Uncovering Pluralistic Ignorance to Change Men’s Communal Self-descriptions, Attitudes, and Behavioral Intentions

Abstract

Gender norms can lead men to shy away from traditionally female roles and occupations in communal HEED domains (Healthcare, Early Education, Domestic sphere) that do not fit within the social construct of masculinity. But to what extent do men underestimate the degree to which other men are accepting of men in these domains? Building on research related to social norms and pluralistic ignorance, the current work investigated whether men exhibit increased communal orientations when presented with the true norms regarding men’s communal traits and behaviors vs. their perceived faulty norms. Study 1 (N = 64) revealed that young Belgian men indeed perceive their peers to hold more traditional norms regarding communal and agentic traits than their peers actually hold. Study 2 (N = 319) presented young Belgian men with altered norms to manipulate exposure to men’s actual normative beliefs (i.e., what men truly think), their perceived norms (i.e., what men believe other men think), or a no information control. When men were presented with actual rather than perceived norms, they altered their own self-descriptions, future behavioral intentions, and broader gender-related social attitudes in a more communal direction. In particular, men who were presented with information about men’s actual beliefs regarding the compatibility between communal and agentic traits exhibited the strongest movement toward a more communal orientation. The findings show that participants in conditions that uncover pluralistic ignorance adapted their attitudes and behaviors to be more in line with the actual norm: adopting a more communal self-concept, having lower intentions to hide future communal engagement, and supporting more progressive gender-related social change. The results are discussed in terms of influences of norms on men’s communal orientations and broader attitudes toward gender-related social change, and the down-stream implications for increased gender-equality in HEED domains where men remain highly underrepresented.

Resilient Consensus for Expressed and Private Opinions

“…This often leads to pluralistic ignorance [12], where individuals privately disapprove of a view but publicly go along with it because they believe (sometimes even erroneously) the majority of others accept it. Examples include young Belgian men concerning their attitudes toward communal men's self-description and behavioral intentions [13], and college students concerning their opinions of the average exam study time of their peers [14]. One of the goals of this paper is hence to build a tractable agent-based model to accommodate both an expressed and a private opinion of an individual and study the evolution of opinions based on individuals' available local information in the network.…”

How to Foster Male Engagement in Traditionally Female Communal Roles and Occupations: Insights from Research on Gender Norms and Precarious Manhood

“…Through such socialization processes, boys have a weaker internalization of communal values and stronger agentic values compared to girls (Diekman & Goodfriend, ; Eccles, Barber, & Jozefowicz, ; Wood & Eagly, ). Later in life, when young adults imagine possible future selves, they believe futures that are more stereotypically consistent with their gender are socially expected of them, and their personal aspirations are influenced by such gender expectations (Meeussen, Veldman, & Van Laar, ; Van Grootel, Van Laar, Meeussen, Schmader, & Sczesny, ). Thus, throughout life, gender norms affect people's behavior, aspirations, and choices as people compare themselves with same‐sex others and internalize social norms for their gender group (Cialdini & Trost, ; Crocker, Major, & Steele, ; Festinger, ; Major, ; Wood & Eagly, ).…”

“…Thus, men have more strict perception of the extent to which masculinity norms prescribe aggression than what is actually the case; and they follow and reinforce this perceived norm of aggressive behavior. Similarly, men underestimate the extent to which other men (want to) engage in communal behaviors: When young men were asked to describe their idea of the ideal man and how they thought others would describe the ideal man, they all described their own idea of the ideal man as more communal than their perception of others’ ideal man (Van Grootel et al., ). Thus, men may be following a perceived norm of low communal engagement that is more strict than what is actually the case, and this norm is then sustained or even reinforced through their own behavior.…”

Why Employees Contribute to Pro-Environmental Behaviour: The Role of Pluralistic Ignorance in Chinese Society

“…A greater level of pluralistic ignorance in individuals may further cause them to change their attitudes, intentions, or behaviour in order to remain in keeping with perceived group norms, especially in a manner that is similar to decreasing cognitive dissonance [42]. Pluralistic ignorance therefore accords with the influence of minorities [43].…”