Do young children really see themselves at the centre of the world, and is that such a bad thing? Penny Tassoni considers the angles
The word 'egocentric' conjures up pictures of someone who is selfish, self-obsessed and likely to be unpleasant. Yet it is a word that is quite often used about young children. Is this fair? Are they really 'egocentric' and if so, at what point does this begin to change?
To answer some these questions, it is worth looking to the child development theorist Jean Piaget, as it could be argued that his work has contributed to the widespread view of children being 'egocentric'.
Piaget and egocentrism
Children's thought processes and logic intrigued Piaget. His theory of cognitive development identified different stages in a child's thnking and it was in his descriptions of one of the stages that he used the term 'egocentrism'. He suggested that children's thoughts about their world were based on their direct experiences and that they were continually making connections about events in order to make sense of their world.
It is in their attempts to work out the connections, or schemas, as Piaget called them, that they sometimes appear to make inaccurate judgements. For practitioners, children's logic provides us with many amusing moments. A typical example of this is when a young child is surprised to see their keyworker or teacher in the street. Up until this point the child may have only seen them in the nursery or school and so has assumed that that they 'lived' there! In terms of stages, Piaget proposed that children aged two to six years assume that everyone else has the same experiences and feelings as themselves. He called this 'egocentrism' - that is, the child's thinking is tied or centred to himself. Only later, at around six years of age, did Piaget believe that children developed the ability to 'de-centre' or imagine things from other viewpoints. Piaget argued that egocentrism limits the child's understanding of what is happening and thus explains why young children often come to the 'wrong' conclusions, for example, assuming that everyone has a 'mummy' because they have one.
True or not?
It is worth noting that Piaget used the term 'egocentrism' to explain what he saw as a cognitive process. It is unfortunate in some ways that this term also has negative connotations, and as a result children are perhaps unfairly seen as being selfish. In terms of children's ability to see and understand others' needs, many of us will have seen plenty of examples of children's caring towards others. Toddlers, for example, often show us a curious mixture of thoughtfulness and 'egocentrism' as they try to comfort another child with toys or food that they particularly enjoy - the probable reasoning being, that if they like it, so should the other child!
We should also be aware that Piaget's work has been heavily criticised (see box) and that there is now some doubt about as to whether children are as 'egocentric' as Piaget suggested. While he remains influential, many psychologists believe that he heavily underestimated children's abilities.
Research on what is sometimes referred to as 'theories of mind' suggest that children as young as three years old are starting to realise that others have different beliefs and feelings from themselves. We can see this, as many three- and four-year-olds will adapt their play and speech to suit the needs of others.
Drawing conclusions
What can we take from Piaget's work? While accepting that Piaget probably underestimated children's real abilities to be aware of others, his idea that children were constructing their own logic to make sense of situations is still recognised. As adults it means that we must be aware that children will sometimes have very different perspectives and ways of seeing the same situation than we do - a test of our own ability to 'de-centre'. A classic example of this is when children leave an activity such as dough or Lego. Later they return back to the table and are angered that another child is in 'their' chair ; they may try to wrestle the chair and materials back. When we intervene, we may think that the child is being unreasonable. After all, the child chose to leave the activity.
It is at moments such as these that we need to take a step back and ask ourselves what the child has probably been thinking. From their point of view, maybe they were expecting everything still to be there at the table for them, as this is how they had left it!
Finally, you may like to look out for a little bit of egocentrism in adults. Have you ever bought a present with the belief that if you like it, so will the person you are giving it to?
