People assume their own inner experience is standard, so they misread others whose experience differs and disbelieve reports of it.
The examples are mundane and telling: whether people see images when they imagine, hear an inner voice, or experience willpower as a struggle all vary far more than anyone assumes, because the only case each person has direct access to is their own. The fallacy is not that the inference is careless, but that there is no obvious prompt to make it.
In practice
- A manager who finds public speaking easy designs a process requiring it and cannot see the objection.
- A person who does not experience intrusive thoughts treats a colleague's account of them as exaggeration.
- Standing
- The related research construct is the false consensus effect, which is measured. The blog formulation extends it from beliefs to inner experience, which is harder to test.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- A century and a half of measuring the mind