The ostrich effect, also known as the ostrich problem, was originally coined by Galai & Sade (2003). The name comes from the common legend that ostriches bury their heads in the sand to avoid danger. This effect is a cognitive bias where people tend to “bury their head in the sand” and avoid potentially negative but useful information, such as feedback on progress, to avoid psychological discomfort.

The expression "the elephant in the room" is a metaphorical idiom in English for an important or enormous topic, question, or controversial issue that is obvious or that everyone knows about but no one mentions or wants to discuss because it makes at least some of them uncomfortable and is personally, socially, or politically embarrassing, controversial, inflammatory, or dangerous. The metaphorical elephant represents an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about.