False enforcement as an impression management strategy: its social function in the process of pluralistic ignorance

Abstract

Pluralistic ignorance has been suggested to contribute to the perpetuation of social norms, sometimes even when the norms are unpopular and have already lost the support of the majority of group members. Previous studies have suggested that false enforcement could reinforce the perpetuation of unpopular norms by suppressing the number of deviants; however, little is known about the underlying psychological mechanism responsible for this. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that impression management motivation induces false enforcement, and the perpetually low rates of men taking paternity leave in Japan was addressed as a topic. The results demonstrated that misperceiving othersb