If you think that stranger on the train is staring at you, according to a recent study, he is

According to a new study, just because you think people aren’t looking, doesn’t mean they actually aren’t. In fact, they almost definitely are. Have chills down your spine yet? Same.

The study, conducted by Erica Boothby, a social psychologist at Yale, actually began before its participants were even aware, and centered around something she calls the “invisibility-cloak illusion,” or “our tendency to underestimate the extent to which we’re being observed by people nearby”.

For the study, when the two participants arrived, she asked them to hang out in the waiting room until she was ready — but, of course, the study had already begun. After, she asked the participants to talk about the other person they’d been in the waiting room with, and asked what each had noticed about the other (neither had spoken). She also asked them what they though the other person had noticed about them.

In both cases they had far underestimated what the other person had noticed — including everything from clothing to personality ticks. She conducted this study with almost identical results multiple times.

Think about it though, when you’re on line at the shopping market, or sitting on the subway, don’t you take mental note of every single person around you? What he’s wearing, what she’s reading, who he’s texting.

Of course, you only do it because you think they’ll never notice, but now you can be sure they’re doing the same to you.

@carolinephinney