Political Opinions Under Pressure: What Do We Really Think?

When they know they are being watched, college students tend to express different political views than they actually hold in private. Public statements are 30 to 50 percent less informative than private ones, according to a study conducted at universities in California. This means that fear of being judged causes students to conform to views perceived as socially acceptable, thus altering public debate on campuses.

The study Political Correctness, Social Image and Intormation Transmission, published in the American Economic Review, by Luca Braghieri, Assistant Professor in the Department of Decision Sciences at Bocconi, focuses on social image concerns and their impact on the political views expressed by students. Braghieri explains, “The desire to appear socially compliant creates a distance between what students really think and what they state in public, limiting the authenticity of political discussions.”

The context of the study

The survey was conducted at two universities in the University of California system: University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) and University of California San Diego (UCSD), notoriously liberal settings where adherence to certain political orientations is often perceived as an implicit social norm. At a time when college campuses are at the center of the political correctness debate, this study provides experimental evidence on how the dynamics of social image influence public discourse.

The scientific methodology: two key experiments

To explore the phenomenon, Braghieri used an experimental approach, divided into two main phases: Encoding experiment and Decoding experiment.

In the Encoding experiment, students were randomly assigned to two groups:
- Private treatment: participants were guaranteed total anonymity of their responses.
- Public treatment: it was suggested that their responses could be shared with other students, fueling fear of possible social judgment.

Students were asked to express their degree of agreement on a scale of 0 to 10 regarding a number of sensitive statements, including:
- The removal of statues of Confederate leaders,
- The use of preferred gender pronouns,
- The participation of transgender women in women’s sports,
- Illegal immigration.

The results were surprising: public responses were significantly more aligned with views perceived as socially acceptable than private responses. In particular, agreement with the most sensitive statements approached the positions perceived as most “liberal” when students were aware that they were being watched. Braghieri points out: “The social image effect creates a real ‘distance’ between public and private opinions, distorting debate and limiting the authenticity of political discussions on campuses.”

A further step was taken with the Decoding experiment, aimed at examining how students interpret the opinions expressed by their peers. At this stage, a separate group of students was tasked with predicting the responses of participants in the Encoding experiment. When the influence of social image was not made explicit, students tended to take their peers’ public statements as authentic. Therefore, neglecting the effects of social image concerns led students to develop distorted beliefs about their peers’ private opinions.

Information loss and the role of mutual information

The study also quantified information loss using an advanced measure known as “mutual information”, showing that public statements are 30 to 50 percent less informative than private statements. This means that even an experienced observer who understands how students distort their opinions when they are in public would struggle to infer students’ true political views.

Heterogeneous effects and ideological diversity on campuses

One particularly interesting aspect concerns differences related to political orientation. Students who identify as independents or Republicans showed a greater tendency to conform to perceived social norms than their Democratic peers. This suggests that those who feel less aligned with dominant campus views are more likely to publicly modify their statements. In other words, ideological diversity on campuses could be significantly underestimated if only public statements are considered.

Implications for public debate and freedom of expression

This study offers insights into how concerns about social image can affect the quality of public discourse on college campuses, leading to self-censorship and biased representation of opinions. “The fear of appearing unpopular limits diversity of thought and reduces the possibility for open and honest debate,” Braghieri said.

The study is a contribution to the debate on political correctness and social image, empirically demonstrating how fear of social judgment can alter the public opinions expressed by college students and lead to a loss of information. At a time when the debate over “political correctness” is increasingly heated, the results of this research invite reflection on the need to create more open and authentic discussion environments.