The Spotlight Effect

The Spotlight Effect

Have you ever felt like you were the center of attention and were sure that everyone around you noticed the smallest mistakes and shortcomings you made? If so, maybe you are experiencing what is called the “spotlight effect.”

The spotlight effect refers to the tendency to think that people notice us more than they do. The bias shows up frequently in our day-to-day lives, both in positive situations (like when we nail a presentation and overestimate how impressed all our friends must be), and in negative ones (such as when we bomb the presentation and feel like everybody must be laughing about it behind our backs).

Let’s say you accidentally tripped while going up the stairs with your friends. You feel like everyone is watching you make a fool of yourself, and you’re embarrassed. However, when you bring it up with your friends a few weeks after, nobody else remembers the incident. Another incident can be when you are having a bad hair day or are wearing unironed clothes, you feel like everyone notices and even judges you as a person when it’s not the case. In early studies on the spotlight effect, researchers had college student participants wear an embarrassing t-shirt to class and asked them to estimate how many of their peers would notice it. While 50% of the students suggested that their fellow students would notice, only about 25% actually reported noticing the shirts.

Feeling embarrassed and nervous after making a mistake is normal, moreover in public. Even so, if it drags on, it can disrupt your ability to carry out activities, reduce your level of self-confidence, affect your feeling of comfort around other people, and even lead to overthinking. Research states that people who experience the spotlight effect continuously over a long period of time are at risk of experiencing social anxiety disorder or social phobia. We tend to exaggerate how much people notice and care about what we do. We think that we are in the spotlight of everyone’s attention, especially when we make a mistake. However, in reality, it is not certainly true.

Spotlight effect is caused by egocentric bias. Having more information and full-access about our own thoughts and feelings, leads us to the tendency to center ourselves and place too much weight on our perspective. Being overly self-conscious and so aware of our own behavior and appearance, as well as not being able to realize differences in other’s perspectives, makes us forget that the people around us may not be that focused or even care. Familiarity can also play a role in the spotlight effect. We are more familiar with our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which makes us more likely to notice the changes in ourselves. Since it seems glaringly obvious to us, we magnify it and assume that it will be just as glaringly obvious to others. In addition, the anchoring bias, which means that we only have access to our own perceptions, causes us to become “anchored” on those ideas and struggle to adjust our thoughts to consider alternative ideas or other points of view.

Overcoming the spotlight effect can sometimes be as simple as reminding ourselves that this phenomenon exists. Once you can see that people’s focus is mainly on themselves, it will become easier to imagine that the spotlight is not shining on you and highlighting your flaws. When something makes you feel like you are in the spotlight, think about how you would respond if the same thing happened to somebody else. Once you realize that other people feel the same way about your own actions, you’ll probably start to feel more at ease and less like you are standing in front of a spotlight. Asking feedback from other people can help overcome egocentric bias which causes the spotlight effect since you can directly realize other people’s perspectives rather than just your own. Furthermore, if you find yourself grappling with nervousness or shame on a regular basis, experiencing anxiety or severe overthinking, talk with a therapist to discuss potential treatment options. At the end of the day, we need to remind ourselves that we are the center of our own world and overcome the spotlight effect.