Jean Piaget, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The young child speaks and thinks largely without decentring — without holding its own viewpoint as one among others. Egocentric speech is not selfishness but a genuine cognitive limitation: the child does not yet know that it has a point of view, and so cannot take another's.1 Much of early "reasoning" is talk alongside others rather than communication with them.2345
Not until about the age of 7-8, does argument, in particular, become what it is for the adult, namely the change from one point of view to the other, accompanied by the effort to motivate one's own and to understand that of the interlocutor. Before this, argument is nothing but a conflict of contrary IN THE CHILD 207 affirmations, affirmations without understanding, and with- out motivation.Judgment and Reasoning in the Child
Two aspects of this ego-centric speech make it recognizable. In the first place the child may speak without trying to influence the other speaker. For instance, when the child is playing and working in the presence of adults or even of his own friends, 262 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC he sometimes talks without a pause so that it is impossible to decide whether he is speaking to someone else or to him- self.The Language and Thought of the Child
We have therefore given it the name of ego-centric, which indicates that this type of thought is still autistic in its structure but that its interests tend not merely towards organic or ' ludistic ' satisfaction as in pure autism, but towards intellectual adaptation as in adult thought. The ego-centric character of child thought has been demonstrated by three special enquiries.Judgment and Reasoning in the Child
When, therefore, the adult is brought face to face with his fellow-beings, what he announces to them is something already socially elaborated and therefore roughly adapted to his audience, z.., it is comprehensible. Indeed, the further a man has advanced in his own line of thought, the better able is h$ to see things from the point of view of others and to make himself understood by them.The Language and Thought of the Child
Reahty is impregnated with self and thought is conceived as belonging to the category of physical matter. From the point of view of causaUty, all the universe is felt to be in communion with and obedient to the self. There is participation and magic. The desires and the commands of the self are felt to be absolute, since the s\ibject's own point of view is regarded as the only one possible.The Child's Conception of the World
The phenomenon is real and reproducible; the AGE at which decentring occurs I set too late, as later work with simpler tasks has shown, and the boundary is gradual rather than sharp. Egocentrism names a direction of development — from the undifferentiated to the differentiated self — more than a fixed stage.