Formal operations and the imaginary audience.

Abstract

Elkind and Bowen's (1979) investigation of adolescent egocentrism was replicated, and the relation between the imaginary audience and operational thought was tested. Children and adolescents (JV = 142) ranging in age from 11 to 18 years were administered a Piagetian-based written test of operational thought and the Imaginary Audience Scale (IAS). Several of Elkind and Bowen's results were replicated; however, the present study did not support the hypothesis that imaginary audience scores would be highest among subjects whose formal operational abilities were beginning to be established. In this article we discuss the nature of the measure of operational thought, the qualitative differences between the transient and abiding self subscales of the IAS, and the relation between adolescent egocentrism and formal operations.

Self-consciousness and social anxiety in youth: The Revised Self-Consciousness Scales for Children.

“…In contrast, Rankin and colleagues (2004) found that in two cohorts of adolescents (ages 13 and 15) across 4 years, Private SC increased while Public SC decreased, suggesting that Public SC peaks in early adoles cence. This finding is consistent with early imaginary audience research that found that young adolescents (ages 12 to 13) reported greater imaginary audience than did older adolescents and pread olescent children, demonstrating an inverted U-shape distribution with age (Elkind & Bowen, 1979;Enright, Shukla, & Lapsley, 1980;Gray & Hudson, 1984;Ryan & Kuczkowski, 1994). How ever, more recent studies have revealed that adolescent egocentrism does not demonstrate a curvilinear increase and decrease between childhood and middle-to-late adolescence, but rather ap pears to continue to increase even into late adolescence and young adulthood (Peterson & Roscoe, 1991;Rycek, Stuhr, McDermott, Benker, & Schwartz, 1998;Schwartz, Maynard, & Uzelac, 2008).…”

The Imaginary Audience and the Personal Fable: A Test of Elkind’s Theory of Adolescent Egocentrism

“…However, there is also the unexpected increase with age (Adams & Jones, 1981;Cohn et al, 1988;Goossens et al, 1992, study 1;Rycek et al, 1998), as well as the finding that young adults experience heightened egocentrism (Frankenberger, 2000;Peterson, & Roscoe, 1991;Schwartz, Maynard, & Uzelac, 2008). And, finally, no association was found with age in some other investigations (Goossens, 1984, study 1;Gray & Hudson, 1984;Hudson & Gray, 1986;Jahnke & Blanchard-Fields, 1993;Lapsley et al, 1986, study 1;Peterson, 1982;Montgomery, 2005;Richter, Reaves, Deaver, & Lacy, 1982).…”

“…In some other studies, no association between formal operations and egocentrism was found (Goossens, 1984, study 3;Jahnke & Blanchard-Fields, 1993;Kelly, Jones, & Adams, 2002;O'Connor & Nikolic, 1990;Peterson, 1982). The unexpected finding that egocentrism is high during the concrete operational stage and declines afterwards emerged from some other studies (Gray & Hudson, 1984;Pesce & Harding, 1986;Riley, Adams, & Nielsen, 1984). And, finally, an unexpected negative correlation between egocentrism and formal operations emerged in another research (Lapsley, Milstead, Quintana, Flannery, & Buss, 1986, study 1).…”

Development as an Explanation for and Predictor of Online Self-Disclosure Among Dutch Adolescents

“…The period of adolescence can be divided into three groups: early, middle, and late adolescence. Several researchers (Alberts, Elkind, & Ginsberg, 2007;Elkind & Bowen, 1979;Enright et al, 1979;Gray & Hudson, 1984) examined differences in Imaginary Audience ideation and Personal Fable ideation between early, middle, and late adolescence, theorizing that adolescents during early adolescence and late adolescence should score significantly lower on adolescent egocentrism than those in middle adolescence. Elkind and Bowen (1979) supported the curvilinear relationship between age and egocentrism.…”