Category: Social psychology

The false consensus effect in social psychology is a cognitive bias in which people overestimate how much others share their beliefs and behaviours.

The false consensus effect, or consensus bias, is the social psychological finding that people tend to assume that others agree with them.

It could apply to opinions, values, beliefs or behaviours, but people assume others think and act in the same way as they do.

Examples of the false consensus bias

Here are some examples of the false consensus effect:

• People believe that the political candidate they support has more support among other people than they really do.
• In relationships, people assume that the other person wants the same things as they do.
• Racist people believe more people are racist than will admit to it.
• A child assumes that their favourite snack is shared by other children.
• Music lovers guess that more people share their own taste than really do.

Does the bias really exist?

It is hard for many people to believe the false consensus effect exists because they quite naturally believe they are good ‘intuitive psychologists’, thinking it is relatively easy to predict other people’s attitudes and behaviours.

We each have information built up from countless previous experiences involving both ourselves and others so surely we should have solid insights?

No such luck.

In reality, people show a number of predictable biases, such as the false consensus effect, when estimating other people’s behaviour and its causes.

And these biases help to show exactly why we need psychology experiments and why we can’t rely on our intuitions about the behaviour of others.

False consensus effect experiment

In the 1970s Stanford University social psychologist Professor Lee Ross set out to show just how the false consensus effect operates in two neat experiments (Ross, Greene & House, 1977).

In the first study, participants were asked to read about situations in which a conflict occurred and then told two alternative ways of responding.

They were asked to do three things:

• Guess which option other people would choose.
• Say which option they would choose.
• Describe the attributes of the person who would choose each of the two options.

The results showed more people thought others would do the same as them, regardless of which of the two responses they actually chose themselves.

Definition of the false consensus effect

This shows what Ross and colleagues dubbed the false consensus effect – the idea that we each think other people think the same way we do when actually they often don’t.

Another bias emerged when participants were asked to describe the attributes of the person who made the opposite choice to their own.

Compared to other people who made the same choice they did, people made more extreme predictions about the personalities of those who made didn’t share their choice.

To put it a little crassly: people tend to assume that those who don’t agree with them have something wrong with them!

It might seem like a joke, but it is a real bias that people demonstrate.

More research on the false consensus effect

While the finding from the first study on the false consensus effect is all very well in theory, how can we be sure people really behave the way they say they will?

After all, psychologists have famously found little connection between people’s attitudes and their behaviour.

In a second study, therefore, Ross and colleagues abandoned hypothetical situations, paper and pencil test and instead took up the mighty sandwich board to further test the false consensus effect.

This time a new set of participants, who were university students, were asked if they would be willing to walk around their campus for 30 minutes wearing a sandwich board saying: “Eat at Joe’s”.

(No information is available about the food quality at ‘Joe’s’, and consequently how foolish students would look.)

For motivation, participants were simply told they would learn ‘something useful’ from the study, but that they were absolutely free to refuse if they wished.

Results

The results of this study confirmed the previous study on the false consensus effect.

Of those who agreed to wear the sandwich board, 62% thought others would also agree.

Of those who refused, only 33% thought others would agree to wear the sandwich board.

Again, as before, people also made more extreme predictions about the type of person who made the opposite decision to their own.

You can just imagine how that thinking might go.

The people who agreed to carry the sandwich board might have said:

“What’s wrong with someone who refuses?

I think they must be really scared of looking like a fool.”

While the people who refused:

“Who are these show-offs who agreed to carry the sandwich board?

I know people like them – they’re weird.”

People are poor intuitive psychologists

This study is fascinating not only because it shows the false consensus effect, but also because it demonstrates the importance of psychology studies themselves.

Every psychologist has, at some point, been driven to distraction when trying to explain a study’s finding by one form of the following two arguments (amongst others!):

1. I could have told you that – it’s obvious!
2. No, in my experience that’s not true – people don’t really behave like that.

As this social psychology study of the false consensus effect shows, people are actually pretty poor intuitive psychologists.

Why does the false consensus effect occur?

Along with people being poor intuitive psychologists, there are a number of reasons the false consensus effect occurs.

• Self-esteem: believing that other people think and act the same we we do can help to boost self-esteem (Oostrom et al., 2017). This is a clear motivation for believing for the false consensus bias.
• Similarity with friends and family: because our friends and family are likely to be similar to us, it helps reinforce the idea that everyone is similar to us (Marks & Miller, 1987). This is not true, as the false consensus effect shows.
• Familiarity with our own attitudes: the availability heuristic means that our own thoughts, beliefs and attitudes are the easiest for us to access so are most likely to come to mind.

Factors influencing the false consensus effect

One of the few exceptions to this is when the answer is really really obvious, such as asking people whether it is OK to commit murder.

But questions we can all agree on are generally not as interesting as those on which we are divided.

People are also more likely to assume someone who doesn’t hold the same views as them has a more extreme personality than their own.

This is because people think to themselves, whether consciously or unconsciously, surely all right-thinking (read ‘normal’) people think the same way as me?

Other factors that influence the false consensus effect include:

• Strong opinions: the stronger a person’s opinions, the more likely they are to think that others agree with them.
• Confidence: the more confident someone is that their opinion or belief is right, the more they tend to think other people agree with them.
• Situational factors: there are some aspects of situations that make the false consensus effect stronger, such as when a group of people experience an event together. Each will assume others enjoyed it the same amount as they did.

→ This post is part of a series on the best social psychology experiments:

1. Halo Effect: Definition And How It Affects Our Perception
2. Cognitive Dissonance: How and Why We Lie to Ourselves
3. Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop
4. Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo’s Famous Social Psychology Study
5. Milgram Experiment: Explaining Obedience to Authority
6. False Consensus Effect: What It Is And Why It Happens
7. Social Identity Theory And The Minimal Group Paradigm
8. Negotiation: 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most
9. Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility
10. Asch Conformity Experiment: The Power Of Social Pressure

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The bystander effect is when the presence of others reduces helping behaviours. It is caused partly by a diffusion of responsibility.

The bystander effect in social psychology is the surprising finding that the mere presence of other people inhibits our own helping behaviours in an emergency.

The bystander effect study is mentioned in every psychology textbook and often dubbed ‘seminal’.

This classic social psychology study on the bystander effect was inspired by the highly publicised murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

The murder of Kitty Genovese

John Darley and Bibb Latane were inspired to investigate emergency helping behaviours and the bystander effect after the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

Genovese, a 28-year-old, was attacked and stabbed by a man later identified as Winston Moseley while on her way home from work.

Despite repeatedly calling for help, none of the people within earshot came to her rescue or reported the incident to the police.

The newspaper report of the murder stated that 38 people had heard and seen the attack, which lasted an hour, yet they did nothing.

People seemed to be displaying the bystander effect.

Subsequent reports, however, suggest the number of witnesses was much lower and few, perhaps none, had witnessed the whole attack.

Whatever the status of this incident the facts of the subsequent bystander effect study are well-known.

The bystander effect experiment

Participants were invited into the lab under the pretext they were taking part in a discussion about ‘personal problems’ (Darley & Latane, 1968).

Participants in the bystander effect experiment were talking to a number of unknown others, varying from just one up to four in each of the experimental trials.

Because of the sensitive nature of the discussion they were told the discussion would take place over an intercom.

In fact this was just a ruse to ensure the participants couldn’t physically see the other people they were talking to and ruin this test of the bystander effect.

During the discussion one member of the group would suddenly appear to be having an epileptic seizure.

Here is the script:

“I-er-um-I think I-I need-er-if-if could-er-er-somebody er-er-er-er-er-er-er give me a little-er-give me a little help here because-er-I-er-I’m-er-erh-h-having a-a-a real problem-er-right now and I-er-if somebody could help me out it would-it would-er-er s-s-sure be-sure be good . . . because-there-er-er-a cause I-er-I-uh-I’ve got a-a one of the-er-sei er-er-things coming on and-and-and I could really-er-use some help so if somebody would-er-give me a little h-help-uh-er-er-er-er-er c-could somebody-er-er-help-er-uh-uh-uh (choking sounds). . . . I’m gonna die-er-er-I’m . . . gonna die-er-help-er-er-seizure-er-[chokes, then quiet].”

The experimenters then measured how long it took for participants to go the person’s aid.

Results: bystander apathy

The results of the bystander effect experiment clearly showed that the more people were involved in the group discussion, the slower participants were to respond to the apparent emergency.

It seems that the presence of others inhibits people’s helping behaviours.

Some participants made no move to intervene in the apparent emergency — they displayed bystander apathy.

What was going on?

Explanation: diffusion of responsibility

Darley and Latane (1968) report that those who did not act were far from uncaring about the seizure victim.

Quite the reverse in fact, compared to those who did report the emergency, they appeared to be in a more heightened state of arousal.

Many were sweating, had trembling hands and looked to be in considerable discomfort.

The non-helpers in the bystander effect experiment appeared to be caught in a double bind that locked them up.

One part of them felt shame and guilt for not helping.

Another part of them didn’t want to expose themselves to embarrassment or to ruin the experiment which, they had been told depended on each conversant remaining anonymous from the others.

Psychologically, what is happening in the bystander effect is that people feel less urgency the more people are present.

This diffusion of responsibility occurs because there are more people who could help.

Each person thinks to themselves that someone else will do something about it.

Then, when other bystanders do not react either, people take this as a sign that there is no need to help out.

The originality of the bystander effect

Now compare this study of the bystander effect with the Milgram experiment.

Certainly the Milgram experiment on obedience casts a long shadow over this bystander effect experiment.

Similar to the Milgram situation, participants here were put under pressure to continue with the experiment by authority figures (the psychologists).

Again, someone was suffering discomfort and participants felt conflicted about whether or not to intervene.

In this case in an epileptic seizure, in Milgram’s study, it was the electrical shocks participants themselves were administering.

This bystander effect study’s originality comes from the finding that the more people are present, the longer participants take to help.

And this is certainly an important insight in social psychological terms.

Because of the way the bystander effect experiment was set up, participants had no way of knowing how the other people who heard the seizure had responded.

This meant that the only variable was how many other people they knew to be present.

Challenging the bystander effect

Modern studies have not always supported the validity of the bystander effect in the real world.

For example, a recent study of real public fights caught on CCTV showed that bystanders intervened 90 percent of the time to help victims of violence (Philpot et al., 2020).

The 219 fights included in the study had broken out on the streets of Amsterdam, Cape Town and Leicester (in the Netherlands, South Africa and UK, respectively).

Nine-out-of-ten times at least one person tried to intervene, sometimes more than one.

This strongly suggests that trying to help is the norm in public, rather than the exception as the bystander effect suggests.

Factors affecting the bystander effect

This modern study paints rather a different picture of the bystander effect than social psychological research conducted in the 1960s.

Many subsequent studies have shown that whether people will help you out in public depends on a whole range of factors, including:

• How much danger you appear to be in,
• what the costs of helping are (embarrassment, injury etc.)
• whether they are in a hurry,
• your race/ethnicity,
• what the social rule is in that situation.

→ This post is part of a series on the best social psychology experiments:

1. Halo Effect: Definition And How It Affects Our Perception
2. Cognitive Dissonance: How and Why We Lie to Ourselves
3. Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop
4. Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo’s Famous Social Psychology Study
5. Milgram Experiment: Explaining Obedience to Authority
6. False Consensus Effect: What It Is And Why It Happens
7. Social Identity Theory And The Minimal Group Paradigm
8. Negotiation: 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most
9. Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility
10. Asch Conformity Experiment: The Power Of Social Pressure

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The halo effect in psychology is the idea that one trait about a person is used to make an overall judgment about them, e.g. what is beautiful is good.

The ‘halo effect’ is a classic finding in social psychology.

It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgements about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent).

It is sometimes called the “what is beautiful is good” principle, or the “physical attractiveness stereotype”.

It is called the halo effect because a halo was often used in religious art to show that a person is good.

The saint is bathed in heavenly light, just as people are bathed in a metaphorical positive light, mainly by their appearance.

History of the halo effect

The halo effect was coined by American psychologist Edward L. Thorndike.

Thorndike noticed that when evaluating other people tall and attractive people were automatically assumed to be more intelligent and ‘better’ than others.

Physical appearance is the single strongest predictor of the halo effect.

Another well-known psychologist Solomon Asch found that people’s first impressions were extremely important for the halo effect.

Examples

Hollywood stars demonstrate the halo effect perfectly.

Because they are often attractive and likeable we naturally assume they are also intelligent, friendly, display good judgement and so on.

That is, until we come across (sometimes plentiful) evidence to the contrary.

In the same way politicians use the ‘halo effect’ to their advantage by trying to appear warm and friendly, while saying little of any substance.

People tend to believe their policies are good, because the person appears good.

It’s that simple.

But you would think we could pick up these sorts of mistaken judgements by simply introspecting and, in a manner of speaking, retrace our thought processes back to the original mistake.

In the 1970s, well-known social psychologist Richard Nisbett set out to demonstrate how little access we actually have to our thought processes in general and to the halo effect in particular.

The classic study

Nisbett and Wilson wanted to examine the way student participants made judgements about a lecturer (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).

Students were told the research was investigating teacher evaluations.

Specifically, they were told, the experimenters were interested in whether judgements varied depending on the amount of exposure students had to a particular lecturer.

This was a total lie.

In fact the students had been divided into two groups who were going to watch two different videos of the same lecturer, who happened to have a strong Belgian accent (this is relevant!).

One group watched the lecturer answer a series of questions in an extremely warm and friendly manner.

The second group saw exactly the same person answer exactly the questions in a cold and distant manner.

Experimenters made sure it was obvious which of the lecturers alter-egos was more likeable.

In one he appeared to like teaching and students and in the other he came across as a much more authoritarian figure who didn’t like teach at all.

After each group of students watched the videos they were asked to rate the lecturer on physical appearance, mannerisms and even his accent (mannerisms were kept the same across both videos).

Consistent with the halo effect, students who saw the ‘warm’ incarnation of the lecturer rated him more attractive, his mannerisms more likeable and even is accent as more appealing.

This was unsurprising as it backed up previous work on the halo effect.

The halo effect operates unconsciously

The surprise is that students had no clue whatsoever why they gave one lecturer higher ratings, even after they were given every chance.

After the study it was suggested to them that how much they liked the lecturer might have affected their evaluations.

Despite this, most said that how much they liked the lecturer from what he said had not affected their evaluation of his individual characteristics at all.

For those who had seen the badass lecturer the results were even worse – students got it the wrong way around.

Some thought their ratings of his individual characteristics had actually affected their global evaluation of his likeability.

Even after this, the experimenters were not satisfied.

They interviewed students again to ask them whether it was possible their global evaluation of the lecturer had affected their ratings of the lecturer’s attributes.

Still, the students told them it hadn’t.

They were convinced they had made their judgement about the lecturer’s physical appearance, mannerisms and accent without considering how likeable he was.

The halo effect in business

The halo effect in itself is fascinating and now well-known in the business world.

According to ‘Reputation Marketing‘ by John Marconi, books that have ‘Harvard Classics’ written on the front can demand twice the price of the exact same book without the Harvard endorsement.

The same is true in the fashion industry.

The addition of a well-known fashion designer’s name to a simple pair of jeans can inflate their price tremendously.

But what this experiment demonstrates is that although we can understand the halo effect intellectually, we often have no idea when it is actually happening.

This is what makes it such a useful effect for marketers and politicians.

We quite naturally make the kinds of adjustments demonstrated in this experiment without even realising it.

And then, even when it’s pointed out to us, we may well still deny it.

The halo effect in the workplace

The halo effect commonly affects hiring, performance reviews and many other aspects of the workplace.

The halo effect may even be one of the most common biases operating in this area.

Managers typically give higher ratings to workers who are attractive or very enthusiastic or very well-dressed, rather than on their skill at doing the job.

One famous example of the halo effect is the finding that attractive food servers earn more tips than their less attractive counterparts (Parrett, 2015).

How to avoid the halo effect

So, the next time you vote for a politician, consider buying a pair of designer jeans or decide whether you like someone, ask yourself whether the halo effect is operating.

Are you really evaluating the traits of the person or product you thought you were or is the halo effect interfering?

Perhaps some global aspect is bleeding over into your specific judgement?

This simple check on the halo effect could save you voting for the wrong person, wasting your money or rejecting someone who would be a loyal friend.

→ This post is part of a series on the best social psychology experiments:

1. Halo Effect: Definition And How It Affects Our Perception
2. Cognitive Dissonance: How and Why We Lie to Ourselves
3. Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop
4. Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo’s Famous Social Psychology Study
5. Milgram Experiment: Explaining Obedience to Authority
6. False Consensus Effect: What It Is And Why It Happens
7. Social Identity Theory And The Minimal Group Paradigm
8. Negotiation: 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most
9. Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility
10. Asch Conformity Experiment: The Power Of Social Pressure

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The definition of cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort people feel when trying to hold two conflicting beliefs in their mind.

The ground-breaking social psychological experiment of Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do.

The experiment is filled with ingenious deception so the best way to understand it is to imagine you are taking part. So sit back, relax and travel back.

The time is 1959 and you are an undergraduate student at Stanford University…

(Alternatively, you can skip straight to what is cognitive dissonance.)

As part of your course you agree to take part in an experiment on ‘measures of performance’.

You are told the experiment will take two hours.

As you are required to act as an experimental subject for a certain number of hours in a year – this will be two more of them out of the way.

Little do you know, the experiment will actually become a classic in social psychology.

And what will seem to you like accidents by the experimenters are all part of a carefully controlled deception.

For now though, you are innocent.

Cognitive dissonance: the set-up

Once in the lab you are told the experiment is about how your expectations affect the actual experience of a task.

Apparently there are two groups and in the other group they have been given a particular expectation about the study.

To instil the expectation subtly, the participants in the other groups are informally briefed by a student who has apparently just completed the task.

In your group, though, you’ll do the task with no expectations.

Perhaps you wonder why you’re being told all this, but nevertheless it makes it seem a bit more exciting now that you know some of the mechanics behind the experiment.

So you settle down to the first task you are given, and quickly realise it is extremely boring.

You are asked to move some spools around in a box for half an hour, then for the next half an hour you move pegs around a board.

Frankly, watching paint dry would have been preferable.

At the end of the tasks the experimenter thanks you for taking part, then tells you that many other people find the task pretty interesting.

This is a little confusing – the task was very boring. Whatever. You let it pass.

Effects of cognitive dissonance

Then the experimenter looks a little embarrassed and starts to explain haltingly that there’s been a cock-up.

He says they need your help.

The participant coming in after you is in the other condition they mentioned before you did the task – the condition in which they have an expectation before carrying out the task.

This expectation is that the task is actually really interesting.

Unfortunately the person who usually sets up their expectation hasn’t turned up.

So, they ask if you wouldn’t mind doing it.

Not only that but they offer to pay you $1.

Because it’s 1959 and you’re a student this is not completely insignificant for only a few minutes work.

And, they tell you that they can use you again in the future.

It sounds like easy money so you agree to take part.

This is great – what started out as a simple fulfilment of a course component has unearthed a little ready cash for you.

You are quickly introduced to the next participant who is about to do the same task you just completed.

As instructed you tell her that the task she’s about to do is really interesting.

She smiles, thanks you and disappears off into the test room.

