Egocentrism & Stages of Cognitive Development: Overcoming Procrastination Barriers

According to Adolescence by Santrock there are different stages of cognitive development. The four are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. Within the sensorimotor stage I was able to develop distinct ways of thinking to learn and grow mentally and emotionally. In the preoperative stage I began to use mental representations to understand the world by symbolic thinking (Santrock, John W. (2016) p.93). This led me to use words and images of mental representations beyond connections of sensory information and physical actions by constraint of my childish thinking.

Egocentrism & Stages of Cognitive Development: Overcoming Procrastination Barriers

Egocentrism and centration as with all children during the ages of 2 to 7 years old is found in the preoperational stage. In the concrete operational stage between the ages of 7 to 11 years old, I believe I was not a good representation of this stage due to my inability to logically associated concrete events. Most children in the concrete stages begin to reason logically about concrete events and the concept of conservation, organizing objects into classes of classifications placing objects in order. In the sense of classifying objects in order I was good at mathematics and placing things within order but demonstrated inabilities to associate events by not understanding concepts in the meaning of my experiences. In my mid 20s during the formal operational stage, I began to think realistic and more abstractly. I believe by thinking logically and gaining awareness to self and situations and circumstances contributed to decrease in negative outcomes. (Santrock, John W. (2016) p.93-My social cognition was reserve as I was shy and disconnection with my peers, family and community.

Social cognition is the way individuals conceptualize and reason about the social worlds (Santrock, John W. (2016) p.136). My social cognition is my inner thoughts of people, I see and interact with. Also, the relationships with the people I interact in relationships with.

Adolescent egocentrism is a branch of my social skills found in social cognitive thinking and behaviors. Adolescent egocentrism is self-centered thinking to me. The heightened self-consciousness of adolescences that reflects the belief that others are as interested in them, as they are in themselves and in their sense of personal uniqueness and invulnerability (Santrock, John W. (2016) p.121-123). Cognitive development I recall was dark. I have a severe head injury in second grade. The head injury resulted in loss of blood due to a blow to the forehead. I believe the injury affected my frontal lobe and cognitive processing. This area in the brain when disturbed affects decision making, memory, attention, and social skills.

After the injury I start to experience early signs of Mental illness. I often fixated on people’s view of me and my weight led me to feel people believed I was fat and over-ate all the time. Adolescences was a time of a lot of blaming and shame from negative perceptions of how others internalized my presents according to my own negative self-talk and outlooks towards myself.

Moreover, it wasn’t until adulthood I gain cognitive control and balanced signs for mental illness. Cognitive control involves effective control and flexible thinking in a number of areas, including controlling attention, reducing interfering fearing thoughts, and being cognitively flexible (Santrock, John W. (2016) p.105). My mental illness resulted in a learning disability.

People with learning disabilities often experience barriers which limits their cognitive controls (WEBAIM (Nov 26, 2018) URL). Cognitive control is also known as inhibitory control or effortful to control to emphasize the abilities to resist a strong inclination to do one thing but instead to do what is most effective (Santrock, John W. (2016) p.105). My cognitive control has increased with my aging like most. When I lacked cognitive control, I had trouble paying attention in class, I was often distracted by things around me outside of the necessary tasks that I needed to focus on, and I felt insecure about the choices I made in comparison with other's abilities; this is common. Today, I make a real effort to stick with my tasks and find ways to cope with dilemmas around effective cognitive control by focusing my attention to a scheduled plan to eliminate distractions and procrastination. I also honor myself for progress without holding myself at a lower level by not comparing and contrasting myself to others. By not comparing and contrasting myself to others, mentally I break the barriers by controlling thoughts and emotions so that I am not limited. This allows me to take a realistic approach. In addition, I often times will set S.M.A.R.T. smart goals. Therefore, some activities that I do for effective cognitive performance such as cognitive control is making a real effort to stick with task and avoiding interfering thoughts or environment events. I also try more to think before I speak and act five times so that I am not filled with regrets. I contribute my adulthood cognitive control to my abilities to critical think by using mindfulness practices that enable me to be more alert, balanced, and mentally present. Overall, I identify with Arnett’s Profile of Angela: “ I Want to get my life in Order.” Angela perception of herself affected her belief in her inner self. She made several choices she later had to reconsider (Arnett, Jeffrey J. (2014) p.43). Angeles later began to see that her choices conflicted with the future that she was beginning to want to achieve later in life. I relate to this profile because I recognize her in trouble as pitfalls for a bounce back to regain control in a positive direction by reevaluating goals that are more realistic to her desired intentions for a better future.

While in childhood I experience several events and feeling of isolation for peers and family which led me to be reserved and disconnected with the world and the social norm of a talkative and social child. My shyness and lack of social skills carried over into adolescence and earlier adulthood. As I made the transition from adolescence to adulthood I develop more of a sense of self-confidence and assertiveness as I emerged into adulthood. Some emerge at 18 years old. I on the other hand noticed the shift at about mid 19 years old.

Between 19 to 26 I experience an event which changed my perspective on life. The life event was very tragic to my health, my family and my ability to co-exist in the world. The stress and mental instability related to the event from injury led to PTSD. The feelings of blame which carried over from childhood was cognitively damaging. As I began to gain control and stability by searching within myself for acceptance and awareness to childhood trauma and lack of self-worth at the age of 26 years old. I then woke up from the grave. I determined I would no longer blame and be overshadowed by tormenting thoughts of my trouble passed experience and negative views of myself and others.

In the book Emerging Adulthood by Jeffrey Arnett describes five key features that characterizes emerging adulthood. I identify with all key concepts of becoming an adult. Like most young adults experiencing the shift I redirected myself and drive to welcome my inner self into my life by casting out concerns of childish circumstances to drive my inner ambitions. The emerging adulthood key feature I identify with the most is the age of possibilities, a time when individuals have an opportunity to transform their lives. This key feature is one of five; the other key features are Identity exploration, self-focused, feeling in-between. The age of possibility describes two ways in which emerging adults enter into endless possibilities. The first way is being optimistic about their future; and two, those who experience difficult times while growing up, and present an opportunity to re-orientate their lives in a more positive direction (Santrock, John W. (2016) pp.18-19 & Arnett, Jeffrey J. (2014) pp.9-16).

I identify with the age of possibilities as my key feature in emerging adulthood because my experiences in life are touching stories of resiliency. As mentioned, I had a serious head injury that was very traumatic, I went through several different situations and circumstances that were challenging which led me to be depressed and socially disturbed. After self-realization was gained, I overcame obstacles and had a spiritual awakening which motivated me to see my life’s challenges as preparation for something bigger. The motivation to overcome negative circumstances was my drive to become successful in social cognitive behaviors, education, work, and family life.

Resiliency is defined as adapting positively and achieving successful outcomes in the face of significant risk and adverse circumstances (Santrock, John W. (2016) p.21). Health and injury were the adverse circumstances, and risk was a single-parent home. The positive and achieving successful outcome was a graduate of higher education and continuing my higher education as well as overcoming obstacles of being a statistic.

Keywords: Adolescent egocentrism, stages of cognitive development, barriers to procrastination

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Arnett, Jeffrey J. (2014). Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens

through the Twenties. Oxford University Press.

Santrock, John W. (2016) (16th Edition). Adolescence. McGraw Hill

WEBAIM (Nov 26, 2018) Retrieved from URL: https://webaim.org/articles/cognitive/