ABSTRACT
In discussing the topic of egocentrism in relation to diaries, the audience factor must be considered. The diaries of young people are a unique source for revealing the development, over time, of the above trends in individual children. Wilkinson et al. have discovered that young children's sentences are narrative, descriptive, affirmative, literal, factual and self-oriented. The adolescent diaries bring to light the turbulent emotions of these young people, their swings from joy to despair. They appear to be using their diaries as one method of keeping a grip on their inner world of feeling. '"Social perception" has been defined as the "process by which man comes to know and to think about the other persons, their characteristics, qualities and inner states'". Moral judgements of their own behaviour reveal a similar trend to that depicted above. Older adolescents judged a particular action in terms of notions of intention and fairness.
