The spotlight effect is the psychological phenomenon by which people tend to believe they are being noticed more than they really are. Being that one is constantly in the center of one’s own world, an accurate evaluation of how much one is noticed by others is uncommon. The reason for the spotlight effect is the innate tendency to forget that although one is the center of one’s own world, one is not the center of everyone else’s. This tendency is especially prominent when one does something atypical.[1]
Research has empirically shown that such drastic over-estimation of one’s effect on others is widely common. Many professionals in social psychology encourage people to be conscious of the spotlight effect and to allow this phenomenon to moderate the extent to which one believes one is in a social spotlight.[2]
The spotlight effect is an extension of several psychological phenomena. Among these is the phenomenon known as anchoring and adjustment, which suggests that individuals will use their own internal feelings of anxiety and the accompanying self-representation as an anchor, then insufficiently correct for the fact that others are less privy to those feelings than they are themselves. Consequently, they overestimate the extent to which their anxiety is obvious to onlookers. In fact, Clark and Wells (1995) suggest that socially phobic people enter social situations in a heightened self-focused state, namely, from a raised emotional anchor. This self-focused state makes it difficult for individuals to set aside public and private self-knowledge to focus on the task.[5]
Oh, that’s what I do now. I also let people know that I forget names and please don’t take it personally when meeting them. I’ve had a lot of years to gain more wisdom than I had then. It’s trivially easy to be up front. 19yo me, though, didn’t know shit.
I let them know when I meet them that I’m going to forget their names. That helps when I eventually do forget it somewhere between 5 minutes and a week later. If I don’t forget it, then I’ve exceeded their expectations, and they feel special.
Just say “I’m sorry, your name slipped my mind” and ask again.
Honestly, people really don’t care.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_effect
Oh, that’s what I do now. I also let people know that I forget names and please don’t take it personally when meeting them. I’ve had a lot of years to gain more wisdom than I had then. It’s trivially easy to be up front. 19yo me, though, didn’t know shit.
I let them know when I meet them that I’m going to forget their names. That helps when I eventually do forget it somewhere between 5 minutes and a week later. If I don’t forget it, then I’ve exceeded their expectations, and they feel special.
My anxiety cannot be dominated by a wiki article but nice try
Thanks for sharing that. I know someone who will really benefit from reading and understanding this.