Underestimates and Truly False Consensus Effects in Estimates of Embarrassment and Other Emotions

Abstract

In 3 studies, we asked participants to report on their own emotional experience in specific scenarios, and to predict how others would respond. In line with speculation in the literature, in Study 1 we found underestimation of the percentage of others who would experience embarrassment. We also found truly false consensus effects. In Study 2 we asked participants to report on their experiences of inhibition due to embarrassment, and we found underestimation of how commonly others had been inhibited. We found evidence of a false consensus effect but no evidence of a truly false consensus effect. In Study 3, we found that participants underestimated the probability of other people experiencing anger, fear, guilt, jealousy, joy, and shame. We again found truly false consensus effects. Our results support the idea that pluralistic ignorance may be caused by underestimation of how inhibited other people are by embarrassment.