Is our absence as conspicuous as we think? Overestimating the salience and impact of one's absence from a group

Kenneth Savitsky; Thomas Gilovich; Gail Berger; Victoria Husted Medvec

doi:10.1016/S0022-1031(02)00548-6

Is our absence as conspicuous as we think? Overestimating the salience and impact of one's absence from a group

Kenneth Savitsky^*, Thomas Gilovich, Gail Berger, Victoria Husted Medvec

^*Corresponding author for this work

Management and Organizations

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6 Scopus citations

Abstract

This research provides evidence that people overestimate the salience to others of their own absence from a group. Although individuals regard the removal of someone else from a group to be less salient than the addition of that person, they regard their own removal as every bit as salient as their addition (Study 1). Those absent from a group also expect their absence to be salient in the eyes of others, overestimating the extent to which their absence will be noticed by others (Study 2), and rating their absence as having had a larger impact on the group's subsequent functioning than others do (Study 3). Discussion focuses on individuals' assessments of their absence as an example of a broader egocentrism in social judgment.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	386-392
Number of pages	7
Journal	Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Volume	39
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1031(02)00548-6
State	Published - Jul 2003

Funding

Portions of this research were presented at the Social Psychologists of Chicago conference, DePaul University, March, 2001. This research was supported by Research Grants MH45531 from the National Institute of Mental Health and SBR9319558 and SBR9809262 from the National Science Foundation, and by a grant from the Kellogg Teams and Groups Research Center. We thank Justin Kruger for his helpful comments on this manuscript. We also thank Matthew Harris, Sara Lederman, Mark Little, Tyler Story, HyunSoo Suh, Allison Walwyn, and Judith White for helping us to collect these data.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Social Psychology
Sociology and Political Science

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10.1016/S0022-1031(02)00548-6

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title = "Is our absence as conspicuous as we think? Overestimating the salience and impact of one's absence from a group",

abstract = "This research provides evidence that people overestimate the salience to others of their own absence from a group. Although individuals regard the removal of someone else from a group to be less salient than the addition of that person, they regard their own removal as every bit as salient as their addition (Study 1). Those absent from a group also expect their absence to be salient in the eyes of others, overestimating the extent to which their absence will be noticed by others (Study 2), and rating their absence as having had a larger impact on the group's subsequent functioning than others do (Study 3). Discussion focuses on individuals' assessments of their absence as an example of a broader egocentrism in social judgment.",

author = "Kenneth Savitsky and Thomas Gilovich and Gail Berger and Medvec, {Victoria Husted}",

note = "Funding Information: Portions of this research were presented at the Social Psychologists of Chicago conference, DePaul University, March, 2001. This research was supported by Research Grants MH45531 from the National Institute of Mental Health and SBR9319558 and SBR9809262 from the National Science Foundation, and by a grant from the Kellogg Teams and Groups Research Center. We thank Justin Kruger for his helpful comments on this manuscript. We also thank Matthew Harris, Sara Lederman, Mark Little, Tyler Story, HyunSoo Suh, Allison Walwyn, and Judith White for helping us to collect these data. Copyright: Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

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Is our absence as conspicuous as we think? Overestimating the salience and impact of one's absence from a group

Abstract

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ASJC Scopus subject areas

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