| 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 phenomenaare largely context and issue related. Thus for salient issuesin a highly politicized society such as Israel, people can quiteaccurately assess majority and minority opinions. Looking-glassperception and pluralistic ignorance were found to vary systematicallywith the information available on the various issues in thestudy. The level of ignorance on an issue seems also to be afunction of the shape of its distribution. Moreover, the greaterthe overlap between the majority or minority position on anissue and a clearly defined political block, the lower the looking-glassperception and ignorance levels. This suggests that the politicalcontinuum may be used as a surrogate distribution in assessingthe majority opinion when direct information is scarce. Conservativebias was shown to exist on some issues, but a ‘liberalbias’ exists on others. It is proposed that this biasmay reflect social norms rather than an individual tendencyto view others as more conservative than oneself. |
