Question

Discuss two key components of adolescent egocentrism according to David Elkind.

Briefly describe the two stages of preoperational thought. Provide an example of children's thinking at each stage.

Answer 1

The two key components of adolescent ego centrism are imaginary audience and personal fable.

Imaginary audience is something that a person imagines himself in a situation and anticipates that how people are gonna react to a situation but it is not necessary that things will turn out the same way you thought they would. For instance, you are preparing a presentation thinking everyone is gonna love it and praise it but in reality nobody praises it and your boss is not even impressed.

Personal fable is the thinking that your feelings are the one and only and are unique and nobody else can feel the same way. . Gor example: you think that the way you feel for your mother is something nobody else can feel even your own sibling. But it is not necessarily true.

There are two stages of pre operational thought:

1. Symbolic function sub stage: In this stage children are able to imagine the things about objects that are not even real or present in front if them. A child can even sing to a barbie thinking it is a real human.

2. Intuitive thought substage: In this stage of the child starts to develop reasoning and he does that by asking a lot of questions. He wants to know each and every thing going on around him.