The Personal Fable in Early, Middle, and Late Adolescence
The onset of adolescent egocentrism tends to occur at about age 11-13 which is considered early adolescence. Since an adolescent is thought to develop the formal operational stage of thinking during this time, the personal fable phenomenon is thought to develop as well. There are studies that support this hypothesis, showing that it is during early adolescence that the personal fable is most prominent (this includes both the uniqueness and invulnerability aspects of personal fable). It has also been shown that both feelings of uniqueness and invulnerability increase significantly from age 11 to age 13.
Middle adolescence is generally considered to be around the age range of 14-16. Past research has demonstrated that personal fable peaks at about age 13 during early adolescence It has also been speculated that the personal fable phenomenon ought to decline as one moves into middle and then late adolescence.
Late adolescence is considered to range from the age of 17 to about 23. Although Elkind (1967) speculated that the personal fable tends to decrease in late adolescence, there had been evidence of a possible re-emergence of the personal fable (or at least adolescent egocentrism) during late adolescence. It is hypothesized that this re-occurrence of adolescent egocentrism may act as a coping mechanism during the transition to new educational and social contexts (moving away to college, for example). Perhaps further research into the prevalence of the personal fable in late adolescence is required. An additional study was done to ananlyze whether or not personal fable (and imaginary audience) decreased, increased, or remained stable across an age range from sixth grade to college. The results showed that there was no significant difference between age groups with regards to the personal fable phenomenon, although it did seem to decline slightly. Also, the results showed that the imaginary audience phenomenon seems to decrease as one ages, more so than personal fable. Furthermore, there was a study conducted to analyze the gender differences with regards to the chronicity (the pattern of the behavior across time) of the personal fable phenomenon across early, middle, and late adolescence. The results showed that the personal fable phenomenon, including invulnerability and uniqueness, tends to decrease as an individual moves into middle and late adolescence more so for females than for males.
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Famous quotes containing the words personal, fable, late and/or adolescence:
“The grief of the keen is no personal complaint for the death of one woman over eighty years, but seems to contain the whole passionate rage that lurks somewhere in every native of the island. In this cry of pain the inner consciousness of the people seems to lay itself bare for an instant, and to reveal the mood of beings who feel their isolation in the face of a universe that wars on them with winds and seas.”
—J.M. (John Millington)
“In spite of the air of fable ... the public were still not at all disposed to receive it as fable. I thence concluded that the facts of my narrative would prove of such a nature as to carry with them sufficient evidence of their own authenticity.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“We all end up living secret lives. We create what we are willing to admire and admiring what we shouldn’t confess to the secret of our own sin, our own insufficiency, our own sadness. We all end up taking our secrets into the world and handing them over to strangers, only to realize it’s often too late to claim them back. The very nature of time passing is sad beyond words. Memories mean they’re gone.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“It is not however, adulthood itself, but parenthood that forms the glass shroud of memory. For there is an interesting quirk in the memory of women. At 30, women see their adolescence quite clearly. At 30 a woman’s adolescence remains a facet fitting into her current self.... At 40, however, memories of adolescence are blurred. Women of this age look much more to their earlier childhood for memories of themselves and of their mothers. This links up to her typical parenting phase.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)