Conformity and Social Pressure in Student Protests

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Men were more likely to conform in a specific study, while the ban on beer kegs at a school led to public division and protests. Despite privately supporting the ban, students felt pressured to join the protests due to social costs, resulting in increased alienation and feelings of deviance. Consequently, students in different stages of their school trajectory experienced varying levels of alienation. The protests led students to believe they would never attend such reunions, showcasing a psychological irony.

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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