WEBVTT - The Spotlight Effect 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.560 Hello everyone. This is Seth the audio producer for Stuff 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:09.600 to Blow Your Mind. And there's just a quick note 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:13.399 before we start. Myself, Robert, and Joe. We are still 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:18.520 recording in isolation because it is the summer of and well, 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:20.560 this episode, we had a bit of a problem with 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.560 Robert's microphone. It was a one time thing. It shouldn't 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.960 happen again in the future, but for this episode, it's 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.000 going to sound a little bit like Joe is kind 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.960 of talking to a tv VCR combo and like a 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:37.519 bunker somewhere. But well, I guess that's technically kind of 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.440 what we're actually doing. But anyway, anyway, point is this 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:46.040 is a one time incident. Uh, it's all still very understandable, 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.120 very easy to listen to in this episode of cleaned 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:50.960 it up as best I can, and next time it'll 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.240 sound just like normal, we promise. Thanks, enjoy the show. 0:00:57.560 --> 0:00:59.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Production. If I 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:09.200 heart radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.040 My name is Robert Lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. In 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:16.160 Today we're gonna be talking about mostly focusing on a 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.680 classic psychology paper about an effect in uh in the 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:25.280 kind of social cognitive bias known as the spotlight effect. 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:27.839 But to get into this subject, I wanted to start 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:29.959 off by thinking about something that a lot of people 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.520 have found themselves doing in the past few months. Of 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.920 people who maybe this wasn't part of your job very 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.280 much recently, but now you spend a significant portion of 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:45.120 your day in web video meetings, staring at little boxes 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.080 of your co workers faces on a computer screen, or 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:53.080 maybe just staring at your own face a lot. Yes, uh, 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:55.520 I mean, in fact, right now is Joe and I 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.440 are recording this. We are using a Zoom call. We 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.840 are using a Zoom conference to communicate with each other, 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.080 and then we're using some other programs and what not 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.000 to to actually record it. But yeah, a lot of 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:09.880 people haven't. You may be using something different. You might 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:14.359 be using what there's like Google meet, Microsoft meeting, like 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.240 Facebook flop. I mean they're like a million of them, right, 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.800 I mean this is an optagram. Yeah, it's a growth 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.280 industry figuring out and it makes sense. Right. We need 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.080 to still be able to connect with each other, We 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.240 still need to have meaningful meetings and all of those 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.000 less meaningful meetings, and in order to keep the gears 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.240 of business grinding away. Right. Yeah. And one of the 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:39.640 strange things I've noticed, and I've read other people noticing 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.560 the exact same thing, is that you might expect that 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.080 being able to do a meeting from your home over 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.079 the internet would be maybe less exhausting than a meeting 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.680 in person, But somehow I have not found it to 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.079 be the case. I found that, like, video chats can 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.680 be just intensely draining, like after where they're over, you 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.840 feel like you've been lifting weights or something. Uh. And 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.200 part of what's going on here I found very much 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.600 embodied in the spirit of an article that I saw 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:12.560 link to. It's it's just a Medium post. And I 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.800 want to be very clear that I'm not passing judgment 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.200 on the author here, that nothing wrong with with this person, 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.000 but the title of it just gave me chills. And 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.160 the title of this medium post was how to fake 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:30.720 eye contact during video chats and why it's important. Yes, uh, 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.160 this this was this is interesting. This was what a 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:40.080 medium article by Alexa Curtis, And they made three key 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.280 suggestions here. The first one is to use a webcam 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.280 even if no one else is okay. The second is 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.240 trick yourself into looking at the camera instead of at 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:54.840 the screen impossible, and then tape your prompts, your notes 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.240 whatever to your monitor as much as possible instead of 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.160 having to refer to like a notepad something. Yeah, the 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.400 suggestion is like, make a little fake face to go 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.200 around the webcam box so that you're looking into the 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.480 camera instead of at the screen. But I just don't 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.200 think it's like if your face is played back on 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.479 the screen unless you are able to turn your face 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:20.640 off for yourself. You just you're not going to be 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.200 able to help it, are you. Yeah. I actually, before 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.720 I read this, I kind of thought because I'd catch 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.800 myself doing this. Um. Now, now I should say that 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.240 I am lucky and that I do not have to 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.119 set through just hours and hours of meetings today and zoom. 