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Pluralistic Ignorance
- nonrandomstring 3y agoThis is a deep and fascinating phenomenon Thanks for posting because I didn't have a name for this and previously called it "hidden dissent" or "hidden assent". I've encountered it in research where it's very hard to account for expressed opinions gathered anonymously compared to the supposed normative public views. There's always the worry that you've somehow got a selection bias but can't seem to get a representative sample. For example - everybody hates security measures (like CCTV) and thinks they are unnecessary, even the people who seemingly benefit from them the most... even those people who install or provide it!! But they wrongly think that everybody else thinks the opposite. A few years ago I theorised it may be behind weird things like how we think "everybody is on Facebook" - because everybody thinks "everybody else is on Facebook", but really most people are at best ambivalent about Facebook and would happily not be on it.