People with extreme opinions tend to be more vocal than their more moderate counterparts, according to a new study.
“When people with extreme views have this false sense that they are in majority, they are more willing to express themselves,” said Kimberly Rios Morrison, assistant professor, communication, Ohio State University (OSU), who co-authored the study.
Morrison and her co-author found that college students who were extremely pro-alcohol were more likely to express their opinions than others, even though most students surveyed were moderate in their views about alcohol use.
“Students who were stridently pro-alcohol tended to think that their opinion was much more popular than it actually was,” she said. “They seemed to buy into the stereotype that college students are very comfortable with alcohol use.”
How do people with such extreme views believe they are in the majority? This can happen in groups that tend to lean moderately in one direction on an issue, according to an OSU release.
Those that take the extreme version of their group's viewpoint may believe that they actually represent the true views of their group, Morrison said. She conducted the study with Dale Miller of Stanford University.
Their study appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.