Pluralistic ignorance: Emergence and hypotheses testing in a multi-agent system

Pluralistic ignorance (PI) is a common phenomenon, observed in many social settings. It occurs when the majority of a group become non-believer conformist, but mistakenly perceive others to be true conformist. PI takes many forms and leads to a wide variety of social problems, from binge drinking to repressive political regimes and ideologies. Although discussed extensively in the literature, the nature of the problem makes experimental study impractical and it has been virtually ignored in modeling and simulation studies. In this study, we present a simulation model of conditions that lead to PI in social networks. We use it to show that PI can emerge from interpersonal interactions and to confirm some well-known hypotheses about PI.