Abstract

The present study investigated the association amount the adolescent egocentrism, the separation-individuation process, and the role-taking development. The New Imaginary Audience Scale(NIAS) and the New Personal Fable Scale(NPFS) were used to measure the adolescent egocentrism. The SITA(separation-individuation test for adolescents), which consists of 4 subscale : separation anxiety(SA), engulfmnet anxiety(EA), need denial(ND and practicing mirroring (PM) were also used. The Role taking ability test(RAT) was administered to measure the role-taking level. Among the 6 different age groups of 657 male prspondents, form the 6th grader of elementary school(meal age=12) to college freshmen(mean age=20), NIAS and NPFS score were the highest at the elementary schoolboy and the college student group. The scores of SA, ND, and PM have significantly positive relationships with those of NIAS and NPFS. The differences of NIAS and NPFS between role-taking level groups, however, were not significant. The results of multiple regression analysis show that adolescent egocentrism was explained by PM and SA. These results had partially supported the main hypothesis that the adolescent egocentrism is a phenomenon reflection the sepration-individuation process and the role taking ability development. Implications of this study were discussed with the 'New Look' approach, which was proposed by Lapsley and his collegues. The results of the present study suggests that adolescent egocentrism could be understood more effectively by ontogenetic perspective rather than cognitive developmental one.