Am I Normal?social
I have enthusiastically waved back at someone who was waving at someone behind me
The false wave response is a social trap: assuming directed greeting requires a split-second pattern match between incoming social signal and nearest plausible recipient. The error rate is significant because people frequently signal across you to others, creating ambiguity the social brain resolves with a default assumption of your own relevance.
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Related fact
The tendency to assume social cues are directed at you is called the personal spotlight bias — humans systematically overestimate how much other people's attention, judgment, and communication is directed toward them.
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If you knew for certain before every social interaction whether the other person was addressing you or not, would social situations feel clearer or would you miss the ambiguity?
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