It’s Me Against the World: Perceiving Opposition to Maintain a Belief in Social Problems

Individuals often bolster their own beliefs by projecting these beliefs onto others. Paradoxically, however, when individuals believe a social problem (e.g., gender bias) exists, perceiving widespread agreement could threaten this belief. Across three studies, we find that the stronger a person’s belief that a problem exists, the more they believe others disagree with them. In line with past work, people who do not believe in the existence of a problem think that most others share their belief. Thus, the content of people’s beliefs about social issues (i.e., whether they believe that an issue exists or not) moderates the extent to which they think that others share those beliefs. In a fourth study, we find that people hold the lay belief that perpetrators of a problem deny the existence of that problem (e.g., sexists deny sexism). We discuss potential mechanisms and implications for policy support and outgroup animosity.