Читать книгу Social Psychology - Daniel W. Barrett - Страница 173

How would you feel if you were asked, while wearing a T-shirt with a large headshot of Justin Bieber, to enter a room with 6 college students, all of whom could potentially notice your shirt (and are unlikely to be Bieber fans)? Perhaps a bit embarrassed? How many of them would likely remember who was on your shirt? Well, if you were like the participants in a set of studies by Gilovich, Medvec, and Savitsky (2000), you’d think that more people took note of it than actually did. Irrespective of our dispositional self-monitoring level, many of us overestimate the extent to which other people are observing and noticing us—something called the spotlight effect (Gilovich et al., 2000; Lawson, 2010). In one study, participants wore a T-shirt displaying the somewhat embarrassing image of Barry Manilow when they entered a room of college students (See Figure 4.4). Participants later estimated that 46% of observers would remember the celebrity on the T-shirt, when in fact only 23% did. People similarly exaggerate how many others notice when they wear a nonembarrassing shirt or make positive or negative contributions to a group discussion or engage in another social blunder (Epley, Savitsky, & Gilovich, 2002; Gilovich et al., 2000). In effect, people tend to think they are in a veritable social spotlight.

A related phenomenon occurs with respect to how strongly we believe that others can “read” our emotions or detect lies that we utter merely by looking at our facial expressions. Social psychologists call this the illusion of transparency (Gilovich, Savitsky, & Medvec, 1998; Holder & Hawkins, 2007). For example, participants in one study were asked to hide their expressions of disgust while drinking unpleasant fluids and subsequently overestimated how many observers accurately perceived their true reaction (Brown & Stopa, 2007; Gilovich et al., 1998; MacInnis, Mackinnon, & MacIntyre, 2010). Both the spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency illustrate the fact that accurately understanding how other people perceive us can be challenging (Gilovich & Savitsky, 1999).

Figure 4.4 The Spotlight Effect

Source: Adapted from Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 211–222.

Spotlight Effect: Overestimation of the extent to which other people are observing and noticing one

Illusion of Transparency: Incorrect belief that others can “read” our emotions or detect our lies merely by looking at our facial expressions