Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How Social Projection and Social Sampling Interact in the Formation of Public Opinion Perceptions

2023/01/01 by Simon Ellerbrock, Manuel Neumann · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Social Media and Politics

paper · pdf · doi:10.5771/9783748915553-85

openalex publication_date 2023/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02

Abstract

Public opinion perceptions are important for citizens to orient themselves in the political world since they provide a baseline for expectations about political outcomes and the views of their fellow citizens. However, aggregating opinions across millions of citizens in a democracy is an impossible task for individuals. Unsurprisingly, people therefore vary widely in their estimates of public support and opposition across various political issues, such as the death penalty, treatment of asylum seekers, or climate change (Burghartswieser/Rothmund 2021; Leviston et al. 2013; Wojcieszak/Price 2009). Substantial variation in public opinion perceptions, however, inevitably leads to different expectations about political outcomes in representative democracies. If political outcomes -be it election results or specific policies -do not match with people's expectations, this may lead to disillusionment, disappointment, or doubts about the functioning of democracy.

Citations

• Educated Preferences: Explaining Attitudes Toward Immigration in Europe
• The Spiral of Silence a Theory of Public Opinion
• The “Who” Matters: Types of Interpersonal Relationships and Avoidance of Political Disagreement
• The Strength of Weak Ties
• From social projection to social behaviour
• Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks
• Motivated Reasoning and Public Opinion Perception
• The “Spiral of Silence” Revisited: A Meta-Analysis on the Relationship Between Perceptions of Opinion Support and Political Opinion Expression
• Education and Anti-Immigration Attitudes: Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Reforms across Western Europe

Discussions

• If you want to take a look at the whole chapter (or other exciting chapters of the volume), check it out here (open access) and send it to others ;) www.doi.org/10.5771/9783748915553-85 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]