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.840 I have friends who are definitely stuck in that boat, 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.839 and they seem exhausted by it. We use zoom in 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.440 these recordings, but for the most part, we're not actually 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.040 engaging in the video part of it. We we have 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.360 other stuff, we have notes, stuff that we're looking at 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.400 when we're recording. But I have found this to be 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.159 the case with my my Dungeons and Dragons group, which 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.960 used to meet in person, but now it's forced to 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:00.480 meet via zoom and we have this, you know, and 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.440 it's like a two or three hour zoom called you know, 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:05.160 like a three hour zoom called it would do once 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:09.200 a week to do Dengon and Dragons. And for some reason, 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.240 I've been noticing that I've just I felt kind of 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.719 worn out by it towards the end of of the night, 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.240 um in ways that I wasn't worn out previously meeting 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.359 in person, Like I just kind of felt zapped by it, 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.320 like if if we were battling something at the end, 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.680 I'm just kind of going through the motions. I'm just 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.360 not feeling it anymore at that point. Yeah, exact same experience. 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.479 I've done social stuff via video calls. I've also been 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.039 doing a D and D campaign, my my first ever 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.960 by the way, thank you over over zoom, and it's 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:42.760 been a lot of fun. But yes, it is. It 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:47.200 is kind of exhausting to just participate in the in 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.320 the eyeball Tennis of of the different video faces on 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.360 the screen. Something about it hooks its claws into your 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.800 brain and just pulls and stretches and kind of needs 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.679 your brain like a ball of dough. Yeah, now, fortunately, 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.119 I don't know how your campaign is going, but with ours, 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.440 were also using a couple other resources. We're using a 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:10.200 discord forum, and we're using role twenty to pull up 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.240 maps and such. So maybe maybe we should upgrade our 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.359 technology we're looking into. But but basically we have some 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.080 other things to captivate our eyes during this this process. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.120 I guess one of the things about a straight up 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.560 like business zoom meeting is a lot of times you're 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.120 just stuck in those Brady bunch um cubes, right, You're 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.400 just you're just stuck with all these little screen pictures 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.760 of people and uh and some sometimes you have it 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.279 set to where one will take dominance over the others, 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:37.599 but you may just be looking at a wall of 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:42.000 people's faces, and then you're thinking about again this point 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.760 of should I be making eye contact with everybody? Should 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.880 I be focusing on trying to be the most presentable, 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.400 you know, the most professional looking, Like when they look 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.560 at my little box, it's like watching a TV broadcast 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.680 and I'm making direct eye contact with them. Maybe, but 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.240 because I have a little sticky smiley face that I've 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.640 put out at the top of my computer by the camera. 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.640 There are multiple ways in which this type of interaction 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:07.719 is not normal. I mean, of course, it's not normal 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.160 to be interfacing through technology at all. Of course, it's 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:12.440 kind of strange that you're not looking at the person 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.080 but you're looking at the screen, so the eye contact 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.760 is off. I understand that that point in the article. 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.360 But at the same time, it is not normal to 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.440 be able to see yourself while you're talking to people. 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:27.080 I can imagine if you know you were always talking 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.200 to people with a mirror in your hand that was 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:34.360 reflecting your face. Yeah, people would rightfully think you were insane. 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.240 That was how like self obsessed you were that you 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.320 go or I don't know, or afraid of Gordon's that 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:43.600 you always had to have a mirror in your hand. 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.360 And yet that's the reality we find ourselves there. And 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:48.320 I know this is this is not just like our 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.400 particular reaction to this. This is something that that I've 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.160 read about in multiple popular articles and also not just 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.240 an obscure scientific articles. Like there was an article I 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.840 came across in I think of his Business Insider that 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.600 is called like why you can't stop steering at yourself 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:07.440 in zoom calls. Yes, this was by Shia Fetter. Titled 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.080 a cyber Psychologist explains why you can't stop steering yourself 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:14.080 on zoom calls and everyone else is probably doing the same, um, 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.680 which I I have caught myself doing this sometimes during 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.800 Dunus and dragons, sometimes during work calls, where you know 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:23.640 you want to check in, you want to see how 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.040 you were presenting to the rest of the world. But 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.480 then it's often easy to sort of, you know, to 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:31.680 to to. You're looking at these wall of faces, and 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.160 then you decide to maximize your own, and you're like, 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.120 all right, let's see, how's the light hitting me, what's 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.040 my hair doing right now? How presented my smiling weird? 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.160 Like smiling weird? Do I look do I look engaged? 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:47.960 Or do I look as bored as I feel? You know? Um? 