Measuring Egocentrism as a Trait-Like Personality Attribute: The Development and Validation of the Egocentrism Scale
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ASSESSMENT
Measuring Egocentrism as a Trait-Like Personality Attribute: The Development and Validation of the Egocentrism Scale Maryam Tajmirriyahi1
•
Vivian P. Ta2 • William Ickes3
Received: 13 July 2019 / Accepted: 9 October 2020 Ó National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India 2020
Abstract Egocentrism, which has traditionally been studied within a developmental cognitive perspective, has been somewhat overlooked in the personality literature. Accordingly, the purpose of the present investigation was to develop a scale to assess individual levels of egocentrism as a personality trait that continues to influence behavior into the adult years. Across three independent samples (both student and community samples), we provide evidence for the structural, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of a newly developed measure of egocentrism that is suitable for measuring egocentrism across different age groups from adolescence to late adulthood. We report considerable evidence for the scale’s convergent and discriminant validity and for its ability to predict one’s likelihood of engaging in a wide range of egocentric behaviors. In general, the Egocentrism Scale was a better predictor of the behaviorally focused outcome variables than was the most widely used contemporary measure of egocentrism (i.e., the Adolescent Egocentrism Scale).
& Maryam Tajmirriyahi [email protected] Vivian P. Ta [email protected] William Ickes [email protected] 1
University of Texas at Arlington, Life Science Building, Room 506, 501 S. Nedderman Dr, Box 19528, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
2
Lake Forest College, 555 N Sheridan Rd, Lake Forest, IL 60045, USA
3
University of Texas at Arlington, Life Science Building, Room 302, 501 S. Nedderman Dr, Box 19528, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
Keywords Egocentrism Assessment Personality
Introduction Egocentrism refers to excessive self-focused attention and the failure to adjust for the ways in which others’ perspectives might differ from ours. Egocentrism can be a source of misperceptions, conflicts, and misunderstandings in social interactions (Chambers & De Dreu, 2014). The idea that one’s level of egocentrism might be a trait-like personality attribute is suggested by data indicating that egocentrism is related to the personality trait of narcissism (Campbell et al., 2000). In fact, some previous studies have used narcissism scales to measure egocentrism (Robbins & Patton, 1985). Egocentrism is, however, only one of the psychological distortions of narcissism—a distortion that deals with the inability to take the perspective of others (Campbell et al., 2000). Until recently, the two most commonly used scales to measure egocentrism have been the Adolescent Egocentrism Scale (Elkind, 1967) and the Imaginary Audience Scale (IAS) (Elkind, 1967). Because these two scales are used primarily with adolescent populations (usually between the ages of 10 and 15), there is not much evidence for their validity in adult samples. A more serious problem is that the two scales seem to mea
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