A few days ago, I found myself with some time to kill so I decided to browse some psychological effects on Wikipedia. Here’s some interesting ones I found.

The spotlight effect
The phenomenon where people believe they are being noticed more than they really are.

It’s easy to forget that we are the hero of our own stories, yet often simply a side character in others’. Few people think or care about us as much as we think.

The false concensus effect/consensus bias
A bias where people view their own characteristics and beliefs to be relatively widespread throughout the whole population.

We probably underestimate how unique some of our beliefs and values are. On the surface, we might see our friends and family behaving in similar manner to us, so we assume that they share our views. But often, we overestimate the popularity of our beliefs.

This bias is known to increase self-esteem in a social environment because one might subconsciously believe that they are fitting in and being liked by others. If you believe everyone thinks the same way as you, you’ll be more comfortable around them and feel as though you are liked.

Naïve realism
The human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased. To be more exact, the social psychologist Lee Ross proposes three tenets that make up naïve realism. People:

1. Believe that they see the world objectively and without bias.
2. Expect that others will come to the same conclusions, so long as they are exposed to the same information and interpret it in a rational manner.
3. Assume that others who do not share the same views must be ignorant, irrational, or biased.

Some of the greatest novels in history such as Les Misérables and War and Peace are compelling for this exact reason. You have characters that inhabit the same world and yet are so fundamentally different from each other. The moral conflicts that arise are fascinating because each individual believes they are doing right in their eyes, but are simultaneously appalling to others.

The best example that comes to mind is from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, where a police officer named Javert is on a ruthless hunt to capture the escaped convict Jean Valjean. Javert believes justice should be primary value in any civil society and that he is the one that must enforce it. On the other hand, Valjean has been converted from a criminal to a Christian and believes in the power of forgiveness and redemption. Both men think the other as mistaken, yet both are right. The struggle to defend one’s own belief is one of the many reasons this story is phenomenal.