Human beings tend to go through different forms of emotions under different circumstances. Ranging from happiness to anxiety or depressed states, each of such feelings could be well defined under different phases of one’s life. Spotlight Effect
Of all such mental feelings and emotions, certain emotional effects are biologically specified. One such feeling is the spotlight effect. In this, we would learn more about this expressive state.
What is the spotlight effect?
Several social psychologists use the term “spotlight effect” to state the capability we have to overvalue how much other persons notice us. The effect is so named because in this state an individual feels that there is a spotlight on him/her at all the times of the day or while being in surroundings each time.
This makes him feel like everybody by his close are pointing him out about the mistakes, flaws, and everything else that the other person wants to see.
Recognition factor of this effect.
For people suffering from several kinds of social anxiety, this effect can have a worsened level. In such cases, the spotlight effect can have a tragic effect on the normal ability of a person to carry out the day-to-day tasks.
The patient may feel comfortable even in simple works and pieces of stuff. Even if it is uncommon that a person under such an effect feels embarrassed, the people with social anxiety can get overstated.
To learn more about this state, let us consider an instance. An individual under the spotlight effect, waking up in the morning and going out for work may feel like everybody is noticing and secretly thinking something bad for him.
Persons under such emotion may get discomforted and try to blush or hide from coworkers. He may feel distressed thinking that the people surrounding him are either making or pitying him.
The history behind the understanding of this effect.
The term “spotlight effect” was originally devised by Thomas Gilovich, Victoria Husted Medvec, and Kenneth Savitsky jointly. The article regarding this emotional effect entered the world of psychology by initially getting published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science in 1999. Even if people learned about the term fr the first time, they were aware of this effect. Many people facing the spotlight effect have been noticed so far to have a clear understanding of this mental issue. Several aspects associated with the discovery of this effect are elaborated as follows:
- After the spotlight effect was discussed in 1999, Gilovich, Husted Medvec, and Savitsky described a similar phenomenon to the spotlight effect to have occurred in some individuals. This effect was called the false-consensus effect.
- The spotlight effect shows a substantial part in numerous diverse features of psychology and society.
- Sometimes the embarrassment can become a core reason behind the increment in mental problem. It is so in the case of the spotlight effect i.e, the excessive timing of exposure to an embarrassing situation can increase the severity of the spotlight effect in a patient.
In case the exposure to such embarrasses is immediate, the effect can raise up to a level where an individual loses his complete sense of judgment.
