Adolescent Egocentrism

Adolescent Egocentrism

Piaget's theory's have proved helpful for the understanding of children's behavior, one area he observed was adolescents. He came up with the concept that during this period the egocentric stage reappears. The main aspect of this stage is more of a social and cognitive emphasize as well as a personal fable and the creation of an imaginaive audience (Santrock 2007). During this stage the adolescent tends to create a belief that they are on stage and the world is an audience they feel as if they are constantly being watched and the people surrounding them are interested solely on them this is also why many Adolescents spend hours in the mirror putting on make up or fixing their hair. An example of the imaginary audience concept is when a young boy or girl gets a pimple, for an adolescent they feel as if everyone is aware that they have a pimple on their face and treat it like it's a tragedy, when in reality people surrounding them are most likely not even aware of it. During this stage it can be quite difficult for the adolescent being that they feel that they are constantly under pressure to be perfect, and this is due to the concept of imaginary audience (Reeve 2003). They can feel pressured by peers, parents, friends etc. This is why a lot of times Adolescents turn to substance abuse to feel that they are accepted. It is said that the Adolescent stage is one of th hardest stages of our life, reason being this is the stage where the most growth is being made. There are a lot of changes in their hormones going on which explains why sometimes this can be a very difficult time emotionally. It is a time where you are typically in the middle of being a child and an adult so it can be difficult to adjust

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into a classification. During the adolescent stage the personal fable is when the young boy or girl feel as if they are unique and there is no one else like them in the world. (Santrock, 2007). A common thing for an adolescent to do is make up stories about him/herself to make them look good or make up rumors to hurt their peers or lies to tell their parents. Imagination plays a big role during this stage, for example adolescents spend considerable large amounts of time thinking about their future, a certain boy/girl they like, problems at school etc.(Valles,2002) They try to find answers to solving life's problems. They also feel like no one understands them, that what there going through no one else has gone through. You might see this happen a lot when they are facing problems with their parents, they feel as if their parents are too old to understand and they never had to go through with what there going through. Another common action happening during