The spotlight effect is the phenomenon in which individual…
The spotlight effect is the phenomenon in which individuals believe they are being noticed more than they actually are. Gilovich et al. (2000) demonstrated this by having people wear embarrassing T-shirts and then estimate how many people noticed them. Participants consistently overestimated how much they were noticed. To simulate this, imagine a psychology researcher has students role-play a coffee spill scenario. In one condition, participants spilled coffee on themselves before entering a classroom (Spill Group). In the other condition, participants entered the classroom with no coffee spill (Control Group). After class, all participants were asked to estimate how many classmates they thought noticed them during class. The researcher collected data on the number of people each participant believed had noticed them. What is the independent variable in this study?