The Spotlight Effect Or When You See A Storm In A Glass Of Water
The Spotlight Effect is the name given to the tendency to oversize any flaw or error, no matter how small. Anyone who is a victim of this problem feels like everyone cares about them and judges their every mistake. This is typical of adolescents, but there are also many adults who suffer from this effect.
A person suffering from the Spotlight effect will be afraid if they see a pimple on their face. Imagine everyone paying attention to this little imperfection and instantly looking to criticize it behind their backs. There are two seemingly contradictory situations encountered in this type of person: they have low self-esteem and, at the same time, they feel like they are the center of the universe.
Advertisers are well aware of the Spotlight effect. This is why you will see a lot of ads where someone makes a bad impression on everyone if they are not using a certain product. They present us scenes in which someone is singled out or rejected by everyone around them when they are not wearing a certain mark or performing a certain action. Those who are so obsessed with the opinions of others are easy prey for manipulation.
What is the Spotlight effect?
To give a more precise definition, let’s say that the Spotlight effect is the tendency to overestimate one’s own personal characteristics or behaviors. This is because the person concerned believes that any mistake or difficulty is extremely striking to others. He didn’t realize that most of humanity doesn’t care if you have a stained shirt or a piece of salad stuck between your teeth.
You could say that the Spotlight effect is one of the faces of paranoia. The paranoid feels special, different, chosen. It’s not that he has too much narcissism, but rather that he feels guilty about something he is not aware of. He projects this guilt onto others and it seems to him that everyone is constantly judging him harshly. In turn, he compensates for the feeling of guilt by feeling falsely superior.
These kinds of people are so eager to maintain this image of themselves that they are better than other people, that they end up becoming extremely dependent on the opinions of those same people, in both ways. On the one hand, they have to captivate others in one way or another. On the other hand, they are afraid of others because they see them as relentless judges.
An eye-opening experience
An experiment on the Spotlight effect was carried out at Cornell University. The study involved getting a group of volunteers together and asking them to choose a t-shirt that they found embarrassing. They must have worn it for a day and calculated how many people noticed this ridiculous garment.
At the end of this first part of the experiment, the researchers asked everyone how many people had observed them disapprovingly. In addition, a survey was conducted among observers to compare it with the responses of volunteers.
As a result, many volunteers made a significant error in calculating the number of people who noticed them. The numbers showed that less than half of them had noticed the garment.
Overcome the Spotlight effect
Psychological therapy is recommended to overcome this type of difficulty that resides in our unconscious. However, there are also measures that can be taken in the short term that are effective. Some of these measures are:
- Check the validity of the assumptions. It is worth replicating the Cornell experience, on our scale. You can do this by making a mistake or being silly, and then asking others to see if they really noticed.
- Analyze the reasons for the shame. It is good to wonder why this error or flaw is so serious as it seems. Is it really that bad?
- Remember his qualities. It is advisable to oppose a reflection on its virtues to the feeling that others judge us, whether the latter situation is true or not. What makes us precious? Why is a pimple on our face or a stain on our shirt making us lose our worth?
It would be interesting to examine why you feel so insecure about who you are. The Spotlight effect takes root in those who have not been able to accept themselves. There might be something that you deeply regret, but you don’t know what it is. Think about it, appeal to your memory, with an attitude not of self-flagellation, but of will to self-knowledge.
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