Auto-translated
It's interesting what this word means. I couldn't find it in Ozhegov's dictionary.
Egocentrism (in developmental psychology) [Latin: ego – I + centrum – center] is a characteristic of an individual's position, a property of a person's thinking and behavior, which consists in the inability to understand and take into account other points of view and positions. Unlike egoism, the term "E." does not carry a moral connotation. The concept of E. was developed within the framework of Gestalt psychology and in the school of genetic epistemology of J. Piaget.
Egocentrism manifests itself most clearly in early childhood and is mainly overcome by the age of 12–14; a tendency towards some increase in egocentrism is also noted in old age. In specific studies, various types of egocentrism are considered: 1) cognitive E., characterizing the processes of perception and thinking; 2) moral E., indicating an inability to perceive the grounds for the moral actions and deeds of other people; 3) communicative E., observed when a subject transmits information to other people and consists in neglecting the differences in thesauruses, the semantic content of concepts, etc.
Overcoming E. in each of these areas can occur relatively independently of each other. It is carried out on the basis of the consistent development of the ability to decentralize and "penetrate experience." As M. Wertheimer noted, problems for egocentric thinking remain unresolved as long as the subject is focused on his own desires and needs; these problems become solvable only if the desire is considered as part of the situation and is realized as an objective structural component of the task.
According to Piaget, the path of child development represents a movement from E. to a more objective position in the cognition of the world. Piaget distinguishes three main levels of E.: 1) the absence of a distinction between the subject and the object by the child up to 1.5 years; 2) insufficient distinction between one's own and another's point of view by the child up to 7–8 years, which gives rise to such features of preschooler's thinking as syncretism, animism, artificialism; 3) the belief of an adolescent in the unlimited possibilities of his own thinking and his ability to transform the surrounding world (11–14 years).
K.N. Polivanova
Yandegz, dictionaries:smile04:
