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© 1993 World Association for Public Opinion Research

PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE REVISITED: PERCEPTION OF OPINION DISTRIBUTIONS IN ISRAEL

Jacob Shamir

Abstract

This study examines the phenomena of pluralistic ignorance, looking-glass perception and conservative bias across issues. Public opinion data from Israel suggest that these phenomena are largely context and issue related. Thus for salient issues in a highly politicized society such as Israel, people can quite accurately assess majority and minority opinions. Looking-glass perception and pluralistic ignorance were found to vary systematically with the information available on the various issues in the study. The level of ignorance on an issue seems also to be a function of the shape of its distribution. Moreover, the greater the overlap between the majority or minority position on an issue and a clearly defined political block, the lower the looking-glass perception and ignorance levels. This suggests that the political continuum may be used as a surrogate distribution in assessing the majority opinion when direct information is scarce. Conservative bias was shown to exist on some issues, but a ‘liberal bias’ exists on others. It is proposed that this bias may reflect social norms rather than an individual tendency to view others as more conservative than oneself.


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