The Role of Pluralistic Ignorance in the Reporting of Sexual Harassment

There have been many attempts to explain how and why people report incidents of sexual harassment. One area that has been overlooked is the influence of the targets' social cognition processes on these reports, particularly social comparison processes such as pluralistic ignorance. Pluralistic ignorance is a social comparison phenomenon whereby individuals mistakenly believe they are in the minority. In the case of harassment, pluralistic ignorance occurs when individuals mistakenly interpret the behavioral responses of others to mistakenly believe that they are alone in their discomfort with harassment. We investigated the role of pluralistic ignorance in this process by exposing undergraduate students to sexist jokes while manipulating their access to behavioral responses of others. We measured their comfort level and their perceptions of the humor of the jokes. We compared their responses, most importantly, with how many jokes they read prior to “reporting” their discomfort with the jokes. We found evidence for the proposed role of pluralistic ignorance in the sexual harassment reporting process, whereby exposure to behavioral responses of others influences perceptions of others' relative comfort and humor, which in turn led to a decreased likelihood of reporting the harassment.     

On the rationality of pluralistic ignorance

Pluralistic ignorance is a socio-psychological phenomenon that involves a systematic discrepancy between people’s private beliefs and public behavior in certain social contexts. Recently, pluralistic ignorance has gained increased attention in formal and social epistemology. But to get clear on what precisely a formal and social epistemological account of pluralistic ignorance should look like, we need answers to at least the following two questions: What exactly is the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance? And can the phenomenon arise among perfectly rational agents? In this paper, we propose answers to both these questions. First, we characterize different versions of pluralistic ignorance and define the version that we claim most adequately captures the examples cited as paradigmatic cases of pluralistic ignorance in the literature. In doing so, we will stress certain key epistemic and social interactive aspects of the phenomenon. Second, given our characterization of pluralistic ignorance, we argue that the phenomenon can indeed arise in groups of perfectly rational agents. This, in turn, ensures that the tools of formal epistemology can be fully utilized to reason about pluralistic ignorance.     

Risk aversion and elite-group ignorance

Critical race theorists and standpoint epistemologists argue that agents who are members of dominant social groups are often in a state of ignorance about the extent of their social dominance, where this ignorance is explained by these agents' membership in a socially dominant group (e.g., Mills 2007). To illustrate this claim bluntly, it is argued: 1) that many white men do not know the extent of their social dominance, 2) that they remain ignorant as to the extent of their dominant social position even where this information is freely attainable, and 3) that this ignorance is due in part to the fact that they are white men. We argue that on Buchak's (2010, 2013) model of risk averse instrumental rationality, ignorance of one's privileges can be rational. This argument yields a new account of elite-group ignorance, why it may occur, and how it might be alleviated.     

Pluralistic ignorance in the bystander effect: informational dynamics of unresponsive witnesses in situations calling for intervention

The goal of the present paper is to construct a formal explication of the pluralistic ignorance explanation of the bystander effect. The social dynamics leading to inaction is presented, decomposed, and modeled using dynamic epistemic logic augmented with ‘transition rules’ able to characterize agent behavior. Three agent types are defined: First Responders who intervene given belief of accident; City Dwellers, capturing ‘apathetic urban residents’ and Hesitators, who observe others when in doubt, basing subsequent decision on social proof. It is shown how groups of the latter may end in a state of pluralistic ignorance leading to inaction. Sequential models for each agent type are specified, and their results compared to empirical studies. It is concluded that only the Hesitator model produces reasonable results.     

