False Consensus Effect
We overestimate how much others share our beliefs, opinions, and behaviors.
The false consensus effect (or false consensus bias) is an attributional type of cognitive bias whereby people tend to overestimate the extent to which their own opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are normal and typical of those of others (i.e., that others also think the same way that they do). This can be seen as a need to see our behaviors and ideas as appropriate and common.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Politics Policy Support Overestimation Supporters of any political position consistently overestimate how many others hold the same view.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
After posting a political opinion online and seeing a few likes, a person assumes the majority of their friends and followers agree with them.
Someone who follows a strict budget believes that all their coworkers also carefully track every expense and would never splurge on luxury items.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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