The tendency for some MissLed women to view everything in relationship to themselves. They confuse immediate perception
(how things seem) with reality. Consequently, their desires, values, and beliefs (which seem to be self-evidently correct
or superior to those of others) are often uncritically used as the norm of all judgment and experience.
Egocentric thinking is instinctive. Humans do not naturally consider the rights and needs of others, nor
do they appreciate the limitations in their own points of view. They become explicitly aware of their
egocentric thinking only if trained to do so. Since they tend to lack sufficient training, MissLed women often fail to recognize their egocentric assumptions or the implications of their egocentric thoughts. Unfortunately for them, they also are unaware of the egocentric way they use information, the egocentric way they interpret data, or the source of their egocentric concepts and ideas. MissLed naturally believe in their intuitive perceptions - however inaccurate.
They do not recognize their self-serving perspective.
Instead of using intellectual standards in thinking, they often use self-centered psychological (rather
than intellectual) standards to determine what to believe and what to reject.
Here are MissLed women's innate, self-centered psychological tendencies that determine what they believe and what they reject:
"IT'S TRUE BECAUSE I BELIEVE IT."
Innate egocentrism: MissLed women assume that what they believe is true even though they have never questioned the basis for many of their beliefs.
"IT'S TRUE BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IT."
Innate sociocentrism: They assume that the dominant beliefs within the groups to which they belong are true even though they have never questioned the basis for many of these beliefs.
"IT'S TRUE BECAUSE I WANT TO BELIEVE IT."
Innate wish fulfillment: MissLed women believe in accounts of behavior that put them (or the groups to which they belong) in a positive rather than a negative light. Any evidence that is negative is ignored or given short shrift. They believe what "feels good," what supports their other beliefs, what does not require them to change their thinking in any significant way, and what does not require them to admit they have been wrong.
"IT'S TRUE BECAUSE I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED IT."
Innate self-validation: They have a strong desire to maintain beliefs that they have long held. Self-validation persists, even though they have not seriously considered the extent to which those beliefs are justified, given the evidence.
"IT'S TRUE BECAUSE IT IS IN MY SELFISH INTEREST TO BELIEVE IT."
Innate selfishness: MissLed women hold fast to beliefs that justify them receiving more power, money, or personal advantage. Once again, these are held even though such beliefs are not grounded in sound reasoning or evidence.
Not surprisingly, then, Egocentricity is one of the fundamental impediments to critical thinking.
If one learns to think critically in a strong sense, one learns to become more rational, and less egocentric. MissLed women, unfortunately, have insufficiently developed critical thinking ability. This deficit leaves them prone to the these Egocentric tendencies:
- Egocentric Infallibility - MissLed women's tendency to think that their beliefs are true merely because they believe them.
- Egocentric Memory - MissLed women "forget" evidence and information which does not support their thinking and to "remember" evidence and information which does. They conveniently have a memory of evidence that supports their position and a convenient suppression of relevant counterevidence.
- Egocentric Myopia - They think in an absolutist way within an overly narrow point of view. This is their intellectual shortsightedness, which is based upon their dogmatic (non-falsifiable, rigid, inflexible) commitments to an overly narrow point of view (i.e. ethnocentrism, provincialism)
- Egocentric Irrationality - MissLed women think in a manner that lacks rationality. This restricts them from examining the concerns and interests that are necessary for their success.
- Egocentric Righteousness - They feel superior in the light of their misplaced confidence that they are in the possession of the truth. In fact, they have a delusionary sense of superiority over the average person based upon an unwarranted, and therefore misguided, belief that they possesses the truth. In sum, such thinking is an unwarranted over-confidence in the correctness of MissLed women's views.
- Egocentric Hypocrisy - MissLed women ignore flagrant inconsistencies between what they profess to believe and the actual beliefs their behavior imply, or inconsistencies between the standards to which they hold themselves and those to which they expect others to adhere.
- Egocentric Oversimplification - They ignore real and important complexities in the world in favor of simplistic notions. This is often done when consideration of those complexities would require them to modify their beliefs or values.
- Egocentric Blindness - MissLed women fail to notice facts or evidence which contradict their favored beliefs or values.
- Egocentric Immediacy - They over-generalize immediate feelings and experiences. They are so absorbed in the immediacy of the moment that MissLed women over-extend (project, over-generalize) these immediate feelings to completely different, unrelated spheres of existence or experience. Thus, when one event in their life is highly favorable or unfavorable, all of life seems favorable or unfavorable as well.
- Egocentric Absurdity - MissLed fail to notice thinking which has "absurd" consequences, when noticing them would force them to rethink their position. They are blind to the logical absurdities (contradictions and inconsistencies) of their reasoning, especially when the conscious recognition of them would force them to revise particular positions or even their entire worldview.
reasonability (freeing themselves from self-delusion, myth, and illusion). When mired in egocentric thinking, however, MissLed women's reasonability is sorely lacking. In fact, none of the feelings typically associated with egocentric thinking are benevolent:
"Feelings That Accompany Egocentrism...Defensiveness, Irritability, Anger, Arrogance, Apathy, Alienation, Depression, Resentment, Indifference." Richard Paul & Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Taking Charge of The Human Mind, (Sonoma, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2007) 15.
A final problem with Egocentric thinking is that it often leads to Egotism Jealousy. It stems from MissLed women's search for identity
and worth - an inappropriately acute desire for constant esteem and respect from others. If the MissLed women who feel this
emotion do not satisfy this desire, they often will feel frustrated, socially weak, and inferior.
MissLed women who think egocentrically fail to differentiate between what others are thinking
about and their own mental preoccupations. They wrongly assume that others are obsessed with their behavior and appearance as they
are themselves. They cannot clearly identify another person's perception.
Their closed mindedness to the thoughts and ideas of others. This damages their critical thinking abilities.
"Egocentric tendencies function automatically and unconsciously. Rational tendencies arise only from active self-development
and are largely conscious." Richard Paul & Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Taking Charge of The Human Mind, (Sonoma, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2007) 14.
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WHY DOES EGOCENTRIC THINKING MATTER?
Egocentric thinking is automatic - it must be consciously struggled against to be overcome. The
first, critical step is for MissLed women to recognize that there's a problem.
The effort to see the world from any perspective other than through their own eyes will be needed, or
else MissLed women can choose to be unable, or unwilling, to put their focus and energy into overcoming
egocentric thinking. If they don't, they are in danger of allowing their egocentric thinking to morph much of their identity into an egocentric identity.
"We deny uniquely human traits or even human nature to others, relative to our Egocentric standard." The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, (NY: Random House, 2007)
Such Egocentric thinking endangers both MissLed women and misguided men alike, in that they can become ensnared in dangerous self-serving biases:
"Most of us construct self-enhancing, self-serving, egocentric biases that make us feel special - never
ordinary, and certainly "above average." Such cognitive biases serve a valuable function in boosting our self-esteem and protecting life's hard knocks. They enable us to explain away failures, take credit for our successes, and disown responsibility for bad decisions, perceiving our subjective world through rainbow prisms." Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, (NY: Random House, 2007) 261.
"Yet these biases can be maladaptive as well as blinding us to our similarity to others and distancing us from the reality that people just like us behave badly in certain toxic situations. Such biases also mean that we don't take basic precautions to avoid the undesired consequences of our behavior, assuming it won't happen to us. So we take sexual risks, driving risks, gambling risks, health risks, and more. In the extreme version of these biases, most people believe that they are less vulnerable
to these self-serving biases than other people, even after being taught about them." 261.
I call what you are speaking of limiting beliefs. Beliefs that we never questioned and took as truth. Beliefs that don't serve us. Good article.
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