Insight: Humans spend a lot of effort conforming to social norms because we believe that others are paying close attention to what we are doing. In reality, people pay less attention to others than we think.
Reference: Thomas Gilovich: Barry Manilow experiment - showed that we overestimate the attention that people pay to what we are doing (or wearing).
Insight: We focus on our own looks and behaviour far more than those of others.
Insight: We believe that our mistakes are more noticeable than they actually are.
Reference: Thomas Gilovich, Cornell University - Barry Manilow T-shirt experiment to show that people notice less about ourselves than we would expect.
Insight: We can fail to consider other options when we focus attention on what we already know.
Reference: Daniel Kahneman: we can often jump to conclusions quickly because we only consider the information right in front of us, rather than information that might be "offstage".
Insight: Stephen J. Dubner: don't be scared of what others think. Nobody cares what you do.
Key Insights & Principles
Focus & Attention
We tend to believe that others pay more attention to us than in reality.
We often spend too much energy conforming to social norms because we believe that others are paying attention to us.
We often make decisions that are not optimal because of what we believe others will think.
