Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Measuring Egocentrism as a Trait-Like Personality Attribute: The Development and Validation of the Egocentrism Scale

  • Assessment
  • Published:
Psychological Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Egocentrism, which has traditionally been studied within a developmental cognitive perspective, has been somewhat overlooked in the personality literature. Accordingly, the purpose of the present investigation was to develop a scale to assess individual levels of egocentrism as a personality trait that continues to influence behavior into the adult years. Across three independent samples (both student and community samples), we provide evidence for the structural, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of a newly developed measure of egocentrism that is suitable for measuring egocentrism across different age groups from adolescence to late adulthood. We report considerable evidence for the scale’s convergent and discriminant validity and for its ability to predict one’s likelihood of engaging in a wide range of egocentric behaviors. In general, the Egocentrism Scale was a better predictor of the behaviorally focused outcome variables than was the most widely used contemporary measure of egocentrism (i.e., the Adolescent Egocentrism Scale).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Availability of Data and Material

Data for this study and all other supplementray material are available upon request.

Notes

  1. We determined all items’ measures of skewness and kurtosis. Skewness for the initial items was found to be acceptable in the range between 1.26 (item 12) and .008 (item 6) (George & Mallery, 2010). Kurtosis was also found to be acceptable in the range between 1.027 (item 4) and -.260 (item 10). Items 5, 10, and 12 had minor issues with normality. However, all of these items were removed in the final version of the Egocentrism scale, as noted below.

  2. Oblique rotation (Direct Oblimin) was chosen because the factors were highly correlated with each other.

  3. Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (χ2 (45) = 1434.992, p < .001), indicating that it was appropriate to use the factor analytic model on this set of data. In addition, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy test indicated that the strength of the relationships among variables was high (KMO = .896); thus, it was acceptable to proceed with the analysis sampling (Cerny & Kaiser, 1977).

  4. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was run again with the final eight items. All items loaded on one factor which explained 46.62% of the item variance with factor loadings that ranged from .602 (item 1) to .746 (item 4). The results confirmed that egocentrism was a unidimensional construct.

  5. The items for Adult Entitlement Behaviors Scale and Egocentric Scenarios Checklist can be obtained upon request from the first author.

  6. The relative Chi square or normed chi-square in this model equals 1.15. There appears to be no consensus regarding an acceptable ratio for this statistic; however, most writers recommend values ranging from as high as 5.0 (Wheaton et al., 1977) to as low as 2.0 (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007). The use of the normed chi-square is discouraged because X2 is sensitive to sample size, and there are no “acceptable” clear-cut guidelines about maximum values of the normed chi-square. Therefore, the use of other fit indexes (e.g., CFI, TLI, RMSEA) is recommended when evaluating a model (Kline, 2015).

  7. The relative chi-square or normed chi-square in this model equals 1.29.

References

  • Boduszek, D., Debowska, A., Dhingra, K., & DeLisi, M. (2016). Introduction and validation of Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS) in a large prison sample. Journal of Criminal Justice, 46, 9–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, W. K., Bonacci, A. M., Shelton, J., Exline, J. J., & Bushman, B. J. (2004). Psychological entitlement: Interpersonal consequences and validation of a self-report measure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 83, 29–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, W. K., Reeder, G. D., Sedikides, C., & Elliot, A. J. (2000). Narcissism and comparative self-enhancement strategies. Journal of Research in Personality, 34, 329–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cerny, C. A., & Kaiser, H. F. (1977). A study of a measure of sampling adequacy for factor-analytic correlation matrices. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 12(1), 43–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chambers, J. R., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2014). Egocentrism drives misunderstanding in conflict and negotiation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 51, 15–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohn, L. D., Millstein, S. G., Irwin, C. E., Jr., Adler, N. E., Kegeles, S. M., Dolcini, P., et al. (1988). A comparison of two measures of egocentrism. Journal of Personality Assessment, 52, 212–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, M. H. (1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 10, 85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elkind, D. (1967). Egocentrism in adolescence. Journal of Child Development, 38, 1025–1034.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enright, R. D., Shukla, D. G., & Lapsley, D. K. (1980). Adolescent egocentrism-sociocentrism and self-consciousness. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9(2), 101–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • George, D., & Mallery, M. (2010). SPSS for Windows Step by Step: A Simple Guide and Reference, 17.0 update (10a ed.) Boston: Pearson.

