Do others judge us as harshly as we think? Overestimating the impact of our failures, shortcomings, and mishaps

When people suffer an embarrassing blunder, social mishap, or public failur e, they often feel that their image has been severely tarnished in the eyes of others. Four studies demonstrate that these fears are commonly exaggera ted. Actors who imagined committing one of several social blunders (Study 1 ), who experienced a public intellectual failure (Studies 2 and 3), or who were described in an embarrassing way (Study 4) anticipated being judged mo re harshly by others than they actually were. These exaggerated fears were produced, in part, by the actors' tendency to be inordinately focused on th eir misfortunes and by their resulting failure to consider the wider range of situational factors that tend to moderate onlookers' impressions. Discus sion focuses on additional mechanisms that may contribute to overly pessimi stic expectations as well as the role of such expectations in producing unn ecessary social anxiety.