Why the “Nones” are Much More Numerous Than You Think
Those who have declared their lack of religion are just the tip of the iceberg
According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans who identify as unaffiliated with any religious group rose from 16.1 percent in 2007 to 22.8 percent in 2014. Within that group, the percentages of self-identified atheists and agnostics doubled. These are the “Nones,” and as an organizer with Recovering from Religion — a support group — I’ve had the chance to meet many of them, often either shortly after, or even during, their deconversions.
Based on my conversations with these individuals, I believe the large jump in the percentage of Nones was not the result of so many millions of people changing their minds in a span of seven years (though certainly some did), but rather reflects the fact that many more people are declaring in public what they had already felt in private, but were afraid to admit. Furthermore, I would not be surprised to see these numbers rise even further.
The reason has to do with a phenomenon social psychologists call “pluralistic ignorance,” which refers to “a psychological state characterized by the belief that one’s private thoughts, attitudes, and feelings are different from those of others, even though one’s public behavior is identical.” Christina Bicchieri, The Grammar of Society: The Nature and Dynamics of Social Norms, Cambridge University Press (2006).
Examples abound in the social science literature: Gang members privately lament the violence they commit, even as they publicly engage in it and publicly praise violence by their peers. Prison guards privately admit they would prefer to use more lenient methods for dealing with inmates, even as they report that they believe other guards prefer harsher methods, and expect them to use such methods as well. The common thread is that individuals engage in conduct that is costly — in the sense that it departs from their preferences — because they believe others prefer such conduct and prefer that they conform to the others’ preferences.
You would think that pluralistic ignorance would be rare, and fragile. After all, language helps us solve all manner of collective action problems by facilitating coordination between agents with different starting assumptions, preferences, and goals. But in fact pluralistic ignorance can arise quite easily, and prove very durable, because the circumstances that bring it about are fairly common.
The meaning of many social situations is ambiguous, and in such situations we look to others’ behavior to determine what is expected of us. In such circumstances, we assume others’ behavior, which is observable, tracks their feelings and preferences, which aren’t. But when you combine this social ambiguity with a lack of opportunity for transparent communication, the consensus on appropriate behavior comes uncoupled from actual preferences and settles on perceived preferences, which may be quite different.
Why wouldn’t opportunities for transparent communication exist? Why can’t people just ask each other straightforwardly about their preferences? In many instances, the reason is that conformity with the norm is rewarded, while deviation may be punished. Note that the presence of such carrots and sticks does not depend on the existence of a central authority to dispense them, but may be doled out spontaneously by community members. Either way, being the first to deviate, or even express a deviant attitude, must appear highly risky when everyone else’s public conduct suggests that they approve of the norm in question.
This is exactly the dynamic that plays out within the insular, devoutly religious communities that so many of Recovering from Religion’s members hail from. From their perspective, expressing doubt about their faith to other church members is exceedingly risky. In some cases, it could even result in complete loss of contact with family and friends. And yet these individuals seek out groups like mine because their doubts cannot simply be brushed under the rug.
[Side note: as these cases illustrate, turning to atheism or agnosticism is never motivated by a desire to be free to do or believe whatever one wants. Quite the opposite. The people I’ve met through Recovering from Religion risked social isolation or worse because their sense of right and wrong, and their devotion to Truth, would not let them simply go on professing beliefs they didn’t really hold.]
This seems like good news for the secular community, but the collapse of pluralistic ignorance is not inevitable, even in the Internet Age. If I’m right, there are literally tens of millions of Americans out there who harbor serious doubts about their faith, but go through the motions because they fear the consequences if they don’t. I would guess that this is especially the case in socioeconomically marginalized communities where the church may be the most important institution. By studying the science on norm formation and dissolution, we can learn how better to identify and reach out to communities where pluralistic ignorance is most likely to hide a deep undercurrent of doubt.