Egocentrism in Adolescence article review
David Elkind, the author of the article Egocentrism in Adolescence bases his paper on the previous work of Piaget. He expounds on the outlined different forms of egocentrism and elaborates the cognitive growth in the primary stages. The Piagetian theory states that egocentrism is the lack of comprehensive differentiation within some kind of interaction by regarding oneself more than the others around. He says that the same mental structures transform a kid from one form of egocentrism to the other through dialect. In children aged 0 to 2 years, they have Sensori-motor Egocentrism. Here, children perceive that the presence of an object depends upon their existence. This, however, develops when the infant is about to turn one year, and he can’t find the object, so he finds it. From 2 to 6 years, children experience Pre-operational Egocentrism. During this age bracket, children rapidly develop, and they learn how to acquire and utilize language. According to Piaget, newly acquired egocentrism gives the capacity for representation in the form of symbols, but they can’t differentiate between words and their referents. At this stage, their egocentrism is in language and what they perceive; they believe it holds too much information about the object. Towards the end of this age, concrete operations start replacing the pre-operational form of egocentrism. This is the age of 7 to 11 years. Children start mastering classes and developing hypotheses from their thoughts, and they cannot be challenged. The evolution from here leads to the adolescence egocentrism. At this stage, the young person can create possibilities and accept contradictions since they can conceptualize their thoughts and of others. However, they cannot differentiate the objects that direct their thoughts and those of others. That is why they tend to be so rebellious. They formulate the imagination of having an audience at all times. As a result, they perceive themselves as the center of attraction, and every other person around them thinks of them just as much as they think of themselves. This type of egocentrism is self-absorbing such that adolescents seek for privacy even when no one pays attention to them. This form is so engulfing because they don’t understand why older people tell them to do something contrary to what they feel, for example, clothing styles. However, this fades when formal operational though first appears. This happens at around 15 or 16 years of age, and once it manifests, no more mental structures develop. At this point, the young person recognizes the concerns of others. This change happens through gradual preoccupations and thought differentiation or progressive feelings integration. This paper by Elkind helped expound more about the forms of egocentrism, thus made a contribution to the world of science in child development.