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.840 And so that's what this article gets into a little 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.360 of that year. So um. The article discusses some key 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:57.320 points made by cyber psychologist Andrew Franklin. So the first 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.079 one is that in general, adolescents tend to suffer for 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:04.160 from the imaginary audience delusion, the idea that people in 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.400 the surroundings are really paying attention to every move they make, 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.360 and this often follows us into adulthood as well. Yeah, 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.240 and this I think is pretty close to or perhaps 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.760 even just another name for the main issue we're going 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.199 to be focusing on today and otherwise known as the 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:24.319 spotlight effect. Now, one thing about this, this point about adolescents. 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.520 I mean, this is of course terrifying to think about, 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.760 given the nature of social media, which is pretty much 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:36.760 predicated on this sort of celebrity aspiring notion of a 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:40.440 constant audience and uh and in one tends to drift 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.120 to extremes and reaction to that, right, this feeling that 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.839 every word I put on the Internet, or every video, 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.120 every whatever is vitally important and will be viewed by 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:54.080 potentially everyone in the world. Yes, you're not just constantly 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:58.680 on view you are constantly being reviewed, is the perception. Yeah, 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.040 I know, obviously that's it's gonna from person person and 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.400 there some people are gonna use social media in a 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.439 way that hasn't far more limited scope only close friends 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:09.920 or maybe even family, maybe just one person can see 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.520 you know. But but but yeah, it does make me 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.280 wonder and this would have to be a you know, 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:18.440 a discussion for another time, like just what what what 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.520 is happening when this um spotlight effect, This imaginary audience 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:28.280 delusion is playing uh into our use of social media. Yeah, 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:32.320 but also so this psychology professor Andrew Franklin also makes 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.600 the point that like it's not just an illusion that 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.480 like video chats are actually exhausting. Yeah, Yeah, to make 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.000 the point that video chats are more stressful than in 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.880 person meetings, and a big part of that is just 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:49.520 everything is more distracted, more fragmented, and we have muted 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:54.240 or severely lessened nonverbal communicative skills. So you think of 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:56.599 a lot of this is kind of an overstatement of 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.240 the obvious, but you can do far less with your 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.400 body language, not only your overt body language like talking 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.400 with your hands and waving down people the other side 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.080 of the table, but in terms of just having a 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.839 bodily awareness of what everyone is doing and how they 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.440 are sort of reacting to what's going on, and if 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.880 someone else is about to speak or needs to speak. Yes, 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.080 And it's actually hard to tell who's looking at who, 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.599 Like you can assume if there are a bunch of 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.240 Brady bunch boxes that people are probably looking if they're 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.679 not looking at themselves, they're probably looking at the person 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.600 who's currently talking. But maybe not. You can't tell. Yeah, 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:34.720 And and it's also weird to think, like, I guess 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:36.840 maybe some of you out there had more of like 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.680 a you know, rules of order kind of a upbringing 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:42.920 or or you know, you had some more training and Okay, 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:45.440 this is how, this is how a business meeting goes, 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.080 this is how a work meeting operates. But I feel 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:49.320 for my part, a lot of it's just kind of 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:50.960 you just learn it. You go just sort of figure 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.800 out what is the culture of this group and this meeting, 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.520 and and how am I supposed to fit in? And 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.559 then to a certain extent, it feels like we've had 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.760 to relearn all of that or augment our understanding of 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.480 that based on the limitations of the technology. Yeah. I 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.080 think that's totally right, And and I would I would 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.440 emphasize yet again that not all digital socialization skills are 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:15.040 are interchangeable or transferable to one another. So you might 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.559 have been well acclimatized to the social skills one needs 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:22.319 in order to interact through a different type of mediated 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.800 social media like like Facebook or Twitter or something like that, 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.520 and still not really have any skills for how to 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.320 interact via a video chat. It's just like a different 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.280 set of skills, a different set of things to get 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.520 used to. Yeah, it's a different talking stick entirely now now. 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.679 Franklin also drives something that given the strain of keeping 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.760 up with everyone's tiny boxes and concern over how you 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:49.040 yourself look in your box, you might easily find yourself 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.080 just looking at yourself, staring into the digital mirror and 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.040 fixating on how you appear to friends, co workers, and 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:59.319 bosses and and Franklin maintains that this means you're likely overwhelmed. 