False Enforcement and Challenging Norms

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This chapter discusses the phenomenon of false enforcement, where individuals conform to and enforce norms they privately disagree with. It explores the reasons behind this behavior and provides examples from different contexts such as academia and gender roles. It also highlights the heroic and tragic story of Christine Miller who spoke out against norms, and mentions an experiment designed to further explore the aftermath of her actions.

There are several ways to define pluralistic ignorance, and that’s because it’s kind of a brain twister when you try to put it into words. On certain issues, most people people believe that most people believe what, in truth, few people believe. Or put another way, it is the erroneous belief that the majority is acting in a way that matches its internal philosophies, and that you are one of a small number of people who feel differently, when in reality the majority agrees with you on the inside but is afraid to admit it outright or imply such through its behavior. Everyone in a group, at the same time, gets stuck following a norm that no one wants to follow, because everyone is carrying a shared, false belief about everyone else’s unshared true beliefs.

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