Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 740–747

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Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp

Expressing deviant opinions: Believing you are in the majority helps

Dale T. Miller a, Kimberly Rios Morrison b,*
a
Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, United States
b
School of Communication, The Ohio State University, 3045C Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Three studies tested whether group members whose opinions differ from the average member’s opinion
Received 23 February 2008 in the direction of the group prototype (‘‘descriptive norm deviants”) are more vocal than those whose
Revised 3 April 2009 opinions differ in the opposite direction (‘‘prescriptive norm deviants”), due to the former’s erroneous
Available online 14 April 2009
belief that their opinions are popular. Study 1 found that descriptive norm deviants were more comfort-
able expressing their opinions than prescriptive norm deviants, and that this effect was partially medi-
Keywords: ated by perceived commonness of one’s opinion. Studies 2 and 3 provided experimental evidence that
Deviance
the relationship between deviance direction and comfort was driven by perceptions of consensus. When
Pluralistic ignorance
Social norms
participants were led to believe that most other group members held a prescriptive (as opposed to
Opinion expression descriptive) norm deviant position, the relationship between deviance direction and comfort was atten-
Social identity uated, especially among those who identified strongly with their ingroup. Implications of these findings
for group dynamics, pluralistic ignorance, and social norms are discussed.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Can social practices emerge and persist if they lack support
within the group? They can if group members misperceive the con-
sensus of their group and believe that unpopular practices are
actually supported by most of their peers (Miller & Prentice,
1994; Schanck, 1932). The dynamic wherein group members mis-
takenly believe that the majority of their peers share a view of the
group, its practices, or its circumstances that differs from their own
is known as pluralistic ignorance (Allport, 1924; Miller & McFar-
land, 1991; O’Gorman, 1986). Pluralistic ignorance has been linked
to the persistence of a wide array of unpopular group practices,
including racial discrimination (Fields & Schuman, 1976), food pro-
hibitions (Kitts, 2003) and anti-social behavior (Matza, 1964).
Pluralistic ignorance may help explain why unpopular group
norms emerge and persist, but what explains why pluralistic igno-
rance itself emerges? That is, why might group members come to
misjudge the average sentiment of their peers? One circumstance
in which this can occur is when individual group members inter-
pret their public support for the norm differently than they do oth-
ers’ support for the norm (Prentice & Miller, 2002). In particular,
the tendency of people to see themselves as more fearful of
appearing deviant than others (Miller & McFarland, 1987; Miller
& McFarland, 1991; Van Boven, Loewenstein, & Dunning, 2005)
can lead individuals to accept as authentic the norm-consistent
public behaviors of their peers, even when they recognize that
their identical behavior is inauthentic.
In addition to arising from the differential interpretation of
the same behavior in oneself and others, pluralistic ignorance
can result from exposure to a biased sample of one’s peers. To
the extent that people encounter peers whose opinions or
behaviors are unrepresentative of their group, they can be ex-
pected to reach inaccurate conclusions about the distribution
of opinions among their peers. For example, Wheeler (1961)
attributed the finding that prison inmates overestimated the
anti-administration opinions of their peers to ‘‘ . . . the ability
of anti-staff oriented inmates to attain positions of high visibility
within the inmate system . . . ” (p. 291). If the media or other
third parties give more attention to some positions than others,
this too can lead people to draw erroneous conclusions about
the location of the group consensus (Kim, Han, Shanahan, &
Berdayes, 2004; Prentice & Miller, 1993).
One final means by which a skewed perception of peer opin-
ion can arise, and the focus of this paper, is if people are more
comfortable expressing opinions that deviate from the group
average in one direction than another. That is, to the extent that
people’s willingness to communicate their opinions depends on
the direction (as opposed to simply the magnitude) of difference
between their opinion and that of most other group members, a
skewed distribution of public opinion can be expected to arise.
Demonstrating that some deviants are more comfortable
expressing their opinions than others, and that this asymmetry
is both a cause and consequence of biased perceptions of the
group norm, is the main goal of the present paper.
Descriptive and prescriptive norm deviance

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: dtmiller@stanford.edu (D.T. Miller), kriosmorrison@gmail.com
Why might those who deviate from the group’s average opinion
(K.R. Morrison). in one direction be more willing to communicate their opinions

0022-1031/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.008
 D.T. Miller, K.R. Morrison / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 740–747
than those who deviate in the other direction? Social identity the-
ory suggests one answer. According to social identity theory, the
norms that become instantiated in a group’s identity tend to be
those that distinguish the ingroup from outgroups, as well as those
that link ingroup members (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, &
Wetherell, 1987). Consider drinking practices on campus, an issue
central to the social identity of many university students (Prentice
& Miller, 1993). In this context, the prototypical student position is
likely to be pro-alcohol, as this is the position that will most shar-
ply differentiate students from the administration and other adult
authorities (Toch & Klofas, 1984). Indeed, the prototypical position
may often be more extremely pro-alcohol than the average group
position (Borsari & Carey, 2003).
The distinction between the average group attitude (what
group members actually think and do) and the prototypical group
attitude (what group members believe they should think and do in
order to fit in) implies that two attitudes that diverge equally from
the average will not necessarily be perceived as equally deviant.
Specifically, an attitude that deviates from the group average in
the direction of the group prototype will not be judged to be as
deviant as will an attitude that deviates in the opposite direction.
