On the Measurement of Egocentrism: A Replication and Extension of Aebli's Findings

S ummary . An experiment was conducted to confirm that the egocentrism demonstrated in Piaget's ‘three mountain’ experiment was more a function of his experimental design than of the children's thought. 255 children between the ages of 6 and 8 years were asked to select the views that would be obtained from examining an array of objects from several vantage points. It was shown that children asked to find their own view first showed significantly higher levels of ‘egocentric response’ (i.e., selecting their own view for other vantage points) than children who selected the other views first. This was taken to indicate that the ‘egocentric responses’ had been cued by the experimenters requesting an ‘egocentric response’ prior to the test.