Emotions and an Orange Circle

We can’t help but compare ourselves to others.

We compare our appearance, possessions, and careers. The instinct to compare is the source of a lot of our negative emotions - jealousy, inadequacy, and even depression.

In the 19th century a German psychologist named Hermann Ebbinghaus created a famous graphic Edward Titchener included in a psychology textbook. It is known today as the Ebbinghaus Illusion, or Titchener circles.

How it works is someone is typically asked which orange circle appears larger. Most pick the orange circle on the right. The illusion is they are actually the exactly same size.

How does our brain get fooled? There are two theories. The first is the larger black circles make the circle on the left look smaller while the smaller circles on the right reduce its apparent size. The other idea is the greater distance between the larger black circles and the orange circle on the left makes it appear smaller.

Either way, when we choose to compare our “size” – appearance, possessions, career, success, etc. - to things we think are larger, and farther from us, we can end up feeling smaller. But when we feel that is starting to happen remember it’s an Ebbinghaus Illusion. Our “size” does not change as we interact with the world around us. We emotionally define the size of our orange circle, not the world around us.