Some previous research (e.g., Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990; Miller
& Prentice, 1996; Prentice & Miller, 1996) has referred to average
group attitudes as ‘‘descriptive” norms, and to prototypical group
attitudes as ‘‘prescriptive” (or ‘‘injunctive”) norms.1 Consistent with
this terminology, we will call group members who deviate from the
descriptive (but not prescriptive) norm ‘‘descriptive norm deviants,”
and group members who deviate from both the prescriptive and
descriptive norms ‘‘prescriptive norm deviants” (see Morrison &
Miller, 2008).
A number of studies support our claim that descriptive norm
deviants are perceived by both themselves and others as less
‘‘deviant” than prescriptive norm deviants. For one thing, deviants
who validate ingroup norms, in contrast to those who undermine
ingroup norms, reinforce differences between the ingroup and out-
groups and, as a result, are evaluated more positively by other in-
group members (Abrams, Marques, Bown, & Dougill, 2002;
Abrams, Marques, Bown, & Henson, 2000). Furthermore, group
members whose attitudes diverge from the average group attitude
in a prototypical (vs. non-prototypical) direction typically induce
more attitude change in their peers – that is, they exert more social
influence within their peer group (Paicheler, 1976).
Most relevant to the present research, descriptive norm devi-
ants experience greater comfort and pride in expressing their opin-
ions on controversial political issues (e.g., affirmative action) than
do either prescriptive norm deviants or non-deviants (Morrison &
Miller, 2008). One explanation for this is that descriptive norm
deviants believe they are superior to the average group member
by virtue of their greater conformity to group norms. In one study,
for example, college students reported that they would be more
comfortable giving a speech in support of a descriptive norm devi-
ant (very liberal) position, relative to a non-deviant (somewhat lib-
eral) or prescriptive norm deviant (very conservative) position.
This relationship between deviance direction and comfort was
mediated by the strength of descriptive norm deviants’ belief that
their opinions made them different from their peers in a ‘‘good”
way (Morrison & Miller, 2008, Study 1).
This may not be the whole story, however. Descriptive norm
deviants might also be more comfortable expressing their opinions
because they believe that their opinions are more common than
they actually are. This possibility was not directly tested in Morri-
son and Miller’s (2008) research. Although they found no evidence
1
The group average can be considered equivalent to the descriptive group norm
only when the distribution of members’ attitudes is not bimodal. In the case of a
bimodal distribution, there are two descriptive norms (both extremes), and the
average group attitude is actually a deviant opinion (Morrison & Miller, 2008).
741
that perceived similarity to one’s peers mediated the relationship
between deviance direction and comfort, their measure of similar-
ity was a broad one. A more specific measure that asked partici-
pants how similar their opinions were to those of their peers
might have been more successful. Moreover, Morrison and Miller’s
(2008) studies did not examine variations in participants’ percep-
tions of the group norm and thus were unable to assess whether
part of descriptive norm deviants’ greater willingness to express
their views derived from their exaggerated perception of the pop-
ularity of their opinions.
Norm misperception: cause or consequence of differences in
opinion expression?
We propose that descriptive norm deviants will be more com-
fortable expressing their opinions than prescriptive norm deviants
when they hold an exaggerated view of the commonness of their
opinions. The finding that individuals are more comfortable
expressing opinions when they believe their opinions are widely
shared (Glynn, Hayes, & Shanahan, 1997), especially by close oth-
ers (Oshagan, 1996), supports this speculation. In turn, the greater
willingness of descriptive than prescriptive norm deviants to ex-
press their opinions could explain why both groups conclude that
the average group attitude is more skewed in the pro-alcohol
direction than it actually is (Miller, Monin, & Prentice, 2000). Thus,
misperceiving the distribution of group opinions could both con-
tribute to and result from the greater comfort that descriptive
norm deviants, relative to their prescriptive norm deviant peers,
have in communicating their opinions.
Overview of research
With alcohol-related campus norms as the focus, the studies in
this paper tested four hypotheses: (1) Group members will per-
ceive the average group attitude pertaining to a campus alcohol
policy to be more skewed in a prototypical direction (i.e., more
pro-alcohol) than it actually is; (2) There will be a positive relation-
ship between deviance direction (pro-alcohol attitudes) and group
members’ willingness to express their opinions on the policy; (3)
Descriptive norm (pro-alcohol) deviants’ greater comfort than pre-
scriptive norm (anti-alcohol) deviants in opinion expression will
derive at least partially from the former’s overestimation of the
commonness of their opinions; and (4) The relationship among
deviance direction, perceived commonness of opinion, and opinion
expression will be stronger among those whose identification with
the ingroup (university) is high as opposed as to low.
The specific goals of the studies were as follows. Study 1 sought
to establish: (a) that deviance direction (toward the prototypical
attitude) is positively correlated with willingness to express one’s
opinion, (b) that deviance direction is positively correlated with
perceived commonness of opinion, and (c) that the relationship be-
tween deviance direction and opinion expression is mediated by
perceived commonness of opinion. Study 2 sought to demonstrate
that the differences in descriptive and prescriptive norm deviants’
willingness to express their opinions can be reduced by providing
the two groups with evidence suggesting that their opinions are
less (for descriptive norm deviants) or more (for prescriptive norm
deviants) common than they thought. Study 3 sought to establish
that ingroup identification moderates the tendency of descriptive
norm deviants to express their opinions more readily than pre-
scriptive norm deviants.
