Om våra förutfattade meningar - False Consensus Effect

En intresant artikel i senaste The Chronicle of higher education om hur lätt det är att anta att de värderingar vi hittar inom vårt eget ungängeskrets är en spegling av, eller synonymt med, varderingarna i samhället i stort. Artikeln riktar in sig mot "liberal academics" men har faktist en betydelse för alla grupper (även icke-kommenterbara Timbro-blogar). Värt att tänka på i dessa list-tyngda tider *L*

After Nixon crushed McGovern in the 1972 election, the film critic Pauline Kael made a remark that has become a touchstone among conservatives. "I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won," she marveled. "I don't know anybody who voted for him." While the second sentence indicates the sheltered habitat of the Manhattan intellectual, the first signifies what social scientists call the False Consensus Effect. That effect occurs when people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population. If the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody thinks the same way. (min anm.)