For many people - more than you might think - public and political
dialogue seems dominated by extreme views that don't resonate.
A new study suggests a possible reason: People with extreme views seem more willing to share their opinions than others, but only if they believe, even falsely, that their views are popular.
However, the research looked at only a narrow topic range and
involved just college students, so more study would be needed to reveal
whether the findings apply broadly to other age groups and beliefs.
Still, the findings are intriguing.
The upshot of the research: Students who held extreme views on the
use of alcohol on campus were more likely than others to voice their
views. The key to their bold approach, scientists found, was that they
tended to believe their views actually represented a majority, when
that was not in fact the case.
That situation can set up a self-feeding cycle that promotes the
voicing of extreme views on one side of an issue and causes moderate
and even extremists on the other side to stay relatively quiet.
"When people with extreme views have this false sense that they are
in the majority, they are more willing to express themselves," said
Kimberly Rios Morrison, co-author of the study and assistant professor
of communication at Ohio State University. Those who take the extreme
version of their group's viewpoint may believe that they actually
represent the true views of their group, Morrison figures.
The studies
In a series of studies, Morrison and her co-author, Dale Miller of
Stanford University, found that college students who were extremely
pro-alcohol were more likely to express their opinions than others,
even though most students surveyed were moderate in their views about
alcohol use.
"Students who were stridently pro-alcohol tended to think that their
opinion was much more popular than it actually was," she said. "They
seemed to buy into the stereotype that college students are very
comfortable with alcohol use."
The results were detailed recently in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
The studies were done at Stanford, where alcohol use is prohibited
in common areas of all freshman dorms. In the first study, 37 students
were asked to rate their own views about this policy on a scale from 1
(very strongly opposed) to 9 (very strongly in favor).
The average students' own views were near the mid-point of the
scale, but most rated the typical Stanford student as more pro-alcohol
than themselves.
"There's this stereotype that college students are very pro-alcohol,
and even most college students believe it," Morrison said. "Most
students think of themselves as less pro-alcohol than average."
In the next two studies, students again rated themselves on similar
scales that revealed how pro-alcohol they were. They were then asked
how willing they would be to discuss their views on alcohol use with
other Stanford students.
In general, students who were the most pro-alcohol were the most
likely to say they wanted to express their views, compared to those
with moderate or anti-alcohol views.
A telling twist
Then researchers added a twist, giving participants fake data that
indicated that other Stanford students held relatively conservative,
anti-alcohol views. When extremely pro-alcohol students viewed this
data, they were less likely to say they were willing to discuss alcohol
usage with their fellow students.
"It is only when they have this sense that they are in the majority
that extremely pro-alcohol students are more willing to express their
views on the issue," Morrison said.
Interestingly, however, students who had more extreme anti-alcohol
views still did not desire to express them, even after seeing the data
that suggested a majority of their fellow students agreed with them.
"Their views that they are in the minority may be so deeply
entrenched that it is difficult to change just based on our one
experiment," Morrison said. "In addition, they don't have the
experience expressing their opinions on the subject like the
pro-alcohol extremists do, so they may not feel as comfortable."
The findings suggest possible parallels in politics, Morison figures.
She cites a hypothetical community that tends to be moderate
politically, but leans slightly liberal. People with more extreme
liberal views in the community may be more likely than others to attend
publicly visible protests and display bumper stickers espousing their
liberal views, because they think the community supports them.
A self-feeding cycle might ensue.
"Everyone else sees these extreme opinions being expressed on a
regular basis and they may eventually come to believe their community
is more liberal than it actually is," Morrison said. "The same process
could occur in moderately conservative communities.
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