Pretest
Prior to conducting the main studies, we assessed the legitimacy
of classifying as ‘‘descriptive norm deviants” those students whose
742 D.T. Miller, K.R. Morrison / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 740–747
attitudes toward alcohol deviated in the liberal (pro-alcohol) direc-
tion and as ‘‘prescriptive norm deviants” those students whose atti-
tudes deviated in the conservative (anti-alcohol) direction. The
reasoning behind this classification scheme was that holding a
pro-alcohol attitude both would fit better with the identity of the
typical student and would deviate more from the attitude of the out-
group (administration) than would holding an anti-alcohol attitude.
To test this idea, we administered a three-question survey to 37
Stanford University undergraduates: (1) What do you think is the
Stanford administration’s attitude toward the policy that prohibits
alcohol usage in the common areas of all-frosh dorms? (2) What
do you think is the typical Stanford student’s attitude toward the
policy that prohibits alcohol usage in the common areas of all-frosh
dorms? (3) What is your own attitude toward the policy that prohib-
its alcohol usage in the common areas of all-frosh dorms? Partici-
pants responded to these questions on a Likert-type scale from one
(very strongly opposed) to nine (very strongly in favor), but to be
consistent with the other studies in this paper, the items were re-
verse scored so that higher scores reflected more pro-alcohol atti-
tudes (i.e., greater opposition to the policy).
As predicted, the Stanford administration (M = 2.73 and
SD = 2.75) was thought to be significantly less pro-alcohol than
both the typical Stanford student (M = 6.46 and SD = 1.92),
t(36) = 4.73, and p < .001, and participants themselves (M = 5.11
and SD = 2.39), t(36) = 2.37, and p < .03. Consistent with earlier re-
search on college undergraduates’ attitudes toward alcohol (Bor-
sari & Carey, 2003; Prentice & Miller, 1993), participants
perceived the typical Stanford student as more pro-alcohol than
themselves, t(36) = 3.18 and p < .005. Although participants’ own
attitudes toward the policy did not differ significantly from the
scale midpoint of 5, t(37) = .28, and p < .79, the finding that partic-
ipants perceived the attitude of the average student to be more
pro-alcohol than both their own attitude and that of the most sali-
ent outgroup (the administration) justifies the claim that the pro-
alcohol position was the prototypical student attitude. This in turn
supports the appropriateness of labeling students who deviate
from the average group attitude in the pro-alcohol direction as
descriptive norm deviants, and those who deviate in the anti-alco-
hol direction as prescriptive norm deviants. Indeed, our model of
descriptive and prescriptive norm deviance assumes that the pro-
totypical group attitude diverges from the average group attitude
(see Morrison & Miller, 2008).
Study 1
Using as its point of departure the pretest finding that the pro-
totypical group attitude was more pro-alcohol than the actual
group average, Study 1 tested the prediction that pro-alcohol atti-
tudes (i.e., descriptive norm deviance) would be associated with
greater comfort in opinion expression. In addition, it tested the
hypothesis that perceived commonness of opinion would mediate
this relationship.
Method
Participants were 93 Stanford undergraduates (34 men and 59
women) who completed a study on ‘‘public opinion.” They were
paid $5 for their participation. All study materials were presented
on a computer, using Media Lab software.
To begin with, participants reported their attitudes toward the
Stanford administration’s alcohol policies on a nine-point scale
(1 = the policies are much too lenient, 9 = the policies are much
too strict; M = 5.43 and SD = 1.62). Unlike the question on the
pretest, which involved attitudes toward a specific (strict) alcohol
policy, higher scores on this item reflected more pro-alcohol atti-
tudes (i.e., greater descriptive norm deviance), whereas lower
scores reflected more anti-alcohol attitudes (i.e., greater prescrip-
tive norm deviance). In the present analyses, and in all subsequent
studies, this measure of deviance direction was treated as a
continuous independent variable, with higher numbers reflecting
a tendency toward descriptive norm (pro-alcohol) deviance.2
Next, participants answered several additional questions. Of
particular interest, they indicated the percentage of other Stanford
students that they thought shared their attitude toward the alcohol
policies. This rating of perceived commonness of opinion was made
on a 10-point scale, with 0–10% and 91–100% as the endpoints.3 Fi-
nally, on a scale from one (not at all comfortable) to nine (very com-
fortable), participants rated how comfortable they would be
expressing their attitude toward the alcohol policies to another Stan-
ford student.
