Juliette, Week 16 - Do We Really Share Experiences?
Obviously we all have common experiences to some extent; whether they go way down to family history and culture or just going to the same school, many of our memories overlap to the point where despite all of our differences, in many of these blogs we can notice the similarities between each other.
I’ve noticed in reading through blogs—and writing my own—that there is always a tendency to use “we.” Instead of asserting that I feel a certain way about a topic, a lot of times it feels more inclusive to assume others agree with me, share my values, and generally have the same experiences enough that they can fully understand my viewpoint.
In psychology, the idea that we tend to assume others share our beliefs is referred to as the false consensus effect. When reading about this term in the textbook, I thought it was so funny because it was a specific thing that I felt I had noticed all my life but never placed my finger on!
The interesting part to me, however, is the idea that we will never truly understand how similar or different we are without personal bias. Of course that is my opinion, but I also think it’s crucial to take into account when we meet new people or interact with people we are already familiar with. We always want to assume one way or another, and we often overlook the complexities of our own biases, memories, and thoughts and how they interact with the person we are talking to.
This bias is related to one of the reasons I like APENG—despite all the stress it can cause: it encourages us to look at many of these relationships that develop between ourselves, our content, and the person behind the content. We examine our bias, the authors, and the interconnections that make our world so complex. But another thing that must be taken into account is that the difference between how we learn about such interactions and how we apply them is that the application must become personalized; we must no longer only look at the audience-speaker-content but also explore how our own memories fit into that as a part of or separate to the general audience. That genuine self-awareness is what truly can lead us to get the most out of this class.
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| The Illusion of Consensus on Medium |
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Hey Juliette, this psychological phenomenon perfectly encapsulates the speaker-audience relationship in rhetorical analysis. I have always noticed when the speaker is overly-presumptuous of their audience’s values and experiences by using the pronoun “we.” I also never knew what to call that effect, so I appreciate you teaching us about this.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your perspective on how APENG is transformative in teaching us about the complexities behind communication and how we can effectively communicate through our writing. It has played a huge role in raising my self-awareness about how I communicate with others and how others communicate with me. I can confidently say that I have grown as a writer and person through APENG and I thank you for helping me realize that through this blog! Thanks for sharing Juliette!
EDIT: I realized that I was victim to the false consensus effect since I subconsciously used the pronouns “we” and “us” throughout this comment.😂
DeleteHey, Juliette. I was honestly surprised to see this topic hadn’t been explored until now with your blog. I feel like the concept of shared memories was somewhat of a recurring thought for me throughout the school year. Whether it was the strange conveniences or coincidences of some situations, I always felt something close to Deja Vu.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the false consensus effect you described felt eerily similar to video platforms. As described in one of my previous blogs, apps like Youtube or Tiktok contain algorithms that actively feed/recommend you content tailored to your interests. This includes content or biased videos that actively support and reinforce your opinions. The “we” effect you described relates to how we are more prone to watching when our views or experiences are validated.
In any case, this effect is real and a fallacy to say the least. I’ll be sure to note it among other fallacies so as not to fall into them. Thank you for sharing this year, Juliette. See you Friday!
- Rafael Montes Barrera