[2] The term "spotlight effect" was coined by Thomas Gilovich, Victoria Husted Medvec, and Kenneth Savitsky.
There were other studies done before 1999 that had looked at phenomena similar to the spotlight effect that Gilovich, Husted Medvec, and Savitsky described.
This self-focused state makes it difficult for individuals to set aside public and private self-knowledge to focus on the task.
The false-consensus effect occurs when individuals overestimate the extent to which other people share their opinions, attitudes, and behavior.
Another manifestation of the illusion of transparency is a tendency for people to overestimate how well they understand others' personal mental states.
[3] Salience of ideas and important contributions within a group are additional aspects of social judgment that are affected by the spotlight effect.
[3] Actions of individuals and how they believe others perceive their performance also plays an important part of spotlight effect research.
In situations that involve large, interacting groups, a common detail identifies the reason attention of others is not solely focused on the individual.
In these settings, like a class lecture or athletic competition, attention is divided between focusing on the individual and on the actions of the group.
The inability to identify the split attention leads individuals to overestimate the likelihood that their peers will perceive them poorly.