False consensus beliefs and populist attitudes

Abstract

A well-established finding from social psychology is that people tend to hold “false consensus beliefs,” that is, they regularly overestimate how many others agree with their own opinions. However, the consequences of such beliefs for citizens' assessment of democratic legitimacy are still largely unexplored. We reason that false consensus beliefs may give citizens the erroneous impression that most fellow citizens share their political preferences while political elites fail to follow this apparent will of the majority. False consensus beliefs might therefore play an important role in the development of populist attitudes to politics. Using original survey data from Germany, we document a robust observational relationship between false consensus beliefs and populist attitudes. This association applies to all subdimensions of populist attitudes, holds for individuals with different self-placements on the left–right scale, and extends to related measures of political support (external efficacy and political trust). Our findings suggest a novel cause of populist attitudes, rooted in humans' tendency to project their views onto others—a tendency that today's high-choice media environments could exacerbate.