Understanding the role of pluralistic ignorance in biodiversity conservation: A research agenda

• Collective misperceptions of social norms—pluralistic ignorance—are widespread. • There are few applications of pluralistic ignorance research to biodiversity topics. • Pluralistic ignorance may hinder individual and system changes for biodiversity conservation. • This Perspective offers a framework to develop impactful pluralistic ignorance research in the biodiversity domain. • We suggest investigating pluralistic ignorance, its consequences and determinants, as well as broadening the intervention toolkit. Most people believe that biodiversity loss is human-caused, yet they may not realize how many others share this belief. Such collective misperceptions—known as pluralistic ignorance—may hinder individual and system changes required to address biodiversity loss. At the same time, reducing pluralistic ignorance may promote positive change. In this Perspective, we provide a brief overview of existing work on pluralistic ignorance about environmental topics and propose an agenda for impactful pluralistic ignorance research in the biodiversity domain. We highlight several research gaps and offer recommendations, including (a) investigating different forms of pluralistic ignorance, (b) improving our understanding of consequences and determinants, and (c) broadening the intervention toolkit to counter pluralistic ignorance for biodiversity conservation. To increase the Perspective’s practical applicability, we describe historical and contemporary case studies on pluralistic ignorance and biodiversity conservation from around the globe.