Egocentrism as a Personality Peculiarity - Essay Example

Running head: Egocentrism in Young Children Customer inserts His/Her Name Customer inserts grade course Customer inserts Tutor’s Name 9th November 2011 Introduction Egocentrism is usually defined as a personality peculiarity that has the distinctive of regarding oneself and someone else opinion to be the most important. This paper is designed to explain how Egocentrism is witnessed in young children. Psychologists refer this condition as preoperational stage. They state that children usually react to every similar object as being identical (Lefrancois, 1995). Taking an example, if at some point a child sees a chocolate in a box, she assumes that another child who walks into that room also knows that there is a chocolate in that box. Usually, it does not mean that the child cannot put herself into someone else shoes but through the feelings it exhibits empathy among children to understand their needs and wants. Egocentric usually is apparent mainly in regard to the relationship between children at a preschool. By referring to a psychologist by the name Piaget he classifies egocentrism as the characteristic of preoperational stage. It is through this that we understand that in child development there are a few stages that are involved for example; the sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage and finally the formal operational stage. Egocentrism is characterized in the preoperational stage together with conservation (Myers, 2008). Discussion Psychological researchers illustrates that, majority of preoperational thinking’s are self centered or rather egocentric. By referencing Piaget suggestions, he specifies that a preoperational stage usually occurs at the ages of 2-6. During this period language development is the essential hallmark of the period. At the stage children normally are not able to mentally manipulate ideas, understand any concrete logic nor do they have the attitude of taking the point from other people thus all this becomes points of egocentrism. On the other hand psychologists explain that, children at the ages of 4 -7 they undergo a period called the intuitive stage. This stage is usually characterized by perception, egocentric and intuitive thoughts which are thus prone to several errors of classifications (Lefrancois, 1995). In an instance Piaget a psychologist used a number of clever and creative techniques to study the mental abilities of young children. The major technique that egocentrism involved was the use of a three dimension display of certain Mountain View. The children were thus asked to choose a certain picture which showed the kind of scene they had seen. However, it was discovered that most of the children who were chosen were able to show the scene with little defectives. The next thing the children were asked was to show what the other child would have observed while looking at the mountain from a different selected viewpoint. It was discovered that children in this case, chose their own view in the sense that they experience the difficulty since they did not know how to take on another person’s perspectives (Asmolov & Pasternak, 2006). Piaget further illustrates that egocentrism of the young children usually leads them to believing that how another person thinks is the same as they think and how they do. However, he states that no matter what they think and do the universe adores and shares their desires and their feelings. He further stresses that because of oneness hat people have towards the children, this creates child’s assumption of magic influence whereby the world was not only created for them to work under it but for them to control it. This aspect thus makes the child to believe that the nature is usually alive and that it is controllable. This thus is a concept of egocentrism referred to as animalism which is usually the most characteristic of the thought of egocentric (Elkind, 1967). In order to understand egocentrism in children it is important to refer to the Concrete Operational Stage. This stage is where the child start to reason in a logical manner and thus try t o organize his/her thoughts I a coherent manner. However at this stage the child usually starts by thinking of the actual physical things and objects though there is experienced difficulty in handling abstract reasoning capabilities. Normally the stage is characterized by the loss of egocentric thinking capabilities. It is understood that at this particular stage the child is able to master several types of conservative experiments thus beginning to comprehend reversibility. Usually, conversion is defined to be the aspect of realizing that the quantity or amount does not really change when there is no significant value has been added or has been taken off from the object or from a collection of given objects despite its change in spatial arrangements or in form. From the point of view the concrete operational stage usually is characterized by the aspects that, children abilities to further coordinate any given two dimensions of an object in a simultaneous manner, transpose the differences between the items in series nor arrange attached structured in a sequential manner (Elkind, 1967). Since cognitive development starts from the ages of 2-6 psychologists and preschoolers suggests for a remarkable example of the way children play a very active role within their own cognitive progress especially with the attempt of understanding, organizing, manipulating, predicting and construction. Very young children thus see the patterns shown in objects and the events of the world and further attempt to try and organize these patterns in order they can explain the world. In addition, psychologists further posse’s cognitive limitations in the sense that by discussing young children they have several troubles while trying to control their own attentions and the memory functions thus confusing superficial appearances that come with realities and further focuses on the single aspects of experiences at a single time. Piaget in his case refers cognitive development that occurs from the ages 2 and the ages of 7 as preoperational stage. In his argument he says that children usually have the tendency of increasing their use of languages and many other symbols, they also try to imitate the adults behaviors and also lay constantly. Also, he expresses that the children are involved in games activities and thus make believe for instance they construct a small box to imitate a car, they play family with the siblings and try to nurture imagery friends (Lefrancois, 1995). Alternatively Piaget describes the preoperational stage as the stage in which the children are unable to do. In his case he believes that the preschooler’s cognitive abilities are usually limited by the aspect of egocentrism. He refers it as being the inability where the child is unable to distinguish between their own points of view and that from others. He states that the point of the child to be egocentric is thus apparent at all the stages of development while egocentricity is less evident at preschool years. However, younger children thus overcome egocentric stage after they understand that other posses differing feelings, desires and have different views. Children also involve in interpretation of other children in the sense that they use interpreted information to further communicate in a mutual manner that is effective with the other children. On this note, the preschoolers on the other hand learns by adjusting their vocal tones, pitches and speeds through matching that from the listeners. However, since mutual communication usually requires endeavors while preschoolers are very egocentric, the children on the other hand lapses at egocentric speeches when frustrations comes their way (Carlos & Buskist, 1997). By considering egocentrism in the puberty, adolescence children psychologists and researchers suggests that though egocentrism is usually focused on the early childhood it also touches on adolescent children from ages 8 – 13 though as the child grows they go to the stage of development and the body thus is opened to major physical and mental changes. A psychologist researcher by the name David Elkind discovered that egocentrism in adolescence and also in late adolescence was very popular (Elkind, 1967). This aspect thus showed that adolescence exhibited egocentrism since it clearly illustrates and identifies another child’s perspective. More so in his study, Elkind thus tried to help adolescence population to understand egocentrism behavior that is exhibited upon them. He came up with certain reasons that comprised personal fable and imaginary audience. In this case, he termed imaginary audience being the idea that majority of the adolescence usually believes that at certain points there exists some audience who constantly interested in whatever an individual has to face or do (Lefrancois, 1995). The other thing was personal fable in this regard he refer this aspect as being the idea that several teenagers usually believe that they are only the people who are at some point capable of feeling whatever things they do. In this perspective it is clearly understood that egocentrism within the adolescence population is often as being negative aspect of their thinking capabilities since the adolescence persons become exploited and also consumed within them and thus they are inevitable and are un able to efficiently and effectively to function properly within the society because of their negative skewed version of realism in the community (Asmolov & Pasternak, 2006). Conclusion In conclusion, Piaget indicates that the younger children have not yet started to master classifications which involve the act of grouping features. He continues to state that the children have not also mastered the act of serial ordering which involves the ability of grouping in accordance to logical progressions. He states that, egocentrism can be inherent in most young children if the abilities they posses are not fully realized. Piaget also illustrates that young children have less knowledge of comprehending conservation or understand the concept in the case that physical properties usually remains to be constant eve when they appear and change the form. It is understood that young children posses troubles of understanding that if some amount of liquid is poured down into different containers containing different shapes usually remains the same. Also, a preoperational child have difficulties of differentiating between a handfuls of pennies with that of a 5 dollar bill, they will always chose the pennies (Martin, Carlson and Buskist, 2007). Finally, the current research conducted by psychologists states that childhood egocentrism can be related with the frame of references of others. The children of the ages of 2 -3 are thus shown ways of modifying their own speeches so that they can communicate in a much clear manner to the other children (Vartanian LR (2000). This applies that the younger children thus develops towards social cognition or move towards the understanding of their own social world even though they have not yet matured enough to understand their theory of mind. References Asmolov, A. G., & Pasternak, N. A., 2006, Cognitive egocentricity as a mechanism of social behavior: Voprosy Psychologii No 2 2006, 98-103. Carlos & Buskist, 1997, A Child’s World: Infancy through Adolescence. McGraw Hill Inc. Elkind, D., 1967. Egocentrism in adolescence: Child Dev 38 (4): 1025–34. Lefrancois, R. 1995, Cognitive Egocentrism: New York: Worth Martin,G.N.,Carlson,N.R and Buskist,W. 2007, Psychology: Third Edition. Pearson ISBN 0-23- 71086-9 Myers, David G. 2008. Psychology: New York: Worth Rycek RF, Stuhr SL, McDermott J, Benker J, Swartz MD 1998. Adolescent egocentrism and cognitive functioning during late adolescence: Adolescence 33 (132): 745–9. Vartanian LR 2000, Revisiting the imaginary audience and personal fable constructs of adolescent egocentrism: a conceptual review: Adolescence 35 (140): 639–61. Read More