Pluralistic ignorance in revenge attitudes and behavior in interpersonal relationships

We investigated whether people's perceptions of social norms concerning interpersonal revenge reflect a tendency for individuals to believe that others' revenge attitudes and behavior differ from their own (i.e., pluralistic ignorance). As part of a survey on revenge experiences in relationships with romantic partners, family members, and associates (e.g., friends), participants (N = 534) judged the acceptability and frequency of revenge in significant personal relationships. As expected, participants believed that others (a) saw revenge as more acceptable and (b) engaged in revenge more frequently than they did themselves. They did not, however, perceive others' revenge attitudes and behaviors to be any more variable than their own attitudes and behaviors actually were. Explanations for and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Pluralistic Ignorance and Health Risk Behaviors: Do College Students Misperceive Social Approval for Risky Behaviors on Campus and in Media?

Pluralistic ignorance is a psychological state in which individuals believe that their own beliefs and feelings differ from others' in a group despite the fact that they all behave similarly (Miller & McFarland, 1991). For example, college students reported that they were less comfortable with campus drinking than were other students on their campus (Prentice & Miller, 1993). We replicated this finding and investigated whether college students would show this pluralistic ignorance effect for other health-related risk behaviors (smoking, sexual behavior, and illegal drug use). In addition, we tested whether media portrayals of these behaviors also might result in pluralistic ignorance. The results show that a significant effect of pluralistic ignorance occurred for all 4 health-related risk behaviors, both in ratings of campus behaviors and in ratings of media portrayals of these behaviors. Participants indicated that other students on their campus would have higher comfort ratings with campus patterns of smoking, drinking, illegal drug use, and sexual behaviors than their own comfort ratings. Participants also indicated that other students would have higher comfort ratings with the same 4 behaviors as they are portrayed in the media than their own comfort ratings.     

Pluralistic Ignorance and Political Correctness: The Case of Affirmative Action

The pressure to appear politically correct can have important consequences for social life. In particular, the desire to appear politically correct, and to avoid being seen as racist, sexist, or culturally insensitive, can lead people to espouse publicly support for politically correct issues, such as support for affirmative action, despite privately held doubts. Such discrepancies between public behavior and private attitudes, when accompanied by divergent attributions for one's own behavior and the identical behavior of others, can lead to pluralistic ignorance. Two studies investigated pluralistic ignorance with respect to affirmative action among undergraduates. Their survey responses indicate that people overestimate their peers' support for affirmative action and underestimate their peers' opposition to affirmative action, that people's ratings of the political correctness of supporting affirmative action are correlated with their overestimation of support for affirmative action, and that people view their own attitudes toward affirmative action as unique.     

Pluralistic ignorance and misperception of social norms concerning cheating in dating relationships

Two studies tested the hypothesis that beliefs about infidelity in dating relationships reflect pluralistic ignorance, a misperception in which people mistakenly believe that their own personal attitudes and behavior differ from others' when they do not. Consistent with pluralistic ignorance findings in other domains, undergraduates reported that the average university student (a) saw dating infidelity as more acceptable and (b) engaged in unfaithful acts more frequently than they themselves did. Neither type of infidelity (sexual, emotional, both sexual and emotional, or unspecified; Study 1, N = 176) nor motivated reasoning (i.e., defensiveness; Study 2, N = 359) moderated this pattern of results. Possible sources of misperceived norms concerning fidelity in dating relationships and the implications of such misperceptions are discussed.     

To specialize or to innovate? An internalist account of pluralistic ignorance in economics

Academic and corporate research departments alike face a crucial dilemma: to exploit known frameworks or to explore new ones; to specialize or to innovate? Here I show that these two conflicting epistemic desiderata are sufficient to explain pluralistic ignorance and its boom-and-bust-like dynamics, exemplified in the collapse of the efficient markets hypothesis as a modern risk management paradigm in 2007. The internalist nature of this result, together with its robustness, suggests that pluralistic ignorance is an inherent feature rather than a threat to the rationality of epistemic communities.     

