to be more self-conscious in situations that involve momentary embarrassments (e.g. going to a party with a bad haircut), than their male peers.
[26] Another study conducted by Goossens and Beyers (1992) 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.
[33] They tested adults between the ages of 18 and 25 and found that the participants who suffered from depression showed higher levels of egocentrism than those who did not.
