Self-silencing predicts behavioral conformity in sustainability contexts

Abstract

Prior research has examined how self-silencing among people who hold the minority viewpoint influences public opinion on a range of social and environmental issues. However, less attention has been given to understanding the potential behavioral consequences of self-silencing, such as whether a person who holds the minority viewpoint is more or less likely to behave in support of their own views following a conversation in which they refrained from expressing their opinion. In a pre-registered mixed-methods experiment, N = 248 university student participants were randomly assigned to have a short video recorded conversation with a confederate (posing as another student) who gave arguments either in support of or in opposition to a campus sustainability policy. We examined how participants engaged in the conversation and behaved following the conversation, and whether this varied as a function of whether their pre-conversation viewpoint was in the majority vs. minority. Relative to participants holding the majority viewpoint going into the conversation, those who held the minority viewpoint were overall more likely to self-silence (i.e., avoid expressing their opinion), particularly when they were paired with a partner who expressed the majority viewpoint. Self-silencing, in turn, was associated with lower cognitive elaboration. However, neither self-silencing nor lower cognitive elaboration predicted lower post-conversation behavior in support of the policy, suggesting behavioral conformity to the majority viewpoint. Not only are minority views less likely to be expressed and acted upon, but such silencing may come at the cost of learning and mutual understanding.