False Consensus Effect: A Focused Review of Research
Categorization and social projection are important ways that people can more successfully navigate their social environment. People need to know that there are others in their in-group that share the same attitudes and behaviors as they do. If people are unable to determine how many people in their environment share their attitudes and behaviors, it would be more difficult to engage in social situations without offending or contradicting others. For this reason, false consensus is an interesting offshoot of this important idea. The false consensus effect refers to the fact that people have a tendency to over-estimate the proportion of the population that shares an attitude or behavior with him or her.
Much of the research on false consensus has demonstrated that people tend to over project how many members of their in-group are likely to share their attitudes and behaviors. This effect diminishes when comparing to an......

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Title: False Consensus Effect
Approximate Word Count: 1973
Approximate Pages: 8 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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