Results and discussion
We hypothesized that descriptive norm (pro-alcohol) deviance
would be positively correlated with both self-reported comfort in
opinion expression and perceived commonness of opinion, and that
perceived commonness would mediate the relationship between
deviance direction and comfort. In order to assess mediation, we
followed Baron and Kenny’s (1986) procedure. First, we confirmed
that the independent variable (deviance direction) was significantly
correlated with the dependent variable (comfort in opinion expres-
sion) (b = .424), t(91) = 4.46, and p < .001. Next, we determined that
there was a significant correlation between deviance direction and
the proposed mediator (perceived commonness) (b = .676),
t(90) = 8.76, and p < .001. Finally, we regressed comfort onto both
deviance direction and perceived commonness. The relationship
between perceived commonness and comfort remained significant
(b = .286), t(90) = 2.27, and p < .03, whereas the relationship
between deviance direction and comfort was reduced to mar-
ginal significance (b = .230), t(90) = 1.83, and p = .07. Thus, the
deviance–comfort relationship was partially mediated by perceived
commonness (Sobel’s z = 2.20 and p < .03; see Fig. 1).4
To determine whether descriptive norm (pro-alcohol) deviants
as a category were more comfortable expressing their opinions
than prescriptive norm (anti-alcohol) deviants, we conducted a
supplementary analysis in which we operationalized descriptive
[prescriptive] norm deviants as those whose attitudes toward the
alcohol policies were at least one standard deviation above [below]
the sample mean, and non-deviants as those whose attitudes were
within one standard deviation of the mean. Because the sample
mean (5.43) did not differ from the scale midpoint of five, all
2
To address the alternative explanation that descriptive norm deviants are more
comfortable than prescriptive norm deviants simply because the former’s attitudes
are closer to the majority, in each study we calculated a deviance magnitude (i.e.,
quadratic) term by squaring participants’ mean-centered attitudes. Higher scores on
this term reflected higher levels of deviance, regardless of direction. Controlling for
deviance magnitude – and its interaction with other independent variables, where
appropriate – did not change the pattern or significance of any reported findings.
Thus, this term will not be discussed further.
3
Participants were also asked how they thought their own attitude toward the
alcohol policies compared with most other students’ attitudes (1 = I am more anti-
alcohol than others, 2 = I am about the same as others, 3 = I am more pro-alcohol than
others). Participants’ responses to this item were significantly correlated with
perceived commonness (r = .45 and p < .001), as well as with deviance direction
(r = .40 and p < .001), suggesting that participants interpreted ‘‘sharing their attitude”
as being at roughly the same point on the scale vs. simply being on the same side of
the mean (i.e., pro-alcohol or anti-alcohol).
4
Strictly speaking, our predictions about descriptive norm deviants pertain most
directly to those who report their attitude at or around seven on the nine point scale
(which the pretest results suggest is the presumed typical student’s attitude toward
alcohol). Participants who reported an attitude more extreme than the prototypical
attitude (i.e., nine) would be predicted to have neither as exaggerated a perception of
the commonness of their attitude nor be as comfortable expressing their attitude. Less
than 4% of our participants reported attitudes this extreme, however, so we were not
able to assess this possibility.
 D.T. Miller, K.R. Morrison / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 740–747
Perceived commonness
.676** .286*
Deviance direction Opinion expression
(higher = pro-alcohol) .230+ (.424**)
** p < .01
* p < .05
+ p < .10
Fig. 1. Mediational analysis, Study 1.
Table 1
Mean (SD) comfort in opinion expression and perceived commonness of opinion by
category (descriptive norm deviants vs. non-deviants vs. prescriptive norm deviants),
Study 1.
Descriptive norm Non-deviants Prescriptive norm deviants
deviants (pro-alcohol (moderate (anti-alcohol
attitudes) attitudes) attitudes)
Comfort 8.44a (1.01) 6.76b (1.78) 5.40b (1.84)
Perceived 7.44a (1.59) 5.77b (1.79) 2.50b (1.08)
commonness
Note: Within the same row, columns that do not share a subscript are significantly
different from one another (p < .05).
descriptive norm deviants held pro-alcohol attitudes, whereas all
prescriptive norm deviants held anti-alcohol attitudes. Then we
compared descriptive norm and prescriptive norm deviants using
a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a (1 0 1) orthogonal
contrast. This analysis revealed that descriptive norm deviants re-
ported higher levels of comfort, t(90) = 3.82 and p < .001, as well as
greater perceived commonness of opinion, t(90) = 6.29 and
p < .001, than did prescriptive norm deviants (overall
Fs(2, 90) = 7.33 and 22.0, respectively, ps < .001; see Table 1). The
mediation of the deviance–comfort relationship by perceived com-
monness also held when deviance direction was treated as a cate-
gorical variable.
The findings of Study 1 strongly supported our hypotheses.
First, group members whose attitudes deviated from the average
group attitude in the direction of the group prototype were more
comfortable expressing their opinions than were those whose atti-
tudes deviated in the direction opposite the group prototype. Sec-
ond, this asymmetry was partially mediated by a misperception on
the part of descriptive norm (pro-alcohol) deviants that their atti-
tude was more common than it actually was.
Study 2
Study 2 used an experimental design to test the hypothesized
causal role of perceived commonness in the asymmetrical relation-
ship between deviance direction and expression comfort. If the
asymmetry in descriptive norm norm (pro-alcohol) and prescrip-
tive (anti-alcohol) norm deviants’ comfort reflects an asymmetry
in their perceptions of the popularity of their opinions, then exper-
imentally reducing the latter asymmetry should reduce the former
one. Study 2 tested this possibility by giving participants false
feedback about the average group attitude and observing the im-
pact of this information on participants’ subsequent opinion
expression.
An additional goal of Study 2 was to replicate the results from
Study 1 with a more behavioral measure of opinion expression
(see Scheufele, Shanahan, & Lee, 2001). Rather than asking partic-
ipants merely to indicate how comfortable they would feel discuss-
ing campus alcohol policies with one of their peers, participants in
743
Study 2 were asked to choose from among several campus issues –
including alcohol usage – the one they would most want to discuss
with their peers in a purported future study. We hypothesized that
deviating from the mean in a pro-alcohol direction (i.e., descriptive
norm deviance) would be positively correlated with the preference
to discuss alcohol usage when the average group attitude was de-
picted as pro-alcohol, but not when it was depicted as anti-alcohol.
