Understand Pluralistic Ignorance
What just happened in our fictional example is that you fell prey to pluralistic ignorance. Pluralistic ignorance happens in situations where everyone privately rejects a norm but thinks that everyone else in the group supports it. Over time, pluralistic ignorance can lead to situations where a group follows rules that all of its members reject in private.
We fall in this social trap when we conclude that the behavior of our peers depends on beliefs that are different from our own, even if we behave in an identical way ourselves. That’s what happened around Andersen’s naked emperor. Because everyone praised the emperor’s new clothes, each individual thought they missed something obvious. That’s why they chose ...
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