Everyone’s watching me 😳 — Spotlight effect

Sporting a bad hair day, who's at the center of your universe, and tiny challenge of the week

Let’s say you head out in your PJs or a wrinkled T-shirt to take out the trash or maybe buy milk from the corner store.

Are you more or less likely to bump into an acquaintance than when you are not so shabby?

Most people, including me, think that they are more likely to bump into someone if they are not in their best form/wear/looks. We think that people would definitely notice those wrinkled shorts or messy hair 🤦🏻‍♀️.

In reality, people don’t pay as much attention to you as you think.

The mental mistake of overestimating the attention others are paying to you is called the Spotlight effect.

The term ‘spotlight effect’ was coined by Thomas Gilovich, Victoria Husted Medvec, and Kenneth Savitsky. They argued that people tend to believe that the social spotlight shines more brightly on them than it really does.

In reality, the spotlight feels like it’s on you because you are focussed on it, not because others are focussed on you.

How to turn that ridiculous T-shirt less ridiculous?

In an experiment, college students were called in groups to fill out a survey in a room. One randomly chosen main participant was given an arrival time 5 mins later than the others.

By the time the chosen participant arrived, everyone else was already filling the survey in a different room.

When this person arrived, he/she was instructed to wear a T-shirt with a huge picture of musician Barry Manilow’s face.

Barry Manilow was like Justin Bieber of that period. Most young adults were not too fond of him. It was an embarrassment to walk into a room wearing a T-shirt with his face on it 😱!

After the participant walked into the room with everybody else and sat down to fill out the survey, he/she was called out of the room and asked:

How many people in that room do you think would be able to tell who’s on your T-shirt?

In other words, how many people do you think noticed you wearing a ridiculous T-shirt?

On average, the main participants thought that 50% of the people noticed them in the ridiculous T-shirt.

The researchers later asked others if they had noticed what the latecomer was wearing.

Only 25% of the participants actually noticed the shirt!

The main participants highly overestimated the number of people noticing them.

In another experiment, the participants were not immediately sent to the other room after wearing the ridiculous T-shirt. They were told to wait for some time and settle-in in the new shirt before heading to the room with others.

These participants felt that less number of people noticed them.

When people got time to settle into the weird shirt, they were less prone to the spotlight effect.

The more conscious you are, the more you feel that others are noticing you.

When researchers told the participants to wait in the room wearing the ridiculous shirt, it gave them time to wear off the spotlight effect.

Just by wearing the shirt for some time before entering the room full of people, they were less conscious and were able to dodge the spotlight effect.

When they were not embarrassed about the T-shirt anymore, it felt like others didn’t notice it either.

So when you think that everyone else is paying unwanted attention to you, ask yourself:

Am I the one obsessing about it?

If you’re not confident wearing that new dress/tie to the party, get ready 20 mins earlier and roam around the house 👗👔.

The spotlight effect isn’t just about looks. It also affects what you say and how you conduct in public.

If you are not confident about public speaking, practice your speech in front of the mirror multiple times. The less conscious you are, the less it will feel that others are watching you.

In my ex-company, I was given the responsibility to give an orientation speech to the new employees. I was nervous the first time around. The more I delivered the speech, the more confident I became. Eventually, I start doing it without any hesitation.

Who’s at the center of your universe?

We are inherently selfish. We tend to think most about ourselves, not about others.

Whatever is happening in the world around you throughout the day, the question that keeps popping into our minds is:

How does this affect me?

You are at the center of your universe. What you don’t realize is that you’re not at the center of others’.

In reality, people are busy minding their own little insecurities.

They don’t pay as much attention to you as they do to themselves. They won’t notice your messy hair because they are worried about theirs 😅.

No one really gives a damn!

If you do something unusual, people might notice you briefly. They might even comment. But that’s that. They don’t keep pondering about it. Within the next five seconds, their attention will shift to something else, most likely to themselves or their smartphones.

No one remembers that awkward thing you said over drinks last evening.

Everyone thinks that the world revolves around them but it doesn’t.

When you make a smart point at the work meeting, it won’t be remembered forever.

Neither would the poor joke you cracked at the lunch table. Others have a shorter memory than we think for remembering our actions and behavior.

Egocentric bias

The root of the spotlight effect is the egocentric bias, our higher opinion of ourselves (and our views) than reality. It starts as soon as we are born.

When we are children, we think that the world revolves around us. We think that everyone sees the world just like we see it.

It’s often said that teenagers are very concerned with how they appear in front of their peers. They’d rather die than be seen with the wrong friends, with the wrong outfits, or with the wrong gadgets.

As we grow up, we come to understand that others don’t see the world as we do. We come to realize that others don’t always share our perspectives.

Yet, we heavily rely on our own perspective.

We use it as an anchor and adjust from there. But we don’t adjust enough.

We don’t go too far from what we think.

If you think that 50 people noticed your faux pas, you might dial it down to 40 or 30 in your mind. The reality could be just 3!

Free yourself from your spotlight

All of us suffer from the spotlight effect to some extent. The best move to dodging this mental mistake is to be consciously aware of it.

No one gives a damn about you is good news. Especially for people who are shy or have social anxiety.

You don’t have to check yourself before you say something. You don’t need to be uptight. You can be unapologetically yourself.

Stop worrying about what would people think. Don’t let anyone hold you back.

“I’d rather the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” — Lucille Ball

If you want to start a new venture and the only thing holding you back is ‘what would people think’, go for it.

If you want to learn to tap dance even though you’re not much of a dancer, show up for the dance lesson.

If you want to travel the world but worry that your boss and colleagues would laugh at the idea, put in that sabbatical.

Don’t worry about people judging you. They are too busy judging themselves.

Tiny challenge of the week

Go to a local cafe and sit by yourself, ideally in an outdoor setting or where you can easily see people around.

As you enjoy your coffee/tea/drink, resist the urge to reach out to your smartphone. Instead, observe people.

See how busy they are in their own head. Even if you were to do something awkward like spill your coffee, would anyone care? They might turn their head once, but that’s that.

Soak in the feeling of being free from the judging eyes of the world 😇.