Psychologically, Egocentrism can be defined as inability to untangle subjective schemas from objective reality, an inability that does not allows the person exhibiting it to understand or accept any perspective other than their own. Egocentrism does not refer to preoccupation with self but a limited awareness of the self. Though still persistent, egocentric behaviours are less prominent in adulthood.
Egocentrism is one of the key feature in Piagetian Preoperational stage ( age 2-7). According to Piaget, egocentric child assumes that other people see, hear and feel exactly as the child. This process of assuming that others see what you see lead to many mistakes in childhood.
Imaginary audience is another form of egocentrism which is particularly strong in adolescence and it leads to building imaginations about how peers would react to their own behaviour. Also a sense of being watched and judged always remain with adolescents. This severely lead to changes in adolescents behaviour which is artificial, it also lead to embarrassments as they feel that they are being watched when they try a new thing like riding a bike or when their foot happened to slip or when in a restaurant they accidently pored some drink on themselves.
If egocentrism continues in adult hood, it will lead to conflicts, misunderstandings and disputes in personal, professional relation and the egocentric person will find it difficult to stay happy as he/she will think that no one is in sync with them.
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