Biases in the perceived prevalence and motives of severe acute respiratory syndrome prevention behaviors among Chinese high school students in Hong Kong

In two studies conducted in Hong Kong during and immediately after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), participants displayed several social cognitive biases when they estimated the prevalence of and inferred the motives underlying SARS preventive behaviors. First, participants who practiced preventive behaviors (practicers) consistently estimated that more people practiced such behaviors than did non-practicers (false consensus bias). Second, for some preventive behaviors, participants believed that their own behaviors were more motivated by prosocial concerns (relative to self-interest) than were other practicers (pluralistic ignorance). Finally, non-practicers underestimated the importance of prosocial concerns underlying some preventive behaviors (actor-observer bias). We discussed the relevance of these social cognitive biases to health education and to Hong Kong people's psychological reactions to SARS.     

Resolving the Tensions Between White People's Active Investment in Racial Inequality and White Ignorance: A Response to Marzia Milazzo

This article responds to Marzia Milazzo's article ‘On white ignorance, white shame, and other pitfalls in critical philosophy of race’ (2017), in which Milazzo argues that the concepts white shame, white guilt, white privilege, white habits, white invisibility and white ignorance are pitfalls in the process of decolonisation. Milazzo contends that the way these concepts are theorised in much critical philosophy of race minimises white people's active interest in reproducing the racial status quo. While I agree with Milazzo's critique of white shame and white guilt, I argue that these affective responses are fundamentally different to the remaining concepts. Drawing on critical whiteness studies and agnotology, I argue that white privilege, white invisibility and white ignorance are valuable conceptual tools for revealing (as opposed to minimising) white people's active investment in maintaining racial inequality. Whereas Milazzo sees a contradiction between white people's active interest in maintaining racial inequality and concepts like white invisibility and white ignorance, I argue that, correctly theorised, these concepts resolve this apparent contradiction. I contest Milazzo's call to reject white privilege, white invisibility and white ignorance, arguing that these concepts are useful tools in the project of decolonisation.     

Ordinance influences individuals' perceptions towards prospects of social circumstance but not the status quo: An experimental field study on sexual minorities issues in Japan

Scientific evidence shows that institutional decisions can change individuals' private attitudes towards relevant issues. However, little is known about their effect on individuals' perceptions of social norms. This intriguing question has gained the attention of scholars. Nonetheless, the findings are primarily observed only in samples of the Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic countries, leading to doubts about their generalisability. This study experimentally tested residents' (N = 411) reactions to the new Tokyo ordinance prohibiting discrimination against sexual minorities enacted on October 5, 2018, and tested whether it dispelled self–other discrepancies regarding tolerance towards sexual minorities (i.e., pluralistic ignorance). The results showed that exposure to information about enactment increased future perceptions of support and understanding of sexual minorities. By contrast, private attitudes, perceptions of current social norms, and willingness to speak out did not change. Willingness to speak out was indirectly enhanced through increased perceptions of gaining future support. Furthermore, Tokyo residents overestimated other residents' negative attitudes towards sexual minorities. However, even when informed of the new ordinance, this self–other discrepancy in intolerance towards sexual minorities was not corrected. These findings suggest that institutional decisions can shape the perception of social norm change in the future beyond Western countries.     

Lacuna in Sankara studies: A thousand teachings (Upadeśasāhasri)

In an important text, A Thousand Teachings, sometimes overlooked by scholars, Sankara expounds non‐dualist religion. This article analyses Sankara's thought for its theoretical and practical perspectives. First, the discussion views non‐duality from the viewpoint of ignorance. This pluralistic/dualistic perspective obscures the unenlightened seeker's vision of the Ultimate Truth. Secondly, the study examines Sankara's introduction of a transitional idea, Unevolved Name‐and‐Form (avyākrte nāmarūpe). Such an idea assists the seeker's intellectual progress from the state of ignorance to a rational understanding leading toward nonduality (Advaita Vedānta). Finally, the exposition clarifies Sankara's expression of the “knowledge of Brahman”. This fulfilling wisdom affects a transformation of the life experience of the unenlightened. Subsequently disciplined in meditation (parisamkhyāna), the persistent seeker develops into an experiencer of the non‐duality (advaitavāda).     

