Experiment On The Effect Of The False Ross Consensus

The false consensus effect is cognitive bias. This leads us to think that other people, in a majority, think in a similar way to how we do. And when we know that this is not the case, we also tend to overestimate the number of people who belong to the group of those who think in a certain way or practice certain behaviors.

This is how the effect of false consensus leads, for example, to a person of a certain political ideology thinking that that ideology is the most predominant in the world. Or that someone of a certain religion believes that its members are more than those who really exist.

The psychologist Lee Ross, a professor at Stanford University, decided to do an experiment to test the effect of false consensus. Although he has not been the only one to carry out this type of test, his has become a classic reference on the subject.

The first experiment on the effect of false consensus

The first experiment on the false consensus effect was carried out in 1977. The base group of the research were student volunteers, most of them very young.

This group was asked to read a series of texts. In them, situations were described in which there was a conflict, which implied a dilemma about how to respond to the situation.

After doing the reading , everyone was asked to answer three questions :

• What option do you think the person involved in the conflict will choose.
• What option would he choose himself.

• What are the characteristics of the person who chooses one option and what are the characteristics of those who choose the other.

Most of the volunteers answered questions 1 and 2. in a similar way. That is, they thought that the person involved in the conflict would choose the solution for which they would also choose. In question 3, they responded by pondering the solution they would have chosen and denigrating whoever chose the other solution.

The second experiment on the effect of false consensus

The second experiment on the effect of false consensus was also carried out with university students. They were asked to carry a sign with the message ” Eat at Joe’s ” and take a walk around the campus with it on, for 30 minutes. There was complete freedom to participate or not. To motivate them, they were told that in the end they could learn something useful.

In the end, those who had agreed to wear the placard and those who had refused to do so were interviewed. The question was: how many volunteers do you think agreed to wear the sign? Those who had agreed to carry that sign thought that 62% of the other volunteers had done so as well. In contrast, those who refused thought that only 33% of the volunteers had done so.

Again, it was found that the false consensus effect is present. Each person believes that they are part of the majority, even if they have no evidence to indicate it. It is enough to think in one way, to believe that others do too.

Other experiments

The effect of false consensus not only leads us to think that the majority act like us, but also to judge based on that idea. In other words, we believe that our way of thinking is “normal.” In turn, the different ways of thinking are “rare” or, in any case, they are evidence of some kind of error or difficulty. We see those who are different as people who deviate from “the normal.”

Experiments on the phenomenon of false consensus have been repeated many times and in various ways. For example, a survey was made of young people on alcohol ingestion. All of them were asked: “How many people your age usually drink alcohol?” More than 50% of the young people who drank alcohol regularly answered: “almost all”. In non-consumers, only 19% thought that was the case.

All of this tells us about something that is very familiar to us: the lack of empathy. We are so focused on our own vision that it is difficult for us to put ourselves in the shoes of others to see reality from other perspectives. In other words, we see the world and others as an extension of our self.