The Impact of Laws on Norms Perceptions

Abstract

When opinions in a society change toward more or less tolerance of a group, people do not necessarily see it. Drawing on a quasi-representative survey (Study 1, N = 830) and a natural experiment (Study 2, N = 437), we investigated people’s perceptions of the societal norms toward sexual minorities and the influence of laws on these (mis-)perceptions. Study 1 indicated pluralistic ignorance as participants overestimated the societal disapproval toward same-sex issues. Complementing this finding, Study 2 found that informing participants about a new law legalizing stepchild adoption decreased perceived societal disapproval of same-sex parenting compared with participants not informed about the law. Pluralistic ignorance, however, was not affected by the new law. While results indicate that pluralistic ignorance may be more resilient to change, they also highlight that laws can have a dual impact on societies, changing not only the legal situation but also shifting perceptions of societal norms.

Intergroup contact and social change: An integrated Contact‐Collective Action Model

“…The political system in which people live affects people's behavior (Ayanian & Tausch, 2016;Odağ et al, 2016). Furthermore, institutional policies are a strong signal of the direction in which a society is heading (Eisner et al, 2020;Tankard & Paluck, 2016). Thus, it seems plausible that more democratic political systems, with liberal and progressive orientations and more integrative policies, should strengthen the impact of intergroup contact on advantaged group members' support for social change toward greater social equality.…”

Societal acceptance increases Muslim-Gay identity integration for highly religious individuals… but only when the ingroup status is stable

“…Recent research shows that perceived discrimination and toleration among LGBTQ+ people in Turkey undermines their wellbeing through threatening their identity needs such as self-esteem, belonging, and meaning (Bagci et al, 2020). Moreover, people tend to overestimate the rejection regarding their identities by society (Eisner et al, 2020). However, as our study showed, even a simple reminder of societal acceptance can be useful in helping people reduce the conflict between their incompatible identities.…”

“…However, data from the World Value Survey shows that societal acceptance of homosexuality has been steadily increasing across the world even though it is slower in Muslim countries (Anderson et al, 2021). However, there is a high prevalence of pluralistic ignorance regarding same-sex issues such that people overestimate the societal disapproval of homosexuality (Eisner et al, 2020). Therefore, gay communities should be reminded that the societal acceptance is increasing, and the consequences of this acceptance should be investigated.…”

Expressive suppression as an obstacle to social change: Linking system justification, emotion regulation, and collective action

“…However, the two concepts can be differentiated. Expressive suppression involves inhibiting the overt display of emotions (Gross & Levenson, 1993 ), whereas collective action depends upon group identification, perceptions of injustice, and shared behaviors aimed at supporting or challenging the social system (Becker, 2012 ; Turner-Zwinkels & van Zomeren, 2020 ). Thus, expressive suppression targets the expression of emotions, whereas support for collective action focuses on behavior.…”