Cathy McFarland

Who they are

Psychologist and co-author with Dale Miller of the 1987 paper. The sources this site has read give her name, the paper and its abstract, and nothing about her position or other publications, so none are listed. Adding them without a source would be padding.

Key papers

Miller, D. T., & McFarland, C. (1987). Pluralistic ignorance: When similarity is interpreted as dissimilarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(2), 298-305. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.53.2.298.

According to the abstract, the authors define pluralistic ignorance as people reading the same behaviour as reflecting different inner states in themselves and in others. They argue it is most likely when people treat fear of embarrassment as sufficient reason for their own behaviour but not for others'. In the first experiment, participants rated themselves as more subject to the traits behind social inhibition than they rated the average other person to be.

Key ideas

The paper gives the idea its sharpest statement: a silence that has an obvious explanation for oneself looks like indifference or agreement in everyone else. See Pluralistic Ignorance, and Why Does Nobody Speak Up in Meetings for the reading of that mechanism in a meeting.

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