Midterm

Adolescent egocentrism is the heightened self-consciousness of adolescents. Its two components are imaginary audience and personal fable. The imaginary audience is adolescents' belief that others are as interested in them as they are into themselves, as well as attention getting behavior, or attempts to be noticed. For example, when I was in middle school, I had English class with my best friend, and she used to "act out" to get attention or laughter from the other students. She would not listen to the teacher, talk rudely to him, and walk out when she did not want to do something; it was her way of getting noticed by everyone. Another example of imaginary audience took place when I was in middle and high school. I used to get really bad cold sores on my lips, and I would be very paranoid when I went to school. I used to think that everybody was staring at me and only looking at my lips. Turns out, most people did not even notice them. The personal fable is the part of adolescent egocentrism involving a sense of uniqueness and invincibility. For example, as an adolescent, I always felt invincible to pain; I used to think that my parents would be by my side forever and they would never leave. When I was 12, my dad committed suicide and I was lost because I never even thought about him dying. On the other hand, I used to tell my friends that I was born in West Virginia because I wanted to feel unique to my friends. I felt boring if I told them the truth, so I fantasized about things.