The spiral of silence
Self-censorship, Twitter and organisational decision-making
How often this week have you censored yourself at work?
How often did you hear someone else expressing an opinion that you fundamentally disagreed with, but decided to keep your mouth shut? You felt too scared to speak, because you would have been the odd one out and others would have judged you. You would have been labelled as something that you are not.
Last week, I was coaching a senior leader who came to the session feeling troubled and low in mood. Earlier that week, in a meeting a direct report had assertively and with great emotion suggested a course of action that the leader deeply and fundamentally disagreed with. Everyone else in the meeting either agreed or was silent. The leader felt paralysed to say anything, but in the end, also agreed. After the meeting, the leader felt upset and disappointed, feeling they had acted disingenuously and also let down colleagues - they had not acted as a leader. This was the issue they brought to coaching.
Politics, climate anxiety, Brexit, trans-rights, religion…we all have opinions on these topics, and they cause strong emotions that we sometimes bring to work.
This issue is a microcosm of what happens on social media, like Twitter, where opinions are created and driven by a small, vocal, but determined group of zealots. This is a very powerful process that can silence even strong, intelligent, and assertive people. It can paralyse people who have a degree of authority and power.
How can we explain this?
The spiral of silence
In 1974, the German social psychologist Elizabeth Noelle-Nuemann said that our willingness to express our true opinion is determined by how popular or unpopular we estimate our opinion to be. She called this theory the spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann 1974).
We all want to be liked and accepted, especially by those people we are close to either at home, in our social lives, or at work. We are happy when we find we belong, but also terrified of losing that sense of belonging. The thing we all fear the most is rejection and exclusion by our friends and colleagues. This is a very deep seated fear that has its roots in our evolutionary past. Our brain and nervous system developed and is designed for survival in a hunter gatherer society. Being excluded from our tribe would have meant death. Motivation to conform and fit in is a powerful one. This motivation communicates through feeling rather than thought. At work, you might know something is wrong, but your fearfulness shuts you up.
To avoid this rejection, most people will closely monitor their social environment and adapt their behaviour to fit in. If we think an opinion is unpopular, we will avoid expressing it. If we think it is popular, we will make a point of showing we think the same as others.
Noelle-Neumann said that we all have a sixth sense which she, in typically elegant academic psychology language called ‘the quasi-statistical organ.’ This organ sniffs the air to try and figure out what the prevailing dominant opinion might be. The problem is, it can be deceived by the loudest most vehemently expressed opinion and does not pick up the signals from those who are silent. Thus, we tend to adapt our behaviour to fit in with the opinions of the loudest people in the group. The aim is to avoid being isolated for not having the “right” opinion.
This pattern of a minority, forcefully expressing one view, combined with the silence of the majority, creates a powerful self maintaining negative feedback loop. People who notice that their opinion has little support, keep their mouth shut. The people expressing the strong opinion feel endorsed by the lack of opposition and continue to confidently espouse their views. Those who represent the supported opinions talk more, while others remain silent and consequently, the loudest opinion is perceived as being the majority opinion. And so the process goes on in a negative downward spiral.
There are situations where the majority opinion gets the support because it’s the best decision and it is in reality a majority opinion. What’s interesting about the spiral of silence idea is that sometimes, what is perceived as being the majority opinion is in fact an illusion. A minority opinion firmly expressed can easily dominate the discussion. It is hard to argue with a zealot and eventually, the group comes to believe that the minority opinion is a majority, emotion kicks in and many will acquiesce.
Why is the spiral of silence dangerous?
The spiral of silence kills thought, debate, and discussion.
It was one of the factors that contributed to the rise of the Nazis in pre-war Germany. Many civilised Germans were put under enormous pressure to collude with anti-Semitism. Who would feel comfortable debating with a stormtrooper with a club? Who would feel comfortable arguing with a neighbour, who might report your opinions to the stormtrooper with a club? People were silenced. They looked around and took this lack of disagreement to mean that most people actually agreed with the persecution and so they began to agree. I write about this process more in my book, ‘The Saboteur at Work,’ (Drayton, 2022).
One member of the team, a relatively junior member, expressed an opinion with some passion about a socially contentious topic. This immediately silenced any discussion or debate about that topic. This resulted in an actual organisational decision that impacted on the lives of many people of the workforce. The spiral of silence also throws light on the difference between peoples espouse political views and how they actually vote.
I have a friend who was astounded when the UK voted to leave the EU in the Brexit referendum. He said,
“I just can’t believe it! everybody I know voted to remain.”
This person was a vocal remainer. Maybe he surrounded himself with like-minded people or his friends who did vote to leave, just couldn’t be bothered to argue with him. Whatever the reason, he had absolutely convinced himself that the majority opinion was to remain in the EU – that’s the spiral of silence at work.
