“There is growing evidence that how we act is often influenced more by what we think others think than what we think ourselves. Before the Gulf War, for instance, most Americans were against invasion, most Americans thought that other Americans were for the war, and the latter rather than the former led them to accept the invasion without overt dissent.”

Steve Reicher  (University of St Andrews) & Alex Haslam (University of Exeter): excerpt of letter published in the July 2012 issue of the Psychologist (British Psychological Society).