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.120 I perceive games which which I totally get. Again, even 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.240 with the low stakes confines of dungeons and dragons. You know, 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.240 nothing huge is on the line here. But by the 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:11.040 end of the of the session again, I often find 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.679 myself kind of zapped in ways that I never felt 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:17.240 before within person gaming. And even though we're staring into 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:22.040 that digital reflection of our own face, Franklin stresses that 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.920 people are ultimately not fixating on you like you think 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.160 they are. They are not setting there watching you and 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.920 you know, dissecting everything about your appearance and in your 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.680 background and what your face is doing in any any 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.160 given sect. Yeah, No, they're probably much more likely fixating 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.439 on themselves the same way you are fixating on yourself. 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:45.840 Um uh. And so this brings us back to the 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.640 cognitive bias that we're gonna be focusing on in today's episode, 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.800 also known as the spotlight effect. And this effect is 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.679 very interesting because, on one hand, I think it's one 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.600 of the simplest psychological phenomena we've ever talked about on 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.959 the show. It's actually very simple to observe. It's very 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.040 straightforward in a way. But it's one of those things 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.080 where if you really internalize it, it's implications could be 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.959 kind of life changing. Yeah, it's one of these things 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:16.520 that doesn't I wouldn't say that it really like changes 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.080 in the nature of your reality, but it brings certain 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:26.000 aspects of it into maybe sharper focus. You might realize, Oh, well, okay, 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.560 that explains some of the things I feel when I 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.000 am in a meeting or you know, just walking around 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.640 u uh, you know, in a public space, or or 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.560 whatever the case may be. Um, I do feel like 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:43.520 it does it does? It does feel like a revelation 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:46.400 of it in its own way. Yeah. So the main 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.160 paper that I wanted to focus on today was published 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.239 in the year two thousand in the Journal of Personality 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:56.440 and Social Psychology by Thomas Gilovich of Victoria who Staid 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:00.520 Medvec and Kenneth Savitsky, and it's called the spot effect 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.960 in Social Judgment and ecocentric bias and Estimates of the 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.240 salience of one zone actions and appearance. You can pretty 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.680 easily find a full PDF of this online if you 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.760 want to read it. And this is a highly cited paper. 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:15.960 It has been referred to many many times in the 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.840 years since as a kind of seminal work on this 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:23.680 on this social cognitive bias. So the authors begin with 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:28.240 some anecdotal observations, and these observations are that for both 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.080 good and ill, it often seems like stuff you expect 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:38.040 other people to notice and recall about you really goes unnoticed. Uh. 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.160 And also on the good side, that might be like 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.040 something smart that you said in a discussion group. You're 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:47.400 like really pleased with yourself that like, oh, I had 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.000 that really good insight or I made that really funny joke, 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.040 and then it turns out later that nobody else seems 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:57.360 to recall that you said anything. Or perhaps this often 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.720 actually happens in athletic contexts where people will make a 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.480 really good shot in a basketball game or something, and 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.280 they will expect people to remember that they did that. 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.720 But then maybe it turns out that nobody really noticed. 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.080 It just kind of was one of the goals in 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:14.680 a game in which many goals were scored. And as 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.200 frustrating as this can be, it can also kind of 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.440 be a relief that it works the other way to 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:23.600 People often don't seem to have noticed when you make 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.560 what feels like a really obvious mistake faux paw on 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.040 a first meeting, or when you misspeak and what feels 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.880 like an embarrassing way, or that time you had spinach 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.240 in your teeth, like you obsess over that and you're 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.400 afraid it's going to completely ruin your reputation, that everybody's 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:42.240 gonna remember you for that thing forever. But a lot 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.120 of times it seems like maybe nobody even noticed. Yeah, 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:49.600 the dual nature of this particular revelation, I think ultimately 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:51.880 it is positive because yeah, and maybe it means you're 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.120 not as important as you thought you're. Maybe you're not 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.680 it's a it's a it's explosive personality as you thought 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.400 you were. But on the other hand, uh, you know, 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:02.680 maybe the stakes are a little bit lower every time 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.000 you hope in your mouth. Yeah. Yeah, that's the hypothesis 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.639 at the heart of this paper, that these anecdotal observations 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.880 are indicative of a real trend that can be measured 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:17.920 that in general, humans have an egocentric bias that causes 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.480 us to believe that our actions and our appearance are 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:25.320 much more salient and notable to other people than they 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:29.359 really are. Quote. People tend to believe that more people 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:31.760 take a note of their actions and appearance than is 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:36.320 actually the case. We dubbed this putative phenomenon the spotlight effect. 