Spotlight Effect, 3

An article by Gilovich, et al, entitled: “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(02), 211–222), pointed out that aspects of social judgment are impacted by the spotlight effect. That is, people routinely overestimate the extent to which their contributions make an impact on those around them, especially the significance of one’s ideas and contributions within a group. Researchers found that in a group setting, contributions by an individual are perceived by that individual as being more significant than the contributions of their group members. No surprise, the other members in the group believe the same thing about their own individual contributions. More tomorrow.