Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Mar 6;109(10):3711-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1200861109. Epub 2012 Feb 21.
Analysis of data from the American Life Panel shows that in the presidential election of 2008 and in multiple statewide elections in 2010, citizens exhibited large differences in their expectations of election outcomes. Expectations were strongly positively associated with candidate preferences, persons tending to believe that their preferred candidate is more likely to win the election. Committed supporters of opposing candidates regularly differed by 20-30% in their assessments of the likelihood that each candidate would win. These findings contribute evidence on the false consensus effect, the empirical regularity that own preferences tend to be positively associated with perceptions of social preferences. We used unique measures of preferences and perceptions that enabled respondents to express uncertainty flexibly. We studied a setting that would a priori seem inhospitable to false consensus--one where persons have little private information on social preferences but substantial common knowledge provided by media reports of election polls.
来自美国生活面板的数据显示，在 2008 年的总统选举和 2010 年的多次全州选举中，选民对选举结果的预期存在显著差异。预期与候选人偏好呈高度正相关，人们倾向于认为自己喜欢的候选人更有可能赢得选举。对竞选对手的坚定支持者在评估每个候选人获胜的可能性时，经常相差 20-30%。这些发现为虚假共识效应提供了证据，这一经验规律表明，自己的偏好往往与对社会偏好的看法呈正相关。我们使用了独特的偏好和认知衡量方法，使受访者能够灵活地表达不确定性。我们研究的环境似乎不利于虚假共识——在这种环境中，人们对社会偏好几乎没有私人信息，但媒体对选举民意调查的报道提供了大量的共同知识。
