The subway closed with a ding-dong sound, and the people in the carriage were huddled together. With your phone out of hand, you start silently observing the people around you. Look at the one who is aesthetically pleasing; leave the one who is not flattering. The guy in front was sweating profusely, probably going to be late. The girl in the distance was full of anger, did she encounter unpleasantness?
In just a few stops, you feel that you have observed the joys and sorrows of everyone in the car, but they know nothing about you.
Do you secretly observe people around you? | forevertwentysomethings.com
Don’t be fooled by this good feeling – other people are watching you too, you just don’t realize it.
A previous study from the Yale School of Psychology showed that people tend to think that they always observe others more than others observe them, as if they were clad in stealth while crowding the subway or eating at a restaurant The cape is looking at someone else.
I look at you, I look at him, but you don’t look at me?
Researchers Erica J. Boothby and others conducted six experiments to prove the existence of the “ Invisibility Cloak Illusion”. They recruited subjects online and had them answer a series of questions after completing an unrelated test. These include questions such as “How often do you observe the people around you” or “How often does an average person observe the people around him?” The results showed that the subjects tended to think that they would observe others more often than the average person, and that a random person would observe them less often.
In fact, everyone knows what magazines you read. | Brilio.net
This effect is not limited to brain supplementation scenarios. Another of their experiments was more lifelike—the entrance to a popular dining hall at Yale University. Students who had just finished eating were asked to recall the lunch they had just finished, and to answer how much they were observing others and how much they felt they were being watched. After submitting their answers, the researchers paid the students candy.
The results showed that even though the students felt that they were no different from others in paying attention to objects such as the dining table, 96 percent of the participants felt that they looked at other people in the restaurant more often than others looked at themselves. Subsequent experiments found that even if the “other” was not a stranger but his friend, the results were the same. Even if there are only two people in the same room, this illusion still exists.
Schematic of the invisibility cloak illusion. Light to dark arrows indicate fewer to more observations. Research shows that the subject (these) believes that he or she observes others the most (path a), others observe himself the least (path b), and the mutual observation of others is somewhere in between (path c). But self and others’ observations of non-social objects are roughly equivalent (paths d, e, f). | References
Even more so, even when the eyes meet – you see the other is looking at you – only 24% believe it was someone who observed them and was discovered by themselves, while the rest 76% of the bottom ones thought that it should be because they were secretly observing others and then being discovered by them.
I have to say, this is really a hopeless prejudice.
Why is there such an illusion?
According to Thomas Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell University, the invisibility cloak illusion embodies a deeply ingrained egocentrism in humans – taking yourself too seriously. Kirovich himself has found a similar bias: When he makes students wear embarrassingly graphic T-shirts, they think they’re getting more attention than usual (though they don’t). This bias is called the “Spotlight Effect” .
At first glance, the psychology of the spotlight effect and the invisibility cloak illusion seems to be the exact opposite? But in fact, the two go hand in hand. In the final experiment, Boothby and others called the subjects to meet in pairs, with one person watching each other and the other being watched. When the person being watched put on a long-sleeved T-shirt with a huge face printed on the front, they significantly overestimated the other person’s attention to the T-shirt, even though the other person didn’t really care what he or she was wearing. However, when evaluating how much the other person cares about themselves (the person), they again underestimate the other person. In other words, their conspicuous t-shirts trigger the spotlight effect without making them feel like they’re in the spotlight – the illusion of the invisibility cloak exists at the same time.
With the targets wearing their own clothes or special clothing provided by the laboratory, the researchers investigated how often the observers observed, noticed, and thought about the target (panel a) or the target’s clothes (panel b), and how often the target thought The extent to which the other party devotes these attentions. The evaluation was done on a 7-point scale, with 1 being never concerned and 7 being a lot of attention. | References
Why does this illusion seem so solid? One possible reason, the researchers speculate, is that people are always easily aware that they are looking at others, but have difficulty catching the eyes of others looking at them, which exacerbates the bias itself.
In most people’s lives, observing others is a normal routine. Observation can help us predict the behavior and attitudes of others, and perhaps help us better survive in society. The researchers point out that people are always more willing to believe that they have more information about others than the other way around. This feeling of “taking control of the world” without being controlled by the world may provide a certain sense of psychological security. This may be one of the reasons why people are willing to live under the illusion of the invisibility cloak.
Now, it’s your turn to choose. I know you’re never going to stop watching other people anyway (because it’s really fun), so would you rather indulge in the invisibility cloak illusion to gain some nihilistic control, or face the reality and accept that you’re being watched more than you are Imagine how much?
references
Boothby, E., Clark, M., & Bargh, J. (2016). The Invisibility Cloak Illusion: People (Incorrectly) Believe They Observe Others More Than Others Observe Them. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology.
Author: Yogurt is about to expire
Editor: Calo
Cover image source: pixabay
an AI
Focus on:
It embodies the ingrained egocentrism of human beings – taking yourself too seriously.
That’s why you always feel that this AI is aimed at you!
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