When extremes sound like the majority: Social signal and norm misperception

Abstract Societies often misperceive their own normative center. Individuals may believe that distinctive, conservative, or ideologically committed positions are more widely shared than they actually are, sustaining pluralistic ignorance even when private attitudes are moderate. Yet little is known about how perceived norms become systematically organized under conditions of uncertainty. We propose that norm perceptions are structured around socially salient reference points, including identity-defining or ideologically committed subgroups, and only partially calibrated by individuals’ private attitudes. Across two preregistered studies, we test this representational account of norm perception in distinct social ecologies. Study 1 examines norm inference among 550 adults from Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community, a context characterized by strong social norms and hierarchies. Study 2 extends the analysis cross-nationally using survey data from 21,233 respondents in 57 countries on perceived gender norms. Using theory-constrained regression models, we fixed the intercept to alternative candidate reference points and estimated adjustment from these anchors as a function of respondents’ private attitudes. Across studies, perceived norms were better represented relative to contextually salient subgroup anchors or, in some domains, the response-scale midpoint, than by population averages alone. These findings suggest that pluralistic ignorance may reflect a predictable structure in how normative perceptions are formed under uncertainty: perceived norms are organized around salient reference points and only partially adjusted in relation to individuals’ private attitudes.