Editing Pluralistic ignorance (section)

==Related phenomena==

=== False consensus effect ===
Pluralistic ignorance can be compared with the [[false consensus effect]]. In pluralistic ignorance, people privately disdain but publicly support a norm (or a belief), while the false consensus effect causes people to wrongly assume that most people think like they do, while in reality most people do not think like they do (and express the disagreement openly). For instance, pluralistic ignorance may lead students to drink alcohol excessively because they believe that everyone else does so, while in reality everyone else also wishes they could avoid binge drinking but no one expresses that wish out of fear of being ostracized.<ref name="kitts2003">{{cite journal|last1=Kitts|first1=James A.|title=Egocentric Bias or Information Management? Selective Disclosure and the Social Roots of Norm Misperception|journal=Social Psychology Quarterly|date=September 2003|volume=66|issue=3|pages=222–237|doi=10.2307/1519823|jstor=1519823}}</ref> A false consensus for the same situation would mean that the student believes that most other people do not enjoy excessive drinking, while in fact most other people do enjoy that and openly express their opinion about it.

A study undertaken by Greene, House, and Ross used simple circumstantial questionnaires on Stanford undergrads to gather information on the false consensus effect. They compiled thoughts on the choice they felt people would or should make, considering traits such as shyness, cooperativeness, trust, and adventurousness. Studies found that when explaining their decisions, participants gauged choices based on what they explained as "people in general" and their idea of "typical" answers. For each of the stories those subjects said that they personally would follow a given behavioral alternative also tended to rate that alternative as relatively probable for "people in general": those subjects who claimed that they would reject the alternative tended to rate it as relatively improbable for "people in general". It was evident that the influence of the subjects' own behavior choice affected the estimates of commonness.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Ross|first1=Lee|last2=Greene|first2=David|last3=House|first3=Pamela|title=The 'false consensus effect': An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes|journal=Journal of Experimental Social Psychology|date=May 1977|volume=13|issue=3|pages=279–301|doi=10.1016/0022-1031(77)90049-X|s2cid=9032175}}</ref> Although it would seem as if the two are built on the same premise of social norms, they take two very oppositional stances on a similar phenomenon. The false consensus effect considers that in predicting an outcome, people will assume that the masses agree with their opinion and think the same way they do on an issue, whereas the opposite is true of pluralistic ignorance, where the individual does not agree with a certain action but go along with it anyway, believing that their view is not shared with the masses (which is usually untrue).

=== False uniqueness effect ===
This phenomenon is similar to pluralistic ignorance in that it involves observing the differences in oneself compared to others, rather than the similarities.<ref name="Miller-2023" /> This observation of others is often negative, alluding to one's habit of viewing oneself as better at possessing positive characteristics when compared to those around them.<ref name="Miller-2023" /> Unlike pluralistic ignorance, [[False-uniqueness effect|false uniqueness effect]] is a distinctly individual phenomenon with no beginning or outcomes associated with group dynamics.<ref name="Miller-2023" />

=== Spiral of silence ===
The parallel between pluralistic ignorance and the [[spiral of silence]] comes from their joint interest in the reasoning behind the shift in public opinion perceptions in relation to the public's genuine attitudes.<ref name="Donsbach-2014" /> When viewing pluralistic ignorance through a social perspective, one can assess how it is caused through misinformation that is shared broadly by those who are highly visible.<ref name="Donsbach-2014" /> This is where the concept of visibility becomes most important in understanding the intertwined web of pluralistic ignorance and the spiral of silence.<ref name="Donsbach-2014" />

When a group stands out by way of making the most noise or causing the most chaos, this can give the impression that the group is more influential than they actually are.<ref name="Donsbach-2014" /> The spiraling process is initiated by the most visible and expressed opinions being shared loudly and publicly, while the genuine and differing opinions of the group are not expressed (or not on the same scale), causing a misleading depiction of the group's true attitudes and beliefs.<ref name="Donsbach-2014" /> Thus, pluralistic ignorance gives way to a shift in the [https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_406 climate of opinion], which then causes the spiral of silence to perpetuate as those who view their attitudes and beliefs as the minority opinion (when they might not be) choose to remain silent.<ref name="Donsbach-2014" />