Pluralistic ignorance

From TMI and Monsters from the Id by Virginia Postrel.  The subheading is A theory of why Americans are wallowing in self-pity and voting for bad character. Plus, I talk textiles and foreign affairs—and an expert defends my horrible speaking voice.

My friend and former Chapman University colleague John Thrasher recently introduced me to the concept of pluralistic ignorance. This is a social science term describing situations in which individuals know their own thoughts and behaviors but assume most people are different, when in fact they aren’t. The classic example is college students who don’t drink that much themselves but assume their classmates are always getting drunk, when those others also drink moderately.

I have posted in the past about how badly people estimate minority numbers (by race, religion, morbidity, income, wealth, etc.)  Misestimation of prevalence of conditions seems to me in some way also related to inability to estimate other's thoughts and behaviors (theory of mind).  A weak prevalence estimation capability in combination with a poor theory of mind seems an unpleasant condition, but not uncommon.