The Spotlight effect is the name given to the tendency to exaggerate any defect or error, however small. Anyone who is a victim of this problem feels that everyone pays attention to themselves and judges even the smallest mistakes. This is typical among teens, but there are also many adults who experience it.
A person affected by the Spotlight effect will be afraid if they notice that they have a granite on their face, imagine that everyone is aware of this small imperfection and will look for the time to criticize it from behind. This type of person is inhabited, by two seemingly contradictory situations: they have low self-esteem but, at the same time, they feel at the center of the universe.
- “Only if I feel rewarding for who I am can I accept myself.
- Can I be authentic and can I be honest?.
- – Jorge Bucay-.
Advertisers are very familiar with the Spotlight effect. C is why you see a multitude of ads where a person is excluded or judged if they don’t use a particular product. These ads show scenes in which someone is joking or being rejected by everyone around him for not using a certain brand, or for not doing some action. Anyone who is obsessed with the opinions of others is a very easy-to-handle prey.
To give a more precise definition, let’s say that the Spotlight effect is the tendency to overestimate one’s own characteristics or personal behavior, this is because the affected person feels that any error, difficulty or problem is extremely striking to others. that most of humanity also has problems and imperfections.
You could say that the Spotlight effect is one of the faces of paranoia, the paranoid feels very special, different, the chosen one, not that he has excessive narcissism, but that he has an excessive fault for something that he himself is not aware of. It projects this blame on others, so it seems that everyone judges it constantly and severely. Besides, it makes up for this feeling of guilt by feeling falsely superior.
This type of person wants to maintain a personal image that he is better at this or that, and ends up becoming extremely dependent on the opinion of others in two ways. On the one hand, it must captivate others in one way or another; on the other hand, they are afraid of others, because they seem ruthless judges.
Researchers from Cornell University have investigated the Spotlight effect. The study consisted of assembling a group of volunteers and asking them to choose a shirt they considered embarrassing. They had to wear it all day and then calculate how many people had paid attention to the ridiculous shirt.
After completing this first stage of the experiment, everyone was asked how many people had looked with disapproval and then conducted an observer survey to compare this data with the volunteers’ responses.
The result was that many volunteers were wrong to calculate the number of people who had noticed them, and the figures showed that less than half had noticed the situation.
The most recommended to overcome this type of difficulty that falls on our unconscious is to do psychotherapy, there are also measures that can be taken in the short term and that are quite effective, some of them are:
It would be interesting to consider why you feel so insecure about others. The Spotlight effect is rooted in those who still have to accept themselves. There may be something that hurts you deeply, but you haven’t done much research to find it. Think about it, search your memory with an attitude of observation and not judgment, so you can really get to know each other.