Pluralistic ignorance

Biological Parallel

In buffalo herds, individuals monitor neighbors' behavior rather than the environment directly—if others appear calm, each buffalo assumes there's no threat, even when all are privately uncertain. This social referencing creates false security: everyone thinks everyone else knows it's safe. Pluralistic ignorance emerges from the evolutionary advantage of social learning, which normally provides cheap information but fails catastrophically when the entire group relies on signals rather than ground truth.