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http://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/biases/13_J_Experimental_Social_Psychology_279_%28Ross%29.pdf
The disinterested observer will note that both gun-control advocates *and* the "build a border wall to keep the
scary brown people out" crowd regularly claim to have vast majorities on their side, and only the evil machinations
of a cabal of <insert name of demonized outgroup here> are preventing the New Jerusalem from coming about.
This serves two purposes: 1. To serve as a convenient excuse for why their "common sense reforms" aren't
happening, and 2) Providing a handy tool to help convincine the mar..., errr 'concerned voters' to keep the faith and keep forking over $$$
The best illustration of the mindset can be found, imo, in Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer"
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
The “False Consensus Effect”: An Egocentric Bias in Social Perception and Attribution Processes
LEE ROSS, DAVID GREENE, AND PAMELA HOUSE
Stanford University
Received April 21, 1976
Evidence from four studies demonstrates that social observers tend to perceive
a “false consensus” with respect to the relative commonness of their own responses.
A related bias was shown to exist in the observers’ social inferences.
Thus, raters estimated particular responses to be relatively common and relatively
unrevealing concerning the actors’ distinguishing personal dispositions when the
responses in question were similar to the raters’ own responses; responses differing
from those of the rater, by contrast, were perceived to be relatively uncommon
and revealing of the actor. These results were obtained both in questionnaire studies
presenting subjects with hypothetical situations and choices and in authentic conflict
situations. The implications of these findings for our understanding of social perception
phenomena and for our analysis of the divergent perceptions of actors and observers
are discussed. Finally, cognitive and perceptual mechanisms are proposed which might
account for distortions in perceived consensus and for corresponding biases in social
inference and attributional processes.
The “False Consensus Effect”: An Egocentric Bias in Social Perception and Attribution Processes
LEE ROSS, DAVID GREENE, AND PAMELA HOUSE
Stanford University
Received April 21, 1976
Evidence from four studies demonstrates that social observers tend to perceive
a “false consensus” with respect to the relative commonness of their own responses.
A related bias was shown to exist in the observers’ social inferences.
Thus, raters estimated particular responses to be relatively common and relatively
unrevealing concerning the actors’ distinguishing personal dispositions when the
responses in question were similar to the raters’ own responses; responses differing
from those of the rater, by contrast, were perceived to be relatively uncommon
and revealing of the actor. These results were obtained both in questionnaire studies
presenting subjects with hypothetical situations and choices and in authentic conflict
situations. The implications of these findings for our understanding of social perception
phenomena and for our analysis of the divergent perceptions of actors and observers
are discussed. Finally, cognitive and perceptual mechanisms are proposed which might
account for distortions in perceived consensus and for corresponding biases in social
inference and attributional processes.
The disinterested observer will note that both gun-control advocates *and* the "build a border wall to keep the
scary brown people out" crowd regularly claim to have vast majorities on their side, and only the evil machinations
of a cabal of <insert name of demonized outgroup here> are preventing the New Jerusalem from coming about.
This serves two purposes: 1. To serve as a convenient excuse for why their "common sense reforms" aren't
happening, and 2) Providing a handy tool to help convincine the mar..., errr 'concerned voters' to keep the faith and keep forking over $$$
The best illustration of the mindset can be found, imo, in Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer"
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