Intellectual Humility as Attitude

Intellectual humility, I argue in this paper, is a cluster of strong attitudes (as these are understood in social psychology) directed toward one's cognitive make‐up and its components, together with the cognitive and affective states that constitute their contents or bases, which serve knowledge and value‐expressive functions. In order to defend this new account of humility I first examine two simpler traits: intellectual self‐acceptance of epistemic limitations and intellectual modesty about epistemic successes. The position defended here addresses the shortcomings of both ignorance and accuracy based accounts of humility.     

Skillful solidarity

This discussion of ‘Disclosing New Worlds’ by Charles Spinosa, Fernando Flores, and Hubert Dreyfus raises four groups of questions. First, do skills, which are largely unreflective, need to be distinguished more sharply from strategies for social action, which are more reflective and deliberative? Second, is there a tension between the article's emphasis on the importance of background practices, which are collective and nonindividual, and its frequent appeal to examples of single individuals (the entrepreneur, the cultural hero) who are able to transform these practices? Third, why does the appeal to solidarity not undermine democratic action, since solidarities compete and conflict with one another, and are often formed by excluding others? Or are the ideas of solidarity and universality not necessarily inconsistent with each other? Fourth, without universalistic values how will a theory of pluralistic solidarities explain social resistance to perceived oppression? Is the authors’ notion of being willing to die for the group's commitments too extreme a test for social solidarity? Even if it were offered as only a limiting case, is it an adequate test for the value or justice of the commitments themselves?     

A Comparison of Personal Project Motives in Three Age Groups

This study examined the extent to which adolescents systematically perceive a discrepancy between private and group norms about the acceptability of bullying and examined the association between norm estimation and actual bystander behavior. Ninety-one 8th graders (42 male and 49 female) described their personal attitudes about bullies and victims as well as their perceptions of their classmates' attitudes. Teachers rated adolescents' participant roles during bullying episodes at school. Results provided support for the premise that teens systematically perceive their peers to hold less prosocial views (e.g., to be more tolerant of bullies, less empathic toward victims, and less inclined to believe they have a responsibility to protect victims) than they themselves do. This tendency to perceive oneself as “out of step” with the group (i.e., pluralistic ignorance) was particularly salient among girls. In addition, there was a significant association between perceived self–other discrepancy in attitudes toward bullying and adolescents' actual bystander behavior when confronted by peer harassment. The more students viewed themselves as out-of-step with group norms about bullying, the higher their teacher-rated scores on passive bystander behavior. Potential implications of these findings and future directions are discussed.     

Culture,types of social withdrawal,and children's beliefs: An integrative perspective

Cultural norms and values provide guidance for children to judge and evaluate specific behavioural characteristics including shyness, unsociability, and social avoidance. The perceptions and attitudes of children, in turn, determine how they exhibit and regulate their behaviours and how they respond to peers' behaviours in social interactions. Investigation of children's beliefs across societies may shed some light on the processes in which culture is involved in shaping the display and developmental significance of different types of social withdrawal. To achieve a better understanding of the role of children's beliefs in mediating cultural influence on development, it will be important to examine how children's beliefs about withdrawn behaviours are associated with patterns of social interactions and relationships in various circumstances.     

Why academic women do not revolt

Low perceptions of sex discrimination among full-time women faculty interviewed at a multicampus northeastern university in a major metropolitan area are explained and compared with statistical data documenting inequities in salary, promotion, rank, and tenure. Structural reasons for the misperceptions are offered, such as concentration in lowest ranks, pluralistic ignorance, merit myths, and cooptation. Data are generalizable because similar patterns prevail at most educational institutions. The study highlights the irony of the way women perceive their status and their own documentation of the day-to-day inequities which cumulatively result in the statistical patterns now accepted by the United States Supreme Court as prima facie evidence of sex discrimination. Solving status inequalities requires strong social networks among women, according to the author. Affirmative action recommendations are outlined to close the gap between women faculty and administrators without resorting to the courts.