Can you keep a secret? Most Americans are more normal than you think

It’s no secret that Americans increasingly believe their social landscapes are hostile to their outlooks and the expression thereof — whatever those outlooks happen to be. For years, poll respondents have reported feeling a growing pressure to self-censor. That finding has been replicated once again by the Social Pressure Index, a survey sponsored by the Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization Populace. Fifty-eight percent of Americans surveyed say that “most people cannot share their honest opinions about sensitive topics in society,” and 61 percent admit to keeping their own inflammatory views to themselves. One might assume that these respondents are keeping their grossly taboo and antisocial outlooks under their hats for the sake of social hygiene, but that’s not entirely accurate. Many Americans, it turns out, are shockingly normal, and they don’t want you to know it.

Axios broke down the survey’s methodology: “Respondents were provided a mix of traditional polling questions and other questions using a list experiment method, or item-count technique, that provides them with a greater sense of anonymity,” reporter Erica Pandey related. “This process allows researchers to find the gap between what people say versus how they privately feel.” They found that the social pressure Americans feel leads them to say they are more aggrieved, cynical, and fatalistic than they actually are.

Among U.S. adults, 26 percent of respondents say they believe the government should have the power to “restrict the expression of views deemed discriminatory or offensive,” but only 5 percent express that opinion privately. Eighteen percent back “defunding the police,” but just two percent express that opinion in select company. Twenty percent are open to the prospect that “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” but only 4 percent seem to honestly believe that. Fourteen percent of Americans say corporate CEOs are obliged to “take a public stand on controversial social issues,” compared with 28 percent who say so publicly. And while 44 percent of self-identified Democrats say they approve of corporate engagement with political issues, just 11 percent express that opinion in private.

Nearly 60 percent of Americans readily tell pollsters they believe masking is “an effective way to stop the spread of Covid-19,” but just 47 percent believe that (among women, there is a nearly 20-point margin between their expressed views and their honest outlook). More Americans believe parents should have “more influence over public school curriculum” than they have — a gap that is shockingly large among Americans who are most likely to have school-age children (48 percent say that publicly, while 74 percent secretly harbor that belief). Two-thirds of all adults say that the decision to have an abortion should be “left to a woman and her doctor,” but just 58 percent express that opinion privately. Among men and independents, the gap between their public views and private beliefs is 15 and 25 points, respectively. Nearly one-quarter of surveyed adults said they “trust the media to tell me the truth.” Only seven percent really believe that. And, whereas 42 percent of Democrats say they trust the press, just 9 percent are being honest about it.

Americans feel some pressure to downplay crime in their community, say sex is a fluid concept, indicate their support for “discussing gender identity” in elementary education, and agree that “racism is built into” American institutions. They think they have to say that Americans have “too much freedom” when only 3 percent actually buy that. They even appear to believe that they are socially obligated to say they have experienced “at least one mental health issue” in recent years when most Americans have not.

This survey’s results do not, however, suggest that Americans would become conservatives absent social pressure to ratify Democratic shibboleths. The right enforces its own social stigmas. For example, slightly more Americans believe Covid-era restrictions on schools and businesses say that lockdowns “did more harm than good” than actually believe it. Only about one-third say that schools “waited too long” to reopen during the pandemic, even though 44 percent are willing to say as much in mixed company. Roughly the same result was achieved when respondents were asked if schools spend too much time focusing on “racism in the U.S.” Among Republicans, 64 percent say they supported overturning Roe when only about half of self-identified GOP voters say as much in private.

And they aren’t exactly more optimistic about the social and political landscape than social pressures allow. Only 7 percent think we “live in a mostly fair society,” even though 37 percent think that’s something they’re supposed to believe and express. They believe they ought to have more confidence in America’s governing institutions than they do. But they also think that it is socially desirable to say that American society is “rigged against people like me,” the “greater good is more important than individual rights,” and it’s better to have “experts make decisions for everyone” when many don’t actually believe that.

Overall, the public seems to be responding to environmental inducements to be negative about their homes, their neighbors, their country, and its future. That makes sense. As the vacuous protest slogan goes, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Americans seem to believe that the political environment encourages maximalism because maximalism is a trait so often displayed by the most politically engaged and informed. No one wants to be perceived as ignorant by the hyperbolic political activists in their orbits. But the puffery to which their highly politicized compatriots are prone doesn’t appeal to as many Americans as they’re willing to let on. Secretly, most Americans are far more normal than they want you to believe. Keep it to yourself.