The internet and social media, particularly Twitter, makes it a lot easier for an organised and loud minority to make their opinions appear more popular and accepted than they actually are—and therefore more socially acceptable. The most extreme views on any contentious subject end up looking normal on platforms like Twitter, because those with a moderate view are understandably cautious about voicing their opinion for fear of being ‘cancelled.’ Look at what happened to JK Rowling and others.
There is an all too believable rumour that straight after the average MP has made a speech in the House of Commons, they sit down and check what people are saying about their speech on Twitter. If the tweets are positive they experience a sense of relief because they believe that these positive tweets indicate they’re still popular. If they are criticised in the tweets they become deeply worried. This is a problem because the only people that bother to comment on the average politician’s speech are people within the Westminster bubble with a vested interest. For example, members of vocal and well organised pressure groups that bombard anyone that dares to oppose them with often abusive and threatening tweets. Mainstream media often pick up on these tweets and report them as the views of the man on the Clapham omnibus.
What can you do to prevent the spiral of silence?
In her 2019 book The Fearless Organisation, Harvard Business Professor, Amy Edmondson writes that a sense of psychological safety is the essential characteristic of a high performance organisational culture.
She describes a culture of psychological safety is one in which people can feel they can speak up, express their concerns, and be heard. A psychologically safe workplace is one where people are not full of fear and not trying to cover their tracks to avoid being embarrassed or punished - a workplace where people can offer suggestions and take sensible risks without provoking retaliation. This culture makes it impossible for the spiral of silence to take hold.
Project Aristotle was the codename of research by Google, on why some teams performed better than others. Like Amy Edmondson, the Project Aristotle researchers found that psychological safety was, by far, the single most important factor driving success, Charles Duhigg, described this phenomenon in in the New York Times, “Individuals on teams with higher psychological safety are less likely to leave Google, they’re more likely to harness the power of diverse ideas from their teammates, they bring in more revenue, and they’re rated as effective twice as often by executives.” (Duhigg, 2016)
Matthew Syed in his book on cognitive diversity, Rebel Ideas, described two ways to nurture psychological safety and minimise the spiral of silence.
Brain writing.
Brainwriting is a way of generating creative ideas and it’s different from its older sibling brainstorming. Instead of presenting your ideas verbally, out loud, you would be asked to write your ideas down on cards, and then post them on a wall for the rest of the group to vote on. This works well for two reasons. First, everyone gets a chance to contribute (equal contribution is one of the key factors in psychological safety) no matter how shy they might be. It means that the organisation gains access to the thinking of everyone in the team, not just one or two more extroverted, confident people.
The second advantage of brainwriting is that status and authority are detached from the ideas. The golden rule of brainwriting is that nobody may identify themselves on their idea card – no matter how subtly they might do this. Nobody can use job titles, hints or distinctive handwriting to identify themselves (block capitals only please). This is important because by doing this you separate the idea from the status of the person who came up with it. People vote on the quality of the proposal, rather than the seniority of the person who suggested it.
“When brainwriting is put head to head with brainstorming, it generates twice the volume of ideas, and also produces higher quality ideas when rated by independent assessors. The reason is simple. Brainwriting liberates diversity from the constraints of dominance dynamic.” (Syed, 2020).
Amazon’s Golden Silence.
Amazon has started their meetings for the past 10 years with 30 minutes of silence. During this time, people in the meeting read a memo that summarises, in narrative form, the key agenda item. It’s important that this is written down properly and not summarised in bullet points.
There’s another reason why the Golden Silence minimises the spiral of silence. By asking people to consider their views before learning the opinions of others, it encourages and supports a diversity of thinking, real consideration of the strengths and weaknesses of the idea. This reduces any risk that the strengths and weaknesses and diverse suggestions will either not be mentioned, or crushed by dominant people in meetings.
Here’s a final tip, if you are feeling pressured into agreeing with something you don’t agree with, try this. Imagine you are in a dance. Then, ‘go to the balcony’ and observe the dance from above. When you are dancing it’s hard to disentangle yourself from the person you are dancing with. It’s also hard to see all the other dancers. If you are able to detach yourself and gain perspective, it’s a lot easier to make an informed decision and avoid the spiral of silence.
References:
Drayton, M. (2022). The Saboteur at Work: How the Unconscious Mind Can Sabotage Ourselves, Our Organisations and Society (1st ed.). Routledge.
Duhigg, C. (2016). What Google learned from its quest to build the perfect team. The New York Times Magazine, 26 (2016), 2016.
Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The fearless organization : creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. Wiley.
Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974). The Spiral of Silence: A Theory of Public Opinion. Journal of Communication, 24(3), 43–51.
Syed, M. (2019). Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking. John Murray.