  • John, O. P., Donahue, E. M., & Kentle, R. L. (1991). The Big Five Inventory-Versions 4a and 54. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Personality and Social Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kline, R. B. (2013). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. In Y. Petscher, C. Schatschneider, & D. L. Compton (Eds.), Applied quantitative analysis education and the social sciences (pp. 171–207). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kline, R. B. (2015). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (4th ed.). New York: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paunonen, S. V., Haddock, G., Forsterling, F., & Keinonen, M. (2003). Broad versus narrow personality measures and the prediction of behaviour across cultures. European Journal of Personality, 17, 413–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Penner, L. A., Fritzsche, B. A., Craiger, J. P., & Freifeld, T. S. (1995). Measuring the prosocial personality. In J. N. Butcher & C. D. Spielberger (Eds.), Journal of Advances in personality assessment (Vol. 12). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pincus, A. L., Ansell, E. B., Pimentel, C. A., Cain, N. M., Wright, A. G., & Levy, K. N. (2009). Initial construction and validation of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory. Journal of Psychological Assessment, 21(3), 365–379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raine, A., & Uh, S. (2018). The selfishness questionnaire: Egocentric, adaptive, and pathological forms of selfishness. Journal of Personality Assessment, 1, 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raskin, R., & Terry, H. (1988). A principal-components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 890–902.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robbins, S. B., & Patton, M. J. (1985). Self-psychology and career development: Construction of the Superiority and Goal Instability scales. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 32, 221–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheier, M. F., & Carver, C. S. (1985). The self-consciousness scale—a revised version for use with general populations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 15, 687–699.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, P. D., Maynard, A. M., & Uzelac, S. M. (2008). Adolescent egocentrism: A contemporary view. Journal of Adolescence, 43(171), 441–448.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wegner, D. M., & Giuliano, T. (1980). Arousal-induced attention to self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 719–726.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wheaton, B., Muthen, B., Alwin, D. F., & Summers, G. (1977). Assessing reliability and stability in panel models. Sociological Methodology, 8(1), 84–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

There is no funding for this research

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Texas at Arlington, Life Science Building, Room 506, 501 S. Nedderman Dr, Box 19528, Arlington, TX, 76019, USA

    Maryam Tajmirriyahi

  2. Lake Forest College, 555 N Sheridan Rd, Lake Forest, IL, 60045, USA

    Vivian P. Ta

  3. University of Texas at Arlington, Life Science Building, Room 302, 501 S. Nedderman Dr, Box 19528, Arlington, TX, 76019, USA

    William Ickes

Authors
  1. Maryam Tajmirriyahi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Vivian P. Ta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. William Ickes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

MT was involved in development or design of methodology, data analysis, data collection and management, writing. VT formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims writing, supervision. WI helped in formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims, writing, supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maryam Tajmirriyahi.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Authors do not have any conflicts of interest.

Consent to Participate

After participants read the consent form, they were given the option to choose whether they consent to participate or not. If they did not consent to participate in the study, they were directed to the end of the survey.

Consent for Publication

Authors consent to publish this article in Psychological Studies.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

Ethics Approval

All aspects of this study have been approved by the University of Texas at Arlington’s Institutional Review Board.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tajmirriyahi, M., Ta, V.P. & Ickes, W. Measuring Egocentrism as a Trait-Like Personality Attribute: The Development and Validation of the Egocentrism Scale. Psychol Stud 65, 481–488 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-020-00586-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-020-00586-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation