How Strong is the Association Between Social Media Use and False Consensus?

In series of studies, we sought to assess the extent to which social media use was related to the false consensus effect. Study 1 (N = 493) and Study 2 (N = 364, preregistered) assessed the relationship between social media use and the false consensus effect for three psychological characteristics: political attitudes, personality traits, and fundamental social motives. Study 3 (N = 875) explored lay beliefs about the strength of the relationships between social media use and false consensus effects. Across studies, we found that heavier use of social media was associated with stronger false consensus effects. However, these effects were smaller in magnitude than lay beliefs about these linkages.

A Replication of Stern, West, and Schmitt (2014) Indicates Less False Consensus Among Liberals Than Conservatives, But No False Uniqueness

Stern, West, and Schmitt (2014) reported that liberals display truly false uniqueness in contrast to moderates and conservatives who display truly false consensus. We conducted a close, preregistered replication of Stern et al.’s (2014) research with a large sample ( N = 1,005). Liberals, moderates, and conservatives demonstrated the truly false consensus effect by overestimating ingroup consensus. False consensus was strongest among conservatives, followed by moderates, and weakest among liberals. However, liberals did score higher than moderates and conservatives on the need for uniqueness scale, which partially accounted for the difference in false consensus between liberals and conservatives. Overall, our data align with Stern et al.’s (2014) in demonstrating left-right ideological differences in the overestimation of ingroup consensus but fall short of illustrating a liberal illusion of uniqueness.

Characteristics of Participants and Satisficing Tendency in Online Surveys Using a Sample Provider

A panel sample provider is a service that acts as an intermediary between a researcher and a survey monitor supplier in a web-based survey, and earns a transaction fee by providing the supplier with information on the survey that the researcher has registered and set up. In this report, we focused on LUCID (https://luc.id/), the world's largest panel sample provider and conducted a simple experimental online survey using LUCID in Japan, the U. S., the U. K., and China and examine participants' tendency to engage in satisficing when they do not pay due attention to the survey and its effect on their tendency to respond to an experimental task of “false consensus effect.” The percentage of satisficers who violated the instructions both times was high for both tasks in JP and CN. The effect sizes of one's own choice for satisficers were relatively smaller (though not absolutely small) than those for compliers and converts. These results show both the possibility that satisficing biases experimental results and the possibility that it can be corrected in a more appropriate direction by alerting.

False consensus in the echo chamber: Exposure to favorably biased social media news feeds leads to increased perception of public support for own opinions

Studies suggest that users of online social networking sites can tend to preferably connect with like-minded others, leading to “Echo Chambers” in which attitudinally congruent information circulates. However, little is known about how exposure to artifacts of Echo Chambers, such as biased attitudinally congruent online news feeds, affects individuals’ perceptions and behavior. This study experimentally tested if exposure to attitudinally congruent online news feeds affects individuals' False Consensus Effect, that is, how strongly individuals perceive public opinions as favorably biased and in support of their own opinions. It was predicted that the extent of the False Consensus Effect is influenced by the level of agreement individuals encounter in online news feeds, with high agreement leading to a higher estimate of public support for their own opinions than low agreement. Two online experiments (n1 = 331 and n2 = 207) exposed participants to nine news feeds, each containing four messages. Two factors were manipulated: Agreement expressed in message texts (all but one [Exp.1] / all [Exp.2] messages were congruent or incongruent to participants' attitudes) and endorsement of congruent messages by other users (congruent messages displayed higher or lower numbers of “likes” than incongruent messages). Additionally, based on Elaboration Likelihood Theory, interest in a topic was considered as a moderating variable. Both studies confirmed that participants infer public support for their own attitudes from the degree of agreement they encounter in online messages, yet are skeptical of the validity of “likes”, especially if their interest in a topic is high.

EXPRESS: Marketers Project Their Personal Preferences onto Consumers: Overcoming the Threat of Egocentric Decision Making

This research explores how marketing managers can avoid the so-called false consensus effect—the egocentric tendency to project personal preferences onto consumers. Two pilot studies were conducted to provide evidence for the managerial importance of this research question and to explore how marketing managers attempt to avoid false consensus effects in practice. The results suggest that the debiasing tactic most frequently used by marketers is to suppress their personal preferences when predicting consumer preferences. Four subsequent studies show that, ironically, this debiasing tactic can backfire and increase managers’ susceptibility to the false consensus effect. Specifically, the results suggest that these backfire effects are most likely to occur for managers with a low level of preference certainty. In contrast, the results imply that preference suppression does not backfire but instead decreases false consensus effects for managers with a high level of preference certainty. Finally, the studies explore the mechanism behind these results and show how managers can ultimately avoid false consensus effects—regardless of their level of preference certainty and without risking backfire effects.

The Belief in a Favorable Future

People believe that future others’ preferences and beliefs will change to align with their own. People holding a particular view (e.g., support of President Trump) are more likely to believe that future others will share their view than to believe that future others will have an opposing view (e.g., opposition to President Trump). Six studies demonstrated this belief in a favorable future (BFF) for political views, scientific beliefs, and entertainment and product preferences. BFF is greater in magnitude than the tendency to believe that current others share one’s views (false-consensus effect), arises across cultures, is distinct from general optimism, is strongest when people perceive their views as being objective rather than subjective, and can affect (but is distinct from) beliefs about favorable future policy changes. A lab experiment involving monetary bets on the future popularity of politicians and a field experiment involving political donations ( N = 660,542) demonstrated that BFF can influence people’s behavior today.

Neural Correlates of the False Consensus Effect: Evidence for Motivated Projection and Regulatory Restraint

The false consensus effect (FCE), the tendency to project our attitudes and opinions on to others, is a pervasive bias in social reasoning with a range of ramifications for individuals and society. Research in social psychology has suggested that numerous factors (anchoring and adjustment, accessibility, motivated projection, etc.) may contribute to the FCE. In this study, we examine the neural correlates of the FCE and provide evidence that motivated projection plays a significant role. Activity in reward regions (ventromedial pFC and bilateral nucleus accumbens) during consensus estimation was positively associated with bias, whereas activity in right ventrolateral pFC (implicated in emotion regulation) was inversely associated with bias. Activity in reward and regulatory regions accounted for half of the total variation in consensus bias across participants (R2 = .503). This research complements models of the FCE in social psychology, providing a glimpse into the neural mechanisms underlying this important phenomenon.