Final answer:
The belief that others can 'read' our private thoughts and emotions is known as the illusion of transparency. This is a cognitive bias where we overestimate how much others know about our internal states. It is vital to understand this to avoid misjudging our social interactions and to recognize other biases such as self-fulfilling prophecy, Dunning-Kruger effect, and confirmation bias.
Step-by-step explanation:
Believing that other people can 'read' our private thoughts and feelings is referred to as the illusion of transparency. This belief is incorrect, as our internal states are not as obvious to others as we might think. This cognitive bias leads us to overestimate the extent to which others can discern our inner emotions and thoughts, often causing unnecessary anxiety in social situations.
Some points of confusion relate to phenomena such as the self-fulfilling prophecy and the Dunning-Kruger effect. The self-fulfilling prophecy is where expectations can influence behaviors, thereby causing the expected outcome. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with less knowledge or ability in a specific domain tend to overestimate their own skills, while experts tend to underestimate theirs.
One must also be aware of the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.