Leslie,
Michelle Burden (4/11) Egocentrism, perspective-taking, and identity
development in emerging adulthood (Gary Kose, Ph.D.; Nicholas Papouchis, Ph.D.;
Gary Fireman, Ph.D.)
The current study assessed the cognitive
and social coordination abilities among 18 to 25 years olds during a period of
life that has been described in industrialized societies as "emerging
adulthood", not quite adolescence and yet not quite adulthood. Generally
speaking, it was hypothesized that higher levels of formal operational ability
and identity development would predict lower levels of egocentric thought and
higher levels of perspective-taking ability, and that these relations would be
explained by the extent to which one had achieved various criteria for
adulthood. Two of the three hypotheses were partially supported. Formal
Reasoning and Identity Status were not significantly related to the measurement
of Egocentrism; however, Identity Status was predictive of scores for Personal
Fable; and, both Formal Reasoning and Identity Status were significantly
related in predicting Perspective Taking scores. Thus, although there were
changes in level of functioning across these various indices, these changes did
not mark a distinct developmental period among this sample of 18 to 25 year
olds. Thus, there was no evidence supporting a meditational model in which
Emerging Adulthood was interactive between the predictive variables and the
outcome variables. Future research might benefit from improving our understanding
of the complicated relations between these various development constructs, in
particular how heightened personal fable ideation and perspective taking skills
may relate to other aspects of functioning.
