Social nervousness in a self-introduction situation and the illusion of transparency

Abstract

People often tend to believe that their subjective states are readily apparent to others, a phenomenon known as the illusion of transparency. In the present study, we hypothesized that the illusion of transparency can play a role in the social nervousness, and that people make transparency estimates as a function of their own feelings of nervousness. In the three natural setting field studies, university students in a class were asked to introduce themselves and then to answer their nervousness and transparency estimates. Individuals who were highly nervous when they delivered a public speech believed their nervousness was more apparent to their audience than it actually was, and than individuals who were less nervous in Study 1. The results of Study 2 expanded these findings to trait social anxiety instead of magnititude of feelings of nervousness. The results of Study 3 replicated these findings and ruled out a motivational explanation. Lastly, these results were discussed in terms of the illusion of transparency and heuristics of "anchoring and adjustment".View full abstract