You feel a pang of regret for getting her hopes up.

Then the experimenter returns, thanks you again, and once again tells you that many people enjoy the task and hopes you found it interesting.

Then you are ushered through to another room where you are interviewed about the experiment you’ve just done.

One of the questions asks you about how interesting the task was that you were given to do.

This makes you pause for a minute and think.

Now it seems to you that the task wasn’t as boring as you first thought.

You start to see how even the repetitive movements of the spools and pegs had a certain symmetrical beauty.

And it was all in the name of science after all.

This was a worthwhile endeavour and you hope the experimenters get some interesting results out of it.

The task still couldn’t be classified as great fun, but perhaps it wasn’t that bad.

You figure that, on reflection, it wasn’t as bad as you first thought.

You rate it moderately interesting.

After the experiment you go and talk to your friend who was also doing the experiment.

Comparing notes you found that your experiences were almost identical except for one vital difference.

She was offered way more than you to brief the next student: $20!

This is when it first occurs to you that there’s been some trickery at work here.

You ask her about the task with the spools and pegs:

“Oh,” she replies. “That was sooooo boring, I gave it the lowest rating possible.”

“No,” you insist. “It wasn’t that bad. Actually when you think about it, it was pretty interesting.”

She looks at you incredulously.

What the hell is going on?

What is cognitive dissonance?

What you’ve just experienced is the power of cognitive dissonance.

Social psychologists studying cognitive dissonance are interested in the way we deal with two thoughts that contradict each other – and how we deal with this contradiction.

In this case: you thought the task was boring to start off with then you were paid to tell someone else the task was interesting.

But, you’re not the kind of person to casually go around lying to people.

So how can you resolve your view of yourself as an honest person with lying to the next participant?

The amount of money you were paid hardly salves your conscience – it was nice but not that nice.

Your mind resolves this conundrum by deciding that actually the study was pretty interesting after all.

You are helped to this conclusion by the experimenter who tells you other people also thought the study was pretty interesting.

Your friend, meanwhile, has no need of these mental machinations.

She merely thinks to herself: I’ve been paid $20 to lie, that’s a small fortune for a student like me, and more than justifies my fibbing.

The task was boring and still is boring whatever the experimenter tells me.

Examples of cognitive dissonance

Since this experiment numerous studies of cognitive dissonance have been carried out and the effect is well-established.

Its beauty is that it explains so many of our everyday behaviours.

Here are some examples provided by Morton Hunt in ‘The Story of Psychology:

• When trying to join a group, the harder they make the barriers to entry, the more you value your membership. To resolve the dissonance between the hoops you were forced to jump through, and the reality of what turns out to be a pretty average club, we convince ourselves the club is, in fact, fantastic.
• People will interpret the same information in radically different ways to support their own views of the world. When deciding our view on a contentious point, we conveniently forget what jars with our own theory and remember everything that fits.
• People quickly adjust their values to fit their behaviour, even when it is clearly immoral. Those stealing from their employer will claim that “Everyone does it” so they would be losing out if they didn’t, or alternatively that “I’m underpaid so I deserve a little extra on the side.”

Once you start to think about it, the list of situations in which people resolve cognitive dissonance through rationalisations becomes ever longer and longer.

If you’re honest with yourself, I’m sure you can think of many times when you’ve done it yourself.

I know I can.

Being aware of this can help us avoid falling foul of the most dangerous consequences of cognitive dissonance: believing our own lies.

→ This post is part of a series on the best social psychology experiments:

1. Halo Effect: Definition And How It Affects Our Perception
2. Cognitive Dissonance: How and Why We Lie to Ourselves
3. Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop
4. Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo’s Famous Social Psychology Study
5. Milgram Experiment: Explaining Obedience to Authority
6. False Consensus Effect: What It Is And Why It Happens
7. Social Identity Theory And The Minimal Group Paradigm
8. Negotiation: 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most
9. Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility
10. Asch Conformity Experiment: The Power Of Social Pressure

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