The term egocentric is derived from a concept resulting from Jean Piaget’s (1951) theory of cognitive development.
What is egocentrism? How does it impact a child?
Egocentrism refers to a lack of differentiation between some aspect of self and others.
Egocentrism underlines the basic process of reasoning. It represents a cognitive bias.
Egocentrism presents mostly in younger children before the age of 7 years.
A child believes that everything is relevant to their own needs. In essence that it is all about them. This doesn’t make them selfish.
It is the way they see their world. Egocentrism is a developmental stage a child goes through.
It is the thought process in young children where they believe everyone in their environment exists solely for them with the world revolving around them.
However, it does not mean that children are unable to put themselves in someone else’s shoes.
Rather it means that they don’t always imagine how a person may think or feel and are more interested and aware of their thoughts and feelings.
A child hasn’t had enough social experiences or matured enough to put themselves in others shoes instinctively.
A child finds that sometimes it is hard to play cooperatively, share and help, and they don’t always act in positive social ways because they’re egocentric.
A child believes that everyone is experiencing things the same as them and they have difficulty understanding that others have different viewpoints.
A child generally becomes less egocentric around the age of 5 years.
Given it is a developmental stage the child is going through it is important to be supportive.
Guiding their behaviour through this stage enables the child to develop the tools in a understanding way.