TY - JOUR

T1 - The Pluralistic Illusion of Gender Inequality

AU - Sevincer, A. Timur

AU - Stoet, Gijsbert

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - Despite substantial gender equality in highly gender-egalitarian countries like Germany, perceptions of persistent inequality remain widespread. We examine systematic perception gaps that may explain this disconnect. In a survey of 735 German adults, participants reported their perceived societal and personal gender inequality, estimated others’ perceptions, and indicated their attitudes toward gender equality measures. Both women and men perceived women as less fairly treated than men. Women reported a classic person–group discrepancy, perceiving more inequality in society than in their own lives, and projected this discrepancy onto ‘average women.’ This projection, combined with systematic misperceptions of others’ beliefs forms what we term a pluralistic illusion: the logically incoherent belief that most others perceive more inequality in society than people personally experience. We also find a better-than-average effect such that participants see themselves as more supportive of gender equality than the average person. Finally, both men and women substantially underestimated men’s support. In combination, these perception gaps may help explain persistent, polarized debates about gender equality in egalitarian societies.

AB - Despite substantial gender equality in highly gender-egalitarian countries like Germany, perceptions of persistent inequality remain widespread. We examine systematic perception gaps that may explain this disconnect. In a survey of 735 German adults, participants reported their perceived societal and personal gender inequality, estimated others’ perceptions, and indicated their attitudes toward gender equality measures. Both women and men perceived women as less fairly treated than men. Women reported a classic person–group discrepancy, perceiving more inequality in society than in their own lives, and projected this discrepancy onto ‘average women.’ This projection, combined with systematic misperceptions of others’ beliefs forms what we term a pluralistic illusion: the logically incoherent belief that most others perceive more inequality in society than people personally experience. We also find a better-than-average effect such that participants see themselves as more supportive of gender equality than the average person. Finally, both men and women substantially underestimated men’s support. In combination, these perception gaps may help explain persistent, polarized debates about gender equality in egalitarian societies.

KW - above-average-effect

KW - attitudes

KW - gender inequality

KW - meta-beliefs

KW - person-group discrepancy

KW - pluralistic ignorance

KW - social perception

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105025469651&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/00332941251409166

DO - 10.1177/00332941251409166

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 41432756

AN - SCOPUS:105025469651

JO - Psychological Reports

JF - Psychological Reports

SN - 0033-2941

ER -