Method
Participants
One hundred and five Stanford undergraduates participated in a
brief questionnaire study as part of an hour-long mass testing ses-
sion. They were randomly assigned to one of two experimental
conditions: pro-alcohol campus (n = 51) or anti-alcohol campus
(n = 54). Each participant received $20 upon completion of the en-
tire session.
Procedure and materials
The questionnaire consisted of two pages, ostensibly two unre-
lated studies. The pages were created in different font styles to
minimize the likelihood that participants would perceive a connec-
tion between the ‘‘studies.” On the first page, participants read that
the researchers wanted to learn more about ‘‘people’s preferences
for visual vs. written data.” They were then asked to review both a
graph and a written description of their peers’ attitudes toward the
administration’s alcohol policies. These ‘‘data” were supposedly
collected the previous month in an anonymous survey of 99 Stan-
ford undergraduates, who were said to have reported their atti-
tudes toward the Stanford administration’s alcohol policies on a
scale from one (the policies are much too lenient) to nine (the pol-
icies are much too strict). Thus, higher scores reflected more liberal
(pro-alcohol) attitudes.
Participants in the pro-alcohol condition learned that most
Stanford students held liberal attitudes toward alcohol (M = 6.8
and SD = 2.13). By contrast, participants in the anti-alcohol condi-
tion learned that most Stanford students held conservative atti-
tudes toward alcohol (M = 3.2 and SD = 2.13). To help disguise
the purpose of the experiment, participants were asked to rate
the graph and written description on two dimensions – interest-
ingness and ease of reading – and to indicate which method of pre-
sentation they preferred.
On the second page of the questionnaire, labeled ‘‘Discussion
Groups Study,” participants read the following:
Within the next few weeks, we will be recruiting interested partic-
ipants for a study on student discussion groups. In this study, you
will get together with 3–4 other Stanford undergraduates and dis-
cuss a particular campus issue. We are currently trying to deter-
mine which issues students would be most and least willing to
talk about in these groups.
The purpose of the preceding text was to lead participants to
believe that they were being pre-screened for a future study, in
which they would actually be required to express their opinion
on a particular issue to a group of other students. After reading this
text, participants were asked to choose which of three issues they
would be most willing to discuss in this future study. The three is-
sues were: (1) the all-you-can-eat plan in Stanford’s dining halls,
(2) alcohol usage policies at Stanford, and (3) the general education
requirements at Stanford. Participants’ choice of issue served as the
dependent variable in this experiment.5 To bolster the credibility of
the cover story, participants were asked to provide an email address
that the researchers could use to contact them about signing up for a
day and time.
5
A total of 34 participants (32%) chose to discuss alcohol usage.
744 D.T. Miller, K.R. Morrison / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 740–747
Fig. 2. Issue choice as a function of deviance direction (plotted at 1 SD above and
below the mean) and condition (pro-alcohol campus vs. anti-alcohol campus),
Study 2.
As part of a questionnaire administered at a different point in
the mass testing session, participants indicated their attitudes to-
ward the Stanford administration’s alcohol policies on the same
nine-point scale used in Study 1. The order of this questionnaire
and the two-page experiment (described above) was counterbal-
anced, with half of the participants reporting their attitudes before
the experiment and the other half reporting their attitudes after
the experiment. In all cases, the attitudes question and the exper-
iment were placed at least 30 min apart in the mass testing ses-
sion. The mean attitude toward the alcohol policies was 5.31
(SD = 1.45) and participants’ (centered) attitudes served as the
measure of deviance direction, with higher (more positive) scores
reflecting pro-alcohol attitudes and lower (more negative) scores
reflecting anti-alcohol attitudes.
Results and discussion
We predicted that descriptive norm (pro-alcohol) deviants would
show the strongest preference to discuss alcohol usage except when
they received feedback suggesting that the anti-alcohol position was
actually the average group attitude, and hence suggesting that they
were actually prescriptive norm deviants. In other words, we pre-
dicted that there would be a positive relationship between deviance
in a pro-alcohol direction and preference to discuss alcohol usage,
but only in the pro-alcohol campus condition. To test this prediction,
we conducted a logistic regression analysis in which choice of issue
(1 = alcohol usage and 0 = other) was regressed onto deviance direc-
tion (centered continuous variable), condition (1 = pro-alcohol cam-
pus and 0 = anti-alcohol campus), and the deviance direction 
condition interaction term. Fig. 2 depicts this interaction, with the
deviance direction variable plotted at one standard deviation above
(‘‘descriptive [pro-alcohol] deviants”) and below (‘‘prescriptive
norm [anti-alcohol] deviants”) the mean.
