The spotlight effect in social judgment: an egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one's own actions and appearance.

@article{Gilovich2000TheSE,
  title={The spotlight effect in social judgment: an egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one's own actions and appearance.},
  author={Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Husted Medvec and Kenneth Savitsky},
  journal={Journal of personality and social psychology},
  year={2000},
  volume={78 2},
  pages={
          211-22
        }
}
This research provides evidence that people overestimate the extent to which their actions and appearance are noted by others, a phenomenon dubbed the spotlight effect. In Studies 1 and 2, participants who were asked to don a T-shirt depicting either a flattering or potentially embarrassing image overestimated the number of observers who would be able to recall what was pictured on the shirt. In Study 3, participants in a group discussion overestimated how prominent their positive and negative… 
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