Adolescent egocentrism: a comparison among adolescents and adults.

Reformulation of adolescent egocentrism suggests that personal fable and imaginary audience ideations extend into adulthood. To test this proposition, adolescents (aged 14-18) and adults (aged 20-89) completed subscales of the adolescent egocentrism, self-consciousness and interpersonal reactivity scales. An across scale comparison first ensured that adolescent egocentrism measures were comparable across age. Next, MANOVAs revealed higher egocentrism scores for adolescents vs. adults (p<0.05), but no difference between adolescents and younger (19-30) adults after splitting adults into younger (19-30), middle (31-59) and older (60+) subgroups. Results suggest that personal fable and imaginary audience are not confined to adolescence.