Spotlight effect: Why others don't find you as embarrassing as you think

Even years later, the memory of an embarrassing mishap or stupid mistake can haunt us. Suddenly, the feeling of shame resurfaces, and a situation from ages ago makes us embarrassed all over again. Not only does this not help us at all—we also tend to completely overestimate how embarrassing others really find us. This is due to the so-called spotlight effect.

The spotlight effect: How embarrassing, everyone is probably just looking at me!

The English term "spotlight" means "light" and is meant to illustrate that we feel the spotlight very strongly on ourselves when we do something supposedly embarrassing. This is a misconception, however, because others usually don't notice it all that much when we stumble, say something wrong, or spill ice cream on our tops.

In our minds, we're in the spotlight – but in reality, we overestimate how much our environment actually pays attention to us and notices us. Because most people are more concerned with themselves, they might notice a small stain on our blouse or that we've made a mistake – but they don't find it as dramatic as we do.

Most people are more concerned with themselves than with others

The spotlight effect is an example of a cognitive bias. Our view of the world, our personal experiences, and many other subjective factors often cause us to consider ourselves more important than we are—or rather, than others do. Since this isn't just true for us, but for most people around us, many are primarily concerned with themselves and far less attentive to the mistakes of others than we usually think.

Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone to the same extent. There are people who generally perceive more of their surroundings than others, or those who are more empathetic and therefore more able to empathize with others. But fundamentally, most people consider themselves more important—that is, focus more on themselves—than others.

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What science says about the spotlight effect

The spotlight effect has been demonstrated in various studies. For example, in a 2000 study, researchers divided participants into two groups. One group was asked to wear a T-shirt with an "embarrassing" motif, namely a photo of singer Barry Manilow, whose biggest hits were primarily in the 1970s and 1980s. The other group wore a shirt featuring either reggae singer Bob Marley, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, or comedian Jerry Seinfeld—people who were considered "cooler" than Barry Manilow, especially at the time of the study. The result: Only a quarter of the participants noticed the "embarrassing" or "cool" T-shirt of the study participants. This was significantly lower than the participants with the unpleasant Barry Manilow shirt had feared.

Another study from 2007 confirmed the spotlight effect, particularly in relation to social anxiety, a mental disorder in which those affected are intensely concerned about what others think of them and how they judge them. For the study, participants were given a memory task in which they were asked to remember things. The researchers told half of the participants that the conversation was being recorded; the other half were not. Ultimately, those who thought the exercise was being videotaped were significantly more embarrassed and insecure than those who did not.

Both studies highlight how dependent we often become on the opinions and judgments of others—and how we overestimate how much these others actually care about us. Keeping this in mind can help you deal with social anxiety and intense feelings of shame. Because if you drive yourself crazy because you think the person you're talking to is just staring at the ice cream stain on your top, it's much more likely that the other person is preoccupied with something else entirely, something they're incredibly embarrassed about.

Brigitte

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