The Spotlight Effect: Why No One Else Remembers What You Did
Imagine you’ve just walked into a room.
You’re wearing a t-shirt printed with a terrible joke. It’s printed in block letters, so there’s no way people can miss. The colours don’t even go well together. It’s downright embarrassing.
A couple of reactions are to be expected.
You can’t help but notice that a couple of your peers are glancing in your direction. Someone in the corner was snickering. A few people you passed were talking under their breath. It seems everyone has noticed this social gaffe you’ve made.
A couple of minutes later, you’re certain you’re never going to recover from this faux pas. Nobody is going to forget this moment.
All Eyes On Me
It’s an extremely relatable scenario.
Most of us have had moments of embarrassment since we’re young. We’ve asked stupid questions and done stupid things, only realising the mistake we’ve made later on. Afterwards, we can’t forget it. The image of our fourteen-year-old self tripping on flat ground still flashes in our minds.
But as researchers found out, we are terrible at assessing how noticeable our social gaffes are to others. In the above scenario where students had to wear an embarrassing t-shirt, the…