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.840 People tend to believe that the social spotlight shines more 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.840 brightly on them than it really does. Yeah, this is 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.080 insightful and I think we can all match this up 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.480 pretty easily, first of all with our own experiences, but 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.240 also with some of the ideas that we've discussed on 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.560 the show before. Uh specifically, first of all, there's the 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.760 self narrative aspect of our inner thoughts, you know, through 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.639 the inner workings of consciousness, were constantly weaving together a 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.440 store about who we are and how we fit into 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.080 the world. It's a little movie, and we're the main character, 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.640 so of course we're the most important person in that story. Right, 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.360 you're trying to link together a series of what are 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:15.120 in fact sort of random events into a cohesive narrative 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.919 with the logic to it. Right. And then through theory 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.760 of mind, we're constantly running simulations about the mental states 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:26.200 of other people, specific people, people in general, known people, 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:30.280 unknown people, sort of hypothetical people, uh and uh. And 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:32.080 of course one of the key aspects of any of 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.200 these simulations is, you know, how do they relate to me, 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.480 how do they think about me? What are their intentions 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.639 towards me? And that makes sense, right, There's an inherently 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.359 self centered quality to this sort of thinking, because it 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:46.960 all comes down to individual survival. We tend to air 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.640 on the side of seeing tigers in the grass when 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.200 there are none, which is better of the two possible 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.320 gambles here, But it also means going through life perpetually 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.680 imagining how the tiger sees you. Yeah, and so this 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.840 is in some ways the exact social equivalent of the 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.439 agency detection overdrive, where you, you know, over interpret a 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.280 crack of a twig as a tiger in the grass. Here, 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.000 you over interpret any little thing that that you think 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.639 maybe going wrong in a social interaction as something that 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.520 people will notice and remember and judge you for. So 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:22.280 maybe we should take a quick break and then when 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.600 we come back we can get a little bit further 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:30.800 into this study. Thank alright, we're back. Okay. So we're 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.080 talking about the study from the year two thousand by 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.480 Gilovich and co authors who are putting forth this this 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.879 putative phenomenon that at the time they called the spotlight effect, 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:44.480 the idea that we overestimate the salience of our appearance 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.960 and our behavior to other people. And the authors here 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.639 note several lines of previous research that helped point to 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.640 this conclusion. One of them is, first of all, this 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.160 may not be surprising at all, but people do tend 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:01.160 to have egocentric biases that you can measure quite easily 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:05.040 in in in tests. These are biases that overstate the 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:08.600 importance of the self. Just one example the site is 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.480 a paper by Ross and Sickly published in nineteen seventy 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.800 nine called ego centric Biases and Availability and Attribution, and 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.080 it showed it showed this in the realm of what's 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:24.040 called responsibility allocation, Who did, how much and how important 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.040 was what they did? So there are several different ways 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:30.480 you can test for this. Uh maybe in discussion groups, 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:36.160 maybe in household chores, maybe in basketball teams. Uh quote 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:41.120 one zone, contributions to a joint product are more readily available. 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:45.720 That is, more frequently and easily recalled. Individuals accepted more 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:50.200 responsibility for a group product than other participants attributed to them. 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:52.840 So the easy way of thinking about this is, oh, 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:57.159 our team one, because I scored that goal. Yeah. I 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:01.360 found this particularly telling. The authors now that that research 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:06.240 indicates that when individuals undertake complex social interactions, they alternate 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.400 between the roles of speaker or actor and listener or observer, 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.840 but much of their attention is ultimately going to be 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:18.280 directed in many cases at planning and executing their own responses. 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:20.600 And I think we can relate to this. Uh. You 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:23.520 know when when those times when you haven't quite zoned 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:25.680 out on a meeting, like you're not just or or 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:27.760 a conversation and you're not just you know, out here 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.600 thinking about Star Wars in the back of your head. No, 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.840 you're focusing instead on the thing that you're getting ready 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:39.119 to say, your interjection into the conversation, the joke that 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.479 you are intending to make when you get the talking 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:46.000 stick um, and uh, you know, because ultimately that's often 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:47.920 a part of any kind of like three way or 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:52.439 or or larger conversation is when when is it going 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:54.639 to be my turn? And how am I going to 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:57.879 make the most out of my my time speaking. I 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:00.639 believe there's actually a name for this exact defect. It's 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:02.720