Social Egocentrism as a Component of Adolescents' Deviant Behavior ¹²²¹

The article is devoted to the investigation of adolescents with deviant behavior, that is their perception of the social world and their view on themselves in it. There is revealed the specific character of their perception and evaluation of themselves, the attitude of people around towards them, the system of social sanction. It is shown that the peculiarities being identified have one feature in common – lack of correspondence between subjective and social view on their personalities. Their evaluation system of a certain event, person, phenomenon, is not corresponding to the social one and seems to be closely subjective, not directed to the social values and norms. Therefore these peculiarities are considered as a manifestation of social egocentrism in social relations, that in its turn determines social incompetence of an individual. The author shows the significance of the social egocentrism as a core factor, which predetermine forming, development and process of the deviant behavior.

Column: Developmental Psychology