The imaginary audience is a psychological concept common in adolescence, where a person believes they are constantly being observed by peers, family, and strangers. This belief can lead to harmful behavior, but most people grow out of it. Maintaining this belief into adulthood can be a sign of social or psychological disorders. The concept has also been applied to social networking.
The imaginary audience is a psychological concept common to the adolescent stage of human development. It refers to the belief that a person is under constant and careful observation by peers, family members, and strangers. In reality, only a small percentage of these people are interested in a person’s activities, and a mature worldview usually reduces the impression that this imaginary audience exists. Some people, however, hold this misconception into adulthood. The term has also been applied in studies of the social networking phenomenon of the 21st century.
The term imaginary public was coined by child psychologist David Elkind in 1967. Elkind was studying adolescent egocentrism, the well-documented belief of adolescents that the world revolves around them. This, Elkind argued, is not a psychological aberration, as it might be in an adult. Rather, it is a natural part of the process of developing a healthy understanding of one’s relationship to the world. Most people will eventually gain a more realistic perspective on the roles they play in their peer groups as they mature.
Meanwhile, imaginary audiences can add to the turbulent effect adolescence has on many teenagers. Some become obsessed with appearance, with results ranging from harmless emotional crises to acne breakouts to potentially life-threatening eating disorders. Others will fixate on a particular peer group, imagining members of that group judging their own actions or seeking approval from people who are really just clueless teenagers like themselves. These events can seem traumatic to those with little life experience. By late adolescence or early adulthood, however, such crises fade in importance as people experience life-changing events such as college graduation, marriage, and raising children.
Maintaining an imaginary audience into adulthood can be a sign that a person suffers from paranoia or other social or psychological disorders. Most people entertain such fantasies from time to time. Constant or recurring feelings of being watched, judged, or stalked by strangers can signal a more significant problem. These feelings can sometimes be soothed by membership in a church or other social groups, such as those based on work or a hobby, encouraging healthy social interactions. If this isn’t effective, a trained therapist can help put things into perspective.
In the 21st century, psychologists sometimes refer to imaginary audiences in the context of social networks. These activities encourage members to regularly update friends, family and colleagues, informing them of their daily activities or moments of personal importance. Users may imagine an audience for these updates that is very different from their actual readership. If social networking really does change the way people interact, as many commentators suggest, imaginary audiences could become a major factor in adult relationships.
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