Post · bonfire.cafe

On BlueSky, @grimalkina mentioned Pluralistic Ignorance, one of my favorite new concepts I learned from her while listening to a podcast! So I’m gonna bring up another really brilliant thing from that podcast.

Let’s chat about pluralistic ignorance and what developer experience people should know about it!

Pluralistic Ignorance is a concept in psychology where we think nobody else in the group wants what we want, or thinks what we think.

Eg, “ugh this is really bothering me… but everyone else seems ok with it. I bet it’s just a me problem.”

An example of pluralistic ignorance might be when reviewing an architecture choice. The team’s making a tradeoff to get out the door faster. You think it’ll hurt the team in the long run… but, well, everyone else seems to think it’s a good idea? Hmm, Nobody’s saying anything… Is it all in your head?

Pluralistic ignorance can be a problem! It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes story, but in real life.

Ok, so, that’s not great. But what do we do about that? There’s another term of art here that’s useful. It’s called a Moment of Disclosure.

They’re basically when you say the quiet part out loud

Hazel Weakly

@hazelweakly@hachyderm.io · 8 months ago

@grimalkina Moments of disclosure are such a cool concept and I really really like that term. It’s that moment when someone in the group speaks up and says “hey… is it just me, or…?”

But they’re *also* moments of vulnerably sharing your own ignorance. Sometimes YOU’RE the emperor with no clothes.

Admitting that you’re not following something, or that you don’t know a “basic concept” or that a “trivial problem” isn’t trivial can feel really shitty. It requires a ton of trust in an environment to be comfortable having moments of disclosure, and a lot of maturity to enable that for each other!

Why is this so important for developer experience? Well, I think it’s for at least a few reasons:

- You can’t build the right thing if people won’t share what’s slowing them down
- A sense of belonging is correlated with performance, and needs that ability to disclose

But there’s another reason…

Hazel Weakly

@hazelweakly@hachyderm.io · 8 months ago

@grimalkina I think Pluralistic Ignorance is actually unavoidable. The more diverse a team is, the less common implicit context everyone will share. The more impactful and complex their work is the more it becomes impossible to know everything or be absolutely confident.

If you can’t prevent it, don’t try

Developer experience actually deals a lot with things one can’t prevent or avoid. Same for resilience engineering (and any other systems thinking specialty).

Recognizing when it happens and making it easier to handle is a very effective technique. We should lean into that!

If there’s anything I hope we take away from understanding more about pluralistic ignorance and moments of disclosure, it’s that we should celebrate these moments of disclosure for what they are: opportunities to learn, to strengthen communal bonds, and to reaffirm to each other that we belong ❤️