Concept · Cognitive Bias: Egocentric biases
False consensus effect
Origin: Ross, Greene & House, 1977
Biological Parallel
Social insects like ants and bees use pheromone trails and waggle dances to coordinate—but these systems assume colony consensus, not individual variation. When a scout bee finds nectar, it "assumes" other bees will value the same resource because genetic relatedness (75% in sisters) makes preferences genuinely aligned. The false consensus effect—overestimating how many others share our views—may reflect ancestral kin-based groups where shared genetics actually did produce shared preferences, making consensus assumption accurate until recent human history introduced disagreement among non-relatives.