Your friend is giving a speech tomorrow, and she is worried because she's not happy with her new haircut. She is convinced everyone will be staring at her bangs and discussing her unattractive hairstyle. Her overestimation of people's reactions is known as:

the spotlight effect.

Explanation:

Your friend is giving a speech tomorrow and she is worried because she's not happy with her new haircut. She is convinced everyone will be staring at her bangs and discussing her unattractive hairstyle. Her overestimation of people's reactions is known as the spotlight effect.

The spotlight effect is the tendency to think that more people notice something about you than they actually do.

The spotlight effect

Explanation:

In psychology, the "spotlight effect" refers to the tendency we have in which we think people notice something about us more than what they actually do. that more people notice something about you than they do. In other words, you think you are being noticed (or some part of you is) more than you really are.

In this example, your friend got a new haircut and she's not happy about it and she is convinced everyone will be staring at her bangs and talking about it tomorrow when she gives a speech. We can see that she thinks that people will notice her new hairstyle a lot, when people likely won't. Therefore, her overestimation of people's reactions is an example of the spotlight effect.