Of all the ways groups make bad decisions, false consensus is among the most difficult to detect. Bullying others and dismissing the contributions of some group members are usually obvious when they happen, but by contrast, false consensus is subtle. Even those most affected by it might be unaware.

Harry Morgan and Henry Fonda in The Ox-Bow Incident, a 1943 film directed by William Wellman, starring Fonda and Dana Andrews. The film is based on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. It tells the story of a lynching in Nevada in 1885, in which an illegally deputized posse of 27 men and one woman hangs three innocent men. At one point in the proceedings, to confirm the posse's nerve, the ringleader calls for a majority vote, asking anyone who favors a court trial to "stand over there." One by one, seven men comply, and although they are overwhelmingly outvoted, we cannot help but feel the shock of the members of the pro-lynching faction as they discover an increasing number of dissenters in their midst. One of the dissenters is the ringleader's son.
This scene illustrates the two components of false consensus. First, it shows the disruptive effects of discovering that anyone would disagree with one's own position. Second, it shows how those who hold the conventional view tend to regard dissenters as defective. Photo courtesy U.S. Library of Congress.
False consensus is a group psychological phenomenon [Ross 1977] [Engelmann 2004] with two components. First, members tend to believe incorrectly that others hold opinions in agreement with their own. Second, members tend to believe that those who disagree do so because of personal defects.
This error of perception is not a personal flaw — it is a universal human trait. Wherever people work in groups or teams, false consensus can happen, more often than any of us would like.
Usually, the errors in estimating what others believe are inconsequential, but when the issue is controversial, errors matter. For instance, when a team chooses between two different strategies, members tend to guess that other members would choose as they would. And they also tend to believe that those who make the opposite choice have serious character flaws or malicious intent.
Here are four situations that present elevated risk of false consensus.
- Contracts
- Contracts usually contain specifically crafted language and terminology, which is inevitably subject to interpretation. Each party to the contract interprets this language in ways that seem to them to be conventional or common sense. And that's where false consensus can arise.
- By including examples and not-examples in contracts, we can reduce the likelihood of false consensus by narrowing the range of ambiguity.
- Requirements
- False consensus can arise in both requirements development and requirements interpretation. Any ambiguity will find people willing to adopt differing interpretations, with many believing that their interpretations are conventional, and that other interpretations are self-serving or perhaps malevolent.
- Terseness, though seemingly elegant, creates risk of false consensus. Specificity, with examples and not-examples, produces better outcomes.
- Organizational agreements
- Agreements Terseness, though seemingly
elegant, creates risk of
false consensusof any kind are fertile ground for false consensus. "We'll postpone that task if you let him work on this task now," is an example. Its ambiguity creates opportunities for false consensus. Postpone for how long? Will he be working full time now? - Make agreements explicit and specific. Write them down in confirming email messages or posts.
- Organizational change
- In organizational change efforts, Management often desires that the Managed accept something the Managed don't actually want. Sometimes, Management encourages false consensus by creating the impression that the majority do actually want the change. It's a tempting tactic, but when people eventually figure out what's happening, trust is broken and Management loses credibility.
- A safer approach: be honest and deal with serious objections seriously.
We probably all share a false consensus about false consensus: it doesn't happen to me or to anyone I know, and those who do fall victim to it are idiots. Top
Next Issue
Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!
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Footnotes
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Related articles
More articles on Conflict Management:
Preventing Toxic Conflict: II
- Establishing norms for respectful behavior is perhaps the most effective way to reduce the incidence
of toxic conflict at work. When we all understand and subscribe to a particular way of treating each
other, we can all help prevent trouble.
Unresponsive Suppliers: III
- When suppliers have a customer orientation, we can usually depend on them. But government suppliers
are a special case.
Conversation Irritants: II
- Workplace conversation is difficult enough, because of stress, time pressure, and the complexity of
our discussions. But it's even more vexing when people actually try to be nasty, unclear, and ambiguous.
Here's Part II of a small collection of their techniques.
Covert Obstruction in Teams: I
- Some organizational initiatives are funded and progressing, despite opposition. They continue to confront
attempts to deprive them of resources or to limit their progress. When team members covertly obstruct
progress, what techniques do they use?
White Water Rafting as a Metaphor for Group Development
- Tuckman's model of small group development, best known as "Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing,"
applies better to development of some groups than to others. We can use a metaphor to explore how the
model applies to Storming in task-oriented work groups.
See also Conflict Management and Conflict Management for more related articles.
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- A cognitive bias known as the Overconfidence Effect causes us to overestimate the reliability of our judgments. Decisions we make based on those judgments are therefore suspect. But there are steps we can take to make our confidence levels more realistic, and thus make our decisions more reliable. Available here and by RSS on May 14.
And on May 21: Mismanaging Project Managers
- Most organizations hold project managers accountable for project performance. But they don't grant those project managers control of needed resources. Nor do they hold project sponsors or other senior managers accountable for the consequences of their actions when they interfere with project work. Here's a catalog of behaviors worth looking at. Available here and by RSS on May 21.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group