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SOCIAL COGNITION |
Social relationships are of the utmost importance to adolescents. Being able to form opinions and attitudes about those relationships, other people, and social institutions is a hallmark of adolescence. |
Major aspects of social cognition include perspective taking, implicit personality theories, and adolescent egocentrism. |
Perspective taking |
Early adolescents can engage for the first time in mutual perspective taking. As Arnett puts it, “just as you understand that another person has a perspective that is different from your own, you also realize that other persons understand that you have a perspective that is different from theirs” (83). |
Next, adolescents can engage in social and conventional system perspective taking, realizing that perspectives are influenced by personal interactions and societal roles. |
This ability to understand other’s perspectives is important in being popular and making friends. |
Implicit personality theories |
Adolescents are able to describe others in abstract, complex, and organized ways. These descriptions are more likely to focus on internal characteristics rather than just physical. |
Adolescent egocentrism |
The advent of metacognition brings about the ability to think about thinking, and this thinking in adolescence can be characterized by what is called adolescent egocentrism. Adolescents may have difficulty distinguishing their own thinking from the thinking of others, resulting in an “imaginary audience.” Teenagers are self-conscious of their behavior and appearance, and they project that self-conciousness onto others, imagining that everyone else is watching them (American Psychological Association). |
Adolescents develop a personal fable built on this imaginary audience. Within the framework of this personal fable, the adolescent views himself as special and unique. Because of this uniqueness, he thinks that no one else could ever understand what he is experiencing. She also might have an inflated sense of herself and her abilities, sometimes leading to risky behavior. |
 
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In addition to a plethora of web sites geared to teenaged girls and problems with their hair, hips, skin, and clothes, there is this site dedicated to homework help.
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