# Egocentrism



## alohomora (Apr 5, 2009)

I found some similarities between symptoms of social anxiety and the symptoms of adolescent egocentrism. Here are some excerpts from "Egocentrism in Adolescence" by David Elkind:

"Egocentrism generally refers to a lack of differentiation...[between what occupies your thoughts and what occupies other people's thoughts]...

[Egocentrism of adolescents emerge] because, while the adolescent can now cognize the thoughts of others, he *fails to differentiate* between the objects toward which the thoughts of others are directed and those which are the focus of his own concern. Now, it is well known that 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 as obsessed with his behavior and appearance as he is himself...

One consequence...is that, in actual or impending social situations, the young person anticipates the reactions of other people to himself. These anticipations, however, are based on the premise that others are as admiring or as critical of him as he is of himself. In a sense, then, the adolescent is continually constructing, or reacting to, an *imaginary audience*. It is an audience because the adolescent believes that he will be the focus of attention; and it is imaginary because, in actual social situations, this is not usually the case (unless he contrives to make it so)...

The imaginary audience...probably *plays a role in the self-consciousness* which is so characteristic of early adolescence. When the young person is feeling critical of himself, he anticipates that the audience- of which he is necessarily a part- will be critical too. And, since *the audience is his own construction* and privy to his own knowledge of himself, *it knows just what to look for in the way of cosmetic and behavioral sensitivities*. The adolescent's wish for privacy and his reluctance to reveal himself may, to some extent, be a reaction to the feeling of being under the constant critical scrutiny of other people. The notion of an imaginary audience also helps to explain the observation that the affect which most concerns adolescents is not guilt but, rather, shame, that is, the reaction to an audience...

...Each [adolescent] is more concerned with being the *observed than with being the observer*. Gatherings of young adolescents are unique in the sense that each young person is simultaneously an actor to himself and an audience to others...

Perhaps because he [the adolescent] believes he is of importance to so many people, the imaginary audience, he comes to regard himself, and particularly his feelings, as something *special and unique*. Only he can suffer with such agonized intensity, or experience such exquisite rapture...

[The passing of adolescent egocentrism occurs when] the imaginary audience, which is primarily an anticipatory audience, is progressively modified in the direction of the reactions of the real audience. In a way, the imaginary audience can be regarded as...a series of hypotheses- which the young person *tests against reality* [I think a lot of people with social anxiety miss opportunities to test their hypotheses against reality]. As a consequence of this testing, he gradually comes to recognize the *difference between his own preoccupations and the interests and concerns of others*...

[The belief that one's own feelings are special and unique] is probably overcome by the gradual establishment of...*"intimacy"*...[in which] the young person discovers that others have feelings similar to his own and have suffered and been enraptured in the same way...[an example of this for me would be SAS which helped me see that I'm not the only person going through the problems of social anxiety]


----------

