False consensus, or biased projection of one’s opinion onto others, has repeatedly been described by political communication scholars as a derivative of selective exposure to attitude-consistent information. This study proposes a distinctive approach to understanding the phenomenon by suggesting “perceived threat” as a motivational factor that contributes to self-serving estimates of public opinion. Based on a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, we test a path model in which political ideology relates to false consensus regarding the issue of immigration through cognitive assessments of communication environment and perceived immigration threat. Results suggest that the relationship between cognition and false consensus may not be direct but instead works through motivational factors when one perceives threat, and that conservatives are more sensitive to outgroup threat and thus are more likely to overestimate public consensus for their attitudes on immigration than their ideological counterparts. Implications of these findings are discussed.

错误的共识，或将一个人的观点有偏见地投射到他人身上，政治传播学者一再将其描述为选择性接触态度一致信息的衍生物。这项研究提出了一种独特的方法来理解这一现象，将“感知到的威胁”作为有助于对公众舆论进行自我服务估计的动机因素。基于具有全国代表性的美国成年人样本，我们测试了一个路径模型，在该模型中，通过对通信环境和感知的移民威胁的认知评估，政治意识形态与关于移民问题的错误共识相关。结果表明，认知和错误共识之间的关系可能不是直接的，而是通过当人们感知到威胁时的动机因素起作用，保守派对外部群体的威胁更敏感，因此比起意识形态的同行，他们更有可能高估公众对他们对移民的态度的共识。讨论了这些发现的含义。