When you feel that “everyone saw me embarrass myself,” cut that estimate in half

Cost

Free. You just ask yourself one more question when you are nervous: did they really see it?

What you get

Experiment one: participants wore a T-shirt printed with a picture of Barry Manilow and walked into a room with other participants. The wearers estimated on average that 46% of onlookers could correctly name the person on the shirt. The onlookers' actual rate of correct answers was 23%, so the estimate was exactly twice the real value. Taking the estimate minus the actual value session by session, the average overestimate was 23 percentage points (95% CI 9–38, the plausible range). After removing the two sessions that had only two and three onlookers, it was 27 percentage points (11–43). Experiment two: participants wore a T-shirt of their own choosing that they considered positive. The average estimate was 48%, and the onlookers' actual rate of correct answers was 8%, so the estimate was six times the real value. The authors note in a footnote that in the two experiments the wearers' estimates were almost the same (48% and 46%); the difference was in the onlookers' rate of correct answers (8% and 23%). The authors suspect the main reason is that the questionnaire given to onlookers in experiment two took more effort to fill out, not that a flattering shirt is easier to overestimate. Experiment three: undergraduates were split into groups of 3 to 7, discussed an assigned topic for 20 minutes, and then wrote a policy recommendation together. Right after the discussion, each person separately estimated how the others in the group would rank everyone; a smaller rank number means nearer the front. On “how many mistakes people made,” the rank people estimated for themselves averaged 2.30, while the rank others actually gave was 2.96, a difference of −0.66 (p < .01). So people think the mistakes they made stand out more in others' eyes. The same was true for “remarks that might offend” (2.35 vs. 2.90, p < .01), and the gap was smaller for “remarks others would pick on” (2.61 vs. 2.82, p < .05). Another series of studies had three settings: strangers paired to talk, freshman college roommates, and adult workshops. The result was that people systematically underestimate how much the person they talked with likes them, and also how much the other person enjoyed the conversation. The authors call this the “liking gap.” It was present in conversations of different lengths, and persisted for months among freshman roommates.

Notes

The reason it is graded B: these are all small lab and campus studies, in the settings of wearing a shirt, chatting with strangers or roommates, and a student group discussion, with the question asked right after the discussion ended. Carrying them over to “being talked about by coworkers” or “saying the wrong thing in a meeting and whether anyone still remembers a few days later,” there is no direct evidence. These numbers only show the direction of the overestimate and roughly how many times over; they can't be applied as a coefficient. Other people's opinions are not all unimportant. In situations where you really are being evaluated, such as interviews, thesis defenses, performance reviews and medical checkup reports, the evaluation is real, and you should prepare as needed. What to discount is only the everyday feeling that “everyone is watching me,” and what you are dealing with there is your own estimation bias.

Evidence grade

B : Supported by research but without a precise number, or based on small or single studies.

Sources

1. Gilovich T, Medvec VH, 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(2), 211–222. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.2.211
2. Boothby EJ, Cooney G, Sandstrom GM, Clark MS (2018). The Liking Gap in Conversations: Do People Like Us More Than We Think? Psychological Science, 29(11), 1742–1756. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618783714

Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 3, tip 21. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer