Spiral of Silence Theory

In a political election campaign, politicians are quick to criticize public opinion polls that show them to be trailing. They will argue that the poll is inaccurate, that the only poll that matters is on election day, or that they are picking up momentum in the race to gain votes. Although some have questioned why a politician would devote resources to proving that unfavorable polls were wrong rather than simply running a more effective campaign, “spiral of silence” theory offers some explanation of this phenomenon. This theory argues that any opinion that is perceived to be the opinion of a majority will hold disproportionate weight in influencing others. This effect happens, at least in part, because people who believe that their opinion is in the minority are less likely to express their opinion. The failure to express a minority point of view reinforces the unequal status of that opinion because there is no longer an advocate for it. This leads to a continuing spiral of silence. Politicians do not want people to think they are trailing in the polls because if that information were to become ingrained in the public mind, supporters of the trailing politician might quit working as hard to bring about his or her election—thus ensuring the doom of that campaign. The spiral of silence is not limited to political campaigns, but to any issue where a person or group of people need others to support them or buy their product.

In 1965, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann worked for the Allensbach Institute for Opinion Research in West Germany and had been monitoring public opinion about that fall's federal election. Several months before the election, she asked survey respondents two questions. First, she asked them to name the party for which they intended to vote in the upcoming election. Second, she asked them to name the party they believed would win the election. In early polling, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats (the two main parties in West Germany, and the two leading parties in the united Germany today) were roughly equal in responses to both questions, and those results held for about six months. That is, the same number of people intended to vote for each party, and the same number of people believed that each party was likely to win the election.

As the election neared, Noelle-Neumann noticed an interesting phenomenon. While the number of people intending to vote for each party held steady, the response to the other question changed. Although people still intended to vote in similar numbers, two months prior to the election four of five voters expected that the Christian Democrats would win the election. In the two weeks prior to the election, public opinion began to diverge and the Christian Democrats gained 5 percent in the polls (as the party for which someone actually intended to vote) and the Social Democrats lost approximately 5 percent. Actual voting behavior followed the voting behavior perceived and predicted for others, and the Christian Democrats won that election with a 9 percent advantage.

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