Egotism

Egotism ( borrowed from the Engl. Egotism, French égotisme ) refers to the exaggerated tendency to place themselves into the foreground. He is to be distinguished from the term selfishness.

Origin

Coined the term in 1714 by the English essayist Joseph Addison. In his literary and moral weeklies Addison criticizes the term the exaggerated use of the I - pronoun and the egocentric self- representation of some of his contemporaries. In the 18th century, it was not usual, " I " to use the word in literary works. For example, writes Horace Walpole in 1764 in the preface to the second edition of his novel The Castle of Otranto: " The inclined recording, which the reading world paid tribute to this little narrative, asks the poet to explain the principles on which he verfertigte. " Using the " third person " instead of the word " I " does not prevent the author from himself, until then the public as a politician known to refer to in the first sentence as " poet " and to follow a circuitous self-expression.

The term was coined in 1832 by the French writer and philosopher Stendhal ( 1783-1842 ) in his autobiographical text Souvenirs d' Égotisme taken (German memories of egotists ) and differentiated in an honest and a hideous egotism. With the honest egotism he scrutinized his own literary work and the importance of his message, as he interprets the abominable egotism in the sense Addison.

Egotism is now occupied in language use, especially with its negative connotations. The term describes the motivation for yourself to make only positive features in the foreground and to describe these prolix and strengthened. This can lead to overconfidence and loss of reality. In relation to the environment is destructive egotism can affect and often achieve the opposite of what should be intended by the self- representation originally. The egotism is closely related to that effect with the narcissism, a term that has been introduced in 1914 by Sigmund Freud as a psychological technical term.