This piece is a preview of a feature in the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Character and Context Blog.
People’s thoughts and actions are often influenced by other people. For example, when a professor asks if anyone has questions during a lecture, and no one raises their hand, students may assume that no one else has questions and decide not to ask their own question about a point of confusion. They may not realize that most of their peers are confused as well.
This phenomenon, where people misperceive the normative attitude or behavior among their peers, is called pluralistic ignorance. Often, pluralistic ignorance causes people to remain silent about important issues. Pluralistic ignorance about diversity occurs when people believe that few of their peers support diversity and inclusion when, in fact, a majority of their peers actually do.
Although pluralistic ignorance may seem like a small problem, it can have large consequences. The mistaken belief that most people don’t support diversity can lead to a “spiral of silence,” where people remain quiet because others do not speak up in support, which in turn reinforces the silence. This silence can translate into action as people perform behaviors that are contrary to their personal values, such as not speaking out against injustice, just because they believe that others do not support such behaviors. For this reason, we were interested in the degree to which Americans underestimate their peers’ pro-diversity attitudes.
We surveyed over 5,000 Americans, who were representative of the US population, to assess their agreement with a series of diversity-related statements. We also asked them to report the percentage of Americans who they thought would agree with each statement.
Most people agreed with the pro-diversity statements (an average of about 60-80% agreement) but tended to underestimate Americans’ support for these statements (an average of about 40-60% perceived agreement). This resulted in a net average difference between actual and perceived agreement of about 30%. In other words, people think that their fellow Americans are less supportive of diversity and inclusion than they actually are. Furthermore, this difference existed for all demographic groups that we measured in the studies (such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, and geographic region).
In a fifth study, we recruited Trump and Biden voters from the 2020 election to assess whether pluralistic ignorance is related to political affiliation. We found that Trump supporters were quite accurate about their ingroup; they did not show pluralistic ignorance for other Trump supporters. However, Trump supporters did show pluralistic ignorance for Biden supporters, as they underestimated the degree to which Biden supporters endorsed pro-diversity statements. In contrast, Biden supporters underestimated the degree to which both Trump and other Biden supporters endorsed pro-diversity statements. Taken together, these findings suggest that the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance can occur even within politically defined groups.
Our studies suggest that pluralistic ignorance about support for diversity and inclusion is fairly common. What can be done about it? One potential solution is to correct people’s mistaken perceptions with statements about what most people actually approve of or do. This practice is referred to as social norms messaging, and it has been successful in changing behaviors such as binge drinking and promoting environmental sustainability. However, it has rarely been applied in the diversity domain. Could we use statements about how many people support diversity and inclusion to correct people’s underestimation of support for diversity and garner greater intentions to support diversity and behave inclusively?
Our last two studies tested this idea. Participants who were from either Democratic-leaning or Republican-leaning states played a two-truths-and-a-lie game, in which they were exposed to information about support for diversity and inclusion from national opinion polls like Pew and Gallup (pro-diversity social norms messaging), or to information unrelated to diversity. Participants exposed to the pro-diversity social norms messaging were more favorable toward diversity and inclusion.
In summary, Americans tend to support diversity and inclusion but think that their fellow Americans do not. This gap between perception and reality constitutes pluralistic ignorance, and may have detrimental effects on how or whether people express support for diversity.
To mitigate this, people should talk more about how much people truly support diversity. Helping people to form more accurate impressions of others’ pro-diversity attitudes may disrupt the “spiral of silence” in which people do not vocalize their own pro-diversity attitudes.
We hope that by exposing people to more accurate information about what their peers believe, people may become emboldened to act more inclusively and eliminate discrimination.
For Further Reading:
Isenberg, N., & Brauer, M. Diversity and inclusion have greater support than most Americans think. Sci Rep 14, 28616 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-76761-8
Markus Brauer is a professor in the Department of Psychology and Executive Director of the Institute for Diversity Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on group phenomena and behavior change, with applications for promoting diversity and inclusion
Naomi Isenberg received her PhD in social psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2023. Her research centers on psychological mechanisms that promote inclusive attitudes and behavior and applying findings to develop evidence-based practices and interventions.