The T-shirt

About this video

You walk into a room of 20 students wearing a T-shirt you find really embarrassing. You stay a minute and leave. How many of them noticed what was on your T-shirt? Most people guess about half, around 10. It feels obvious that a room would notice. But the people in the room have their own things to think about.

In 2000 the psychologists Thomas Gilovich, Victoria Medvec and Kenneth Savitsky ran this exact test with university students in the United States. Each student put on a T-shirt with the face of a famous singer that most students their age found embarrassing to wear, walked into a room where other students sat filling in forms, stayed a moment and left. The students in the T-shirt guessed that about half the room had noticed. In fact only about a quarter could say whose face it was. Most had looked up, seen a student, and gone back to their forms.

The feeling that a light is on us, so that everyone sees what we wear, say and get wrong, is called the spotlight effect. You are at the centre of your own attention all day: you know about the stain on your sleeve and the word you got wrong, so it seems they must be big in other minds too. But everyone else is at the centre of their own attention, thinking about their own sleeve. The same studies found the effect for good things too: people think others notice their clever comments more than they do.

What helps: ask what you noticed about others. Can you remember anyone's small mistakes in the last talk you watched? And when you feel watched, remember that most people are thinking about themselves. It is usually true, and a kind thing to know. This video shows it on Knaph.

Transcript

1. 0:00You walk into a room in an embarrassing T-shirt. How many noticed?
2. 0:05Most people guess about half. Ten out of twenty.
3. 0:11In the real study, only about a quarter could say whose face it was.
4. 0:17You are at the centre of your own attention. They are at the centre of theirs.
5. 0:23When you feel watched, remember most people are thinking about themselves.
6. 0:29Others notice far less than you think. That can set you free.