Paralleling the results of Study 1, there was a main effect of
deviance direction, such that participants expressed a stronger
preference to talk about alcohol usage the more pro-alcohol their
attitudes were, Wald’s v21 ¼ 4:08 and p < :05. Most importantly,
and consistent with our hypothesis, the two-way deviance direc-
tion  condition interaction was significant, Wald’s v21 ¼
5:71 and p < :02. Decomposition of this interaction revealed that
the relationship between deviance direction and preference to dis-
cuss alcohol usage was significant in the pro-alcohol campus con-
dition, Wald’s v21 ¼ 7:96 and p < :01, but not in the anti-alcohol
campus condition, Wald’s v21 ¼ :004; ns. Thus, when descriptive
norm (pro-alcohol) deviants received feedback that their opinions
Table 2
Frequencies of preferences to discuss alcohol as a function of condition (anti-alcohol
campus vs. pro-alcohol campus) and category (descriptive norm deviants vs. non-
deviants vs. prescriptive norm deviants), Study 2.
Chose to Did not choose to Total
discuss alcohol discuss alcohol
Pro-alcohol campus condition
Descriptive norm deviants (pro- 6 7 13
alcohol attitudes)
Non-deviants (moderate 9 26 35
attitudes)
Prescriptive norm deviants 3 3 6
(anti-alcohol attitudes)
Total 18 36 54
Anti-alcohol campus condition
Descriptive norm deviants (pro- 8 3 11
alcohol attitudes)
Non-deviants (moderate 8 28 36
attitudes)
Prescriptive norm deviants 0 4 4
(anti-alcohol attitudes)
Total 16 35 51
on alcohol were not shared by their peers, the magnitude of their
preference for discussing alcohol usage (relative to that of prescrip-
tive norm [anti-alcohol] deviants) was attenuated.
As in Study 1, we also conducted a categorical analysis in which
we coded participants whose attitudes toward the alcohol policies
were one standard deviation above [below] the mean as descrip-
tive [prescriptive] norm deviants, and those whose attitudes were
within one standard deviation of the mean as non-deviants. Con-
sistent with the previously reported results, the relationship be-
tween deviance direction and preference for discussing alcohol
was significant in the pro-alcohol campus condition,
v22 ¼ 12:0 and p < :005, but not in the anti-alcohol campus condi-
tion, v22 ¼ 2:63 and p < :27 (see Table 2).
Study 3
Study 3 sought further evidence for our account of the asymme-
try between direction of deviance and opinion expression by test-
ing the hypothesis that participants’ identification with their group
would moderate this relationship. Specifically, Study 3 tested the
prediction that the relationship between deviance direction, per-
ceived commonness of opinion, and comfort in opinion expression
would be strongest among those for whom belonging to the group
was most central to their identity and self-definition (see Tajfel &
Turner, 1986; Terry & Hogg, 1996).6 The rationale for this hypothe-
sis is that the more strongly people identify with their ingroup, the
more concerned they should be that the attitudes they express con-
form to the social norms of that group, and hence the more closely
they should calibrate their public behavior to their group’s (per-
ceived) norms. Supporting this reasoning, previous work has shown
that whereas the behavioral intentions of highly-identified group
members are more congruent with group norms than with their per-
sonal attitudes, the opposite is true for less-identified group mem-
bers (Terry & Hogg, 1996).
In addition to measuring group identification, Study 3 manipu-
lated participants’ beliefs about the actual distribution of peer
opinion by providing participants with one of two purportedly real
6
The question also arises as to whether highly group-identified individuals are
more likely to be descriptive norm deviants. This is a possibility, but Terry and Hogg
(1996) found no relationship between attitude and group identification in two studies
in which they did find a relationship between behavioral intention and group
identification. The safest prediction would seem to be that whether or not highly-
identified group members are more likely than their less-identified counterparts to be
descriptive norm deviants, they will be more willing to express descriptive norm
deviant attitudes and less willing to express their prescriptive norm deviant attitudes
when they do hold them (see also Terry, Hogg, & White, 1999).
 D.T. Miller, K.R. Morrison / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 740–747
graphs, similar to those used in Study 2. One graph depicted extre-
mely pro-alcohol norms; a second depicted extremely anti-alcohol
norms. We predicted that the correlation between deviance direc-
tion and opinion expression would be stronger in the pro-alcohol
than anti-alcohol condition, and we expected this effect to be mod-
erated by group identification.
Method
Forty-seven Stanford undergraduates (19 men and 28 women)
were recruited for this experiment. Participants were run in groups
of two to six in a room with divided work stations where they were
randomly assigned to one of two conditions: pro-alcohol campus
(n = 23) or anti-alcohol campus (n = 24). All materials were pre-
sented on the computer, using Media Lab software. Participants re-
ceived $5 as compensation.
The initial instructions informed participants that this was a
study of ‘‘the factors that influence how people communicate with
one another about controversial social issues.” Allegedly, the
researchers were interested in whether communication could be
affected by the issue, mode of expression (e.g., on the internet vs.
face to face), or personal characteristics of the communicating
parties.
After reading these instructions, participants indicated their
attitude toward the Stanford administration’s alcohol policies on
a nine-point scale (1 = the policies are much too lenient, 9 = the
policies are much too strict). They were then asked to write a
few sentences about their attitude. The mean attitude for this sam-
ple was 5.25 (SD = 1.35), which (as in the previous studies) did not
differ significantly from the scale midpoint, t < 1.
Next, participants were shown one of two bogus statistical dis-
tributions of Stanford students’ attitudes toward the alcohol poli-
cies. Participants were told that the data came from a sample of
101 students who had participated in a previous study. In the
pro-alcohol campus condition, the distribution was skewed-right
(M = 7.2 and SD = 2.26), whereas in the anti-alcohol campus condi-
tion, the distribution was skewed-left (M = 2.8 and SD = 2.26). The
distributions were accompanied by written descriptions, to ensure
that participants understood how ‘‘most students” felt about the
administration’s alcohol policies.
