People lack accurate sampling of peers’ beliefs, making perceived consensus easily manipulated.

Evidence

One of the most important advances in thinking about conformity comes from research on perceived consensus. Most people do not have complete access to, nor even a random sample of, their peers’ beliefs and attitudes. This next section reviews research on how prejudice and stereotyping is affected by obtaining information about whether or not the perceived consensus of peers matches one’s own attitudes. This research shows how easily consensus can be manipulated to create strong conformity effects. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1907

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes pluralistic ignorance work and supports the corrective power of publicized false-consensus information.