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

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 utterances were to their fellow discussants. Studies 4 and 5 provide evidence supporting an anchoring-and-adjustment interpretation of the spotlight effect. In particular, people appear to anchor on their own rich phenomenological experience and then adjust--insufficiently--to take into account the perspective of others. The discussion focuses on the manifestations and implications of the spotlight effect across a host of everyday social phenomena.

The illusion of transparency: biased assessments of others' ability to read one's emotional states.

Three sets of studies provide evidence for an illusion of transparency, or a tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others can discern their internal states. People often mistakenly believe that their internal states "leak out" more than they really do. The authors attribute this bias to a tendency for people to adjust insufficiently from the "anchor" of their own phenomenological experience when attempting to take another's perspective. Evidence for this illusion is provided by showing that liars overestimate the detectability of their lies (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c) and that people believe their feelings of disgust are more apparent than they actually are (Studies 2a and 2b). A final pair of experiments (Studies 3a and 3b) explores the implications of the illusion of transparency for people's reluctance to intervene in emergencies. All 3 sets of studies also provide evidence consistent with the proposed anchoring and adjustment interpretation.

When less is more: counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medalists.

Research on counterfactual thinking has shown that people's emotional responses to events are influenced by their thoughts about "what might have been." The authors extend these findings by documenting a familiar occasion in which those who are objectively better off nonetheless feel worse. In particular, an analysis of the emotional reactions of bronze and silver medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics--both at the conclusion of their events and on the medal stand--indicates that bronze medalists tend to be happier than silver medalists. The authors attribute these results to the fact that the most compelling counterfactual alternative for the silver medalist is winning the gold, whereas for the bronze medalist it is finishing without a medal. Support for this interpretation was obtained from the 1992 Olympics and the 1994 Empire State Games. The discussion focuses on the implications of endowment and contrast for well being.

The experience of regret: what, when, and why.

This article reviews evidence indicating that there is a temporal pattern to the experience of regret. Actions, or errors of commission, generate more regret in the short term; but inactions, or errors of omission, produce more regret in the long run. The authors contend that this temporal pattern is multiply determined, and present a framework to organize the divergent causal mechanisms that are responsible for it. In particular, this article documents the importance of psychological processes that (a) decrease the pain of regrettable action over time, (b) bolster the pain of regrettable inaction over time, and (c) differentially affect the cognitive availability of these two types of regrets. Both the functional and cultural origins of how people think about regret are discussed.

Failing to act: regrets of Terman's geniuses.

The regrets reported by Terman's intellectually gifted subjects were analyzed to determine the nature of their regrets, whether they are the same as those reported by the general population, and whether they stem predominantly from errors of omission or commission. A 1986 survey of these subjects in their advanced years (mean age = 74) asked them to specify what they would do differently if they could live over again. An analysis of their responses indicated that, like the population as a whole, they harbor many more regrets of inaction than regrets of action. The implications of these findings for a proposed temporal pattern to the experience of regret is discussed.

The temporal pattern to the experience of regret.

Through telephone surveys, written questionnaires, and face-to-face interviews, it was found that people's biggest regrets tend to involve things they have failed to do in their lives. This conflicts with research on counterfactual thinking that indicates that people regret unfortunate outcomes that stem from actions taken more than identical outcomes that result from actions foregone. These divergent findings were reconciled by demonstrating that people's regrets follow a systematic time course: Actions cause more pain in the short-term, but inactions are regretted more in the long run. Support for this contention was obtained in 2 scenario experiments that assessed people's beliefs about the short- and long-term regrets of others and in an experiments that asked Ss about their own regrets of action and inaction from 2 time periods. Several mechanisms that can account for this temporal pattern are discussed.

Effect of temporal perspective on subjective confidence.

Four studies examined whether people tend to lose confidence in their prospects for success the closer they are to the "moment of truth." Study 1 found that students think they will do better on their midterm exams when asked on the 1st day of class than when asked on the day of the exam. Studies 2 and 4 replicated this finding under controlled conditions. Study 3 demonstrated that the same effect holds retrospectively: People are more confident that they would have performed well at a task long after the time to perform has passed. Data are presented indicating that these results stem from a tendency for people to feel more "accountable" for their assessments, and thus focus less on the causes of success and more on the causes of failure, as the time to perform approaches. Implications for the experience of regret are discussed.