Once they had seen these distributions, participants completed
a three-item measure of opinion expression in hypothetical situa-
tions. On a scale from one (not at all comfortable) to nine (very
comfortable), they reported how willing they would be to sign a
campus-wide petition, write an editorial for the school newspaper,
and deliver a speech to an audience of students in support of their
attitude. Participants’ responses were averaged to create an opin-
ion expression index (a = .82).
At the end of the study, participants answered some filler ques-
tions (e.g., about other campus issues) to further disguise the pur-
pose of the experiment. Then they completed nine questions
designed to assess their identification with Stanford, adapted from
Hogg and Hains (1996). Example questions were ‘‘How similar do
you feel to other Stanford students?” and ‘‘How important is Stan-
ford to you?” Participants responded on a nine-point scale (1 = not
at all and 9 = very much), and their answers were averaged to form
a composite, with higher scores reflecting higher levels of group
identification (a = .90). Finally, participants were fully debriefed
and thanked.
Results and discussion
We hypothesized that highly-identified (but not less-identified)
group members would be more willing to express descriptive
norm (pro-alcohol) than prescriptive norm (anti-alcohol) deviant
opinions, particularly if they believed that the average member
745
of their group was extremely pro-alcohol. To test this hypothesis,
the results of this study were submitted to a condition (1 = anti-
alcohol campus and 0 = pro-alcohol campus)  deviance direc-
tion  group identification (centered continuous variables) regres-
sion analysis (Aiken & West, 1991). All main effects were
interpreted in the first block, all two-way interactions in the sec-
ond block, and the three-way interaction in the third block. For
the simple slopes analyses, the condition dummy variable was re-
verse-coded, and group identification was recomputed at one stan-
dard deviation above and below the mean. The previously reported
analysis was then re-run so that the correlation between deviance
direction and comfort could be assessed at both high and low lev-
els of group identification, and in both the pro-alcohol and anti-
alcohol campus conditions. Due to the smaller size of this sample
(compared with Studies 1 and 2), deviance was not analyzed as a
categorical variable.
Three participants who reported suspicion about the experi-
mental hypothesis were omitted from the analyses, leaving 44 par-
ticipants in the final sample. In addition to a main effect of
condition, with participants being more willing to express their
opinions in the pro-alcohol than anti-alcohol campus condition
(b = .320), t(40) = 2.17, and p < .04, the predicted interaction be-
tween condition, deviance direction, and group identification
emerged (b = .472), t(36) = 2.06, and p < .05 (see Fig. 3). Simple
slopes analyses indicated that among participants who were highly
identified with Stanford, condition and deviance direction inter-
acted to predict opinion expression (b = 1.01), t(36) = 2.37,
and p = .02. Specifically, deviance in a pro-alcohol direction (i.e.,
descriptive deviance) correlated positively with opinion expression
in the pro-alcohol campus condition (b = .920), t(34) = 2.40, and
p = .02, but not in the anti-alcohol campus condition (b = .267)
and t(36) < 1, ns.
Among participants who reported low levels of identification
with Stanford, there was no interaction between condition and
deviance direction (b = .886) and t(36) = 1.01, ns. Moreover, for
these participants, the relationship between deviance direction
and opinion expression was not significant in either the pro-alco-
hol or anti-alcohol campus condition, ps > .27.
The results of Study 3 strengthen our argument that the greater
comfort of descriptive norm (pro-alcohol) than prescriptive norm
(anti-alcohol) deviants in expressing their opinions derives at least
partially from the former’s exaggerated view of the popularity of
their opinion. Informing descriptive norm deviants that their opin-
ion was not as popular as they thought diminished their comfort in
expressing it; at least it did among those descriptive norm deviants
who identified strongly with their peer group. For those descriptive
norm deviants who did not identify with their group, the decision
as to whether or not to express their opinion was largely unaf-
fected by the support they believed their position had. The group
identification findings make sense to the extent that those who
identify most with their group are most sensitive to the common-
ness of their opinion when deciding whether or not to express their
opinion (see Oshagan, 1996).
General discussion
Under what circumstances might group members misperceive
their peers’ attitudes toward a group defining issue? One circum-
stance is when the distribution of publicly expressed group
opinions does not mirror the distribution of privately held
opinions. The present research identifies one reason why the distri-
bution of public opinion may not parallel the distribution of private
opinion, and hence why the latter might be misjudged. As was
demonstrated in three studies, people are more likely to express
those opinions that deviate from the average group attitude in
746 D.T. Miller, K.R. Morrison / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 740–747
Fig. 3. Opinion expression as a function of deviance direction (plotted at 1 SD above
and below the mean), condition (pro-alcohol campus vs. anti-alcohol campus), and
group identification (plotted at 1 SD above and below the mean), Study 3.
the direction of the group prototype than those that deviate in the
opposite direction from the prototype. The consequence of this
skewed distribution of public expression is a similarly skewed per-
ception of the distribution of private attitudes. In particular, groups
can come to experience pluralistic ignorance over time – with
members assuming that the prototypical (i.e., descriptive norm
deviant) position is more common than it actually is.
