PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE REVISITED - PERCEPTION OF OPINION DISTRIBUTIONSIN ISRAEL

This study examines the phenomena of pluralistic ignorance, looking-gl ass perception and conservative bias across issues. Public opinion dat a from Israel suggest that these phenomena are largely context and iss ue related. Thus for salient issues in a highly politicized society su ch as Israel, people can quite accurately assess majority and minority opinions. Looking-glass perception and pluralistic ignorance were fou nd to vary systematically with the information available on the variou s issues in the study. The level of ignorance on an issue seems also t o be a function of the shape of its distribution. Moreover, the greate r the overlap between the majority or minority position on an issue an d a clearly defined political block, the lower the looking-glass perce ption and ignorance levels. This suggests that the political continuum may be used as a surrogate distribution in assessing the majority opi nion when direct information is scarce. Conservative bias was shown to exist on some issues, but a 'liberal bias' exists on others. It is pr oposed that this bias may reflect social norms rather than an individu al tendency to view others as more conservative than oneself