Moral False Consensus

Social butterflies know less than they think about their friends' ethics:

[Researchers] asked groups of workers and business students about ethical dilemmas ... [seeking] evidence of "false consensus bias" -- that is, the tendency of people to project their values and behaviors onto others.  As the size of [individual social] networks grew, so did the extent at which individuals overestimated how many others would agree with them.  Why? People discuss "safe subjects in the workplace -- sports, kids, current events," the researchers wrote. So "little of the insights that people gain from social ties may apply" to moral dilemmas.

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[dreeves]

FriendSense is a project out of Yahoo Research designed to answer questions like that, about how much people know about about their friends' values.

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FriendSense Facebook application