The present results suggest that descriptive norm deviants’ great-
er comfort can stem from their failure to accurately recognize their
degree of deviation from their peers. Thus, norm misperception does
not just follow from the asymmetrical willingness of descriptive and
prescriptive norm deviants to express their opinions; it can contrib-
ute to this asymmetry as well. When norm misperception occurs,
descriptive norm deviants’ comfort is sustained and intensified by
a belief that their views are shared – not just accepted – by others.
This fact was established both correlationally in Study 1 and experi-
mentally in Studies 2 and 3. Although Studies 1 and 3 elicited comfort
ratings in response to hypothetical scenarios, participants in Study 2
anticipated that they would complete an experiment in which they
actually had the chance to express (or withhold) their opinions.
Morrison and Miller (2008) found that the relationship between
deviance direction and opinion expression was mediated by
descriptive norm deviants’ perception that they differed from their
peers in a ‘‘good” way. The present studies found that the
deviance–expression relationship was driven by descriptive norm
deviants’ misperception that their peers shared their opinion.
These two patterns, while pointing to different mediators, are not
incompatible. In fact, the present results suggest that descriptive
norm deviants’ perceptions of being ‘‘different but good” may not
have been the only explanation for the results of the Morrison
and Miller (2008) experiments. Specifically, perhaps descriptive
norm deviants, due to their greater prototypicality, actually feel
less ‘‘deviant” than do prescriptive norm deviants. Even if they
are aware that they differ from the group norm in a statistical
sense, they could nevertheless be more comfortable because they
believe their opinions are common in all the ways that matter
(i.e., similarity to the prescriptive group norm).
One surprise in the present studies was the finding that pre-
scriptive norm (anti-alcohol) deviants were no more willing than
descriptive norm (pro-alcohol) deviants to express their opinions
upon receiving information that most of their peers espoused the
anti-alcohol position. A possible reason for this finding is that
descriptive norm deviants, in comparison to prescriptive norm
deviants, had substantially more prior experience expressing their
opinions outside of the laboratory. Supporting this possibility, in
Study 1 there was a positive correlation between deviance direc-
tion and responses to the question, ‘‘How much have you talked
about the Stanford administration’s alcohol policies with your
friends?” (b = .28), t(91) = 2.78, and p < .01. Future research should
test whether the relationship between deviance direction and
comfort can be reversed on novel or fictitious issues, which both
descriptive norm and prescriptive norm deviants are unlikely to
have prior experience discussing.
Group identification
The fact that group identification moderated the position–com-
fort relationship in Study 3 provides further support for our analy-
sis. Because highly-identified group members are the most
concerned about how they are seen by their peers, they should
be especially concerned about the support their position has
among their peers (Terry & Hogg, 1996). One additional result
bearing on group identification that merits comment is the lack
of an observed relationship in Study 3 between group identifica-
tion and deviance direction (r < .05, ns). Given the discomfort that
prescriptive norm (anti-alcohol) deviants who identified with the
university experienced when expressing their opinions, one might
have expected them to either change their attitudes in the direc-
tion of the perceived norm or become less identified over time
(see Prentice & Miller, 1993). Another possibility, however, is that
highly-identified prescriptive norm deviants would maintain both
their attitudes and their level of identification, and just keep their
attitudes (on this issue at least) to themselves.
The role of group identification in the position–comfort rela-
tionship is important because it suggests that one can predict
which groups will be particularly susceptible to pluralistic igno-
rance. Namely, pluralistic ignorance should be greatest in highly
cohesive groups, for it should be in those groups that the potential
is greatest for a misalignment between the public and private dis-
tribution of attitudes. This speculation is consistent with Janis’s
(1982) observation that group cohesiveness contributed to group-
think, one symptom of which was the tendency to assume greater
unanimity than there was in reality. Previous research has shown
that there is greater conformity to group norms in highly cohesive
groups (Levine, 1989); the present research suggests that there
may be greater conformity to illusory norms as well.
Changes in group norms over time
Pluralistic ignorance has many adverse consequences for both
individuals and collectives (Miller & Prentice, 1994). For example,
at the individual level, people may experience illegitimate feelings
of deviance or inferiority if they hold a mistaken perception of
where they stand relative to their peers on an issue or dimension.
Included among the consequences at the collective level is the ten-
dency for the status quo to persist, even when it is no longer sup-
ported by most group members.
 D.T. Miller, K.R. Morrison / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (2009) 740–747
Over time, however, the misperception that the status quo is
popular may lead to an actual shift in group members’ private atti-
tudes, so long as they are motivated to conform to the (presumed)
norms of their group. The present analysis thus does more than
suggest how pluralistic ignorance can arise in groups; it also sug-
gests an endogenous process by which group norms can change.
The position-comfort asymmetry found in the present studies sug-
gests that groups eventually can be expected to move in the direc-
tion of the group prototype. That is, the average group member’s
attitude can be expected to converge on the prototypical group
attitude, as the latter will be more likely to be expressed and hence
more likely to be taken as the average attitude. This process, in
turn, can be expected to make the prototypical attitude even more
extreme. Those groups for whom there are particularly salient out-
groups will be most susceptible to this creeping extremism.
Acknowledgments
We thank Evan Morrison, Debbie Prentice, Lara Tiedens, and
members of the Workshop in Behavioral Research at Stanford Uni-
versity for their valuable feedback on earlier versions of this
manuscript.
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