The power of silence: a qualitative inquiry into silent consent and its psychosocial foundations

Abstract

The aim of this study is to understand why individuals remain silent in the face of social deviance phenomena such as injustice, discrimination, violence, corruption, and lawlessness in everyday life, and how repeated and normalized silence may contribute to the social production of consent. Using a qualitative focus group design, semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted with 30 participants from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. The data were analysed through a codebook-oriented thematic analysis informed by Braun and Clarke's six-phase approach. The analysis generated three main themes: Learned Silence, Learned Helplessness, and Avoidance. The findings show that silence should not be interpreted automatically as approval. In participants' accounts, silence was often associated with fear, shame, emotional exhaustion, avoidance of harm, distrust of institutions, social exclusion, and self-protection. However, when individual silences are repeatedly observed, socially normalized, and institutionally ignored or exploited, they may contribute to the normalization and reproduction of the very deviance that individuals do not explicitly approve. The study therefore develops the concept of societal silent consent as a collective process through which repeated individual silences in the face of perceived social deviance contribute to the normalization, legitimation, or reproduction of that deviance. By distinguishing silence as behaviour from silent consent as a possible social effect, the study extends discussions of silence beyond organizational behaviour and situates them within everyday social relations, cultural expectations, and structural power.

Introduction

Societies are shaped not only by ideas expressed aloud, but also by silence. Individuals' preference to remain silent in the face of social deviations such as injustice, discrimination, violence, and corruption points to a form of social behaviour that may appear passive but can have active and transformative social consequences. In this study, however, silence is not treated as automatically equivalent to consent. Rather, consent is examined as one possible social effect of repeated and normalized silence.

Deviance is defined as "deviation from what is right, necessary or good; departure from the norm, the normal, the culturally acceptable" [8], p. 657), while social deviance can be described as a departure from the values and behaviours that are socially accepted and have become part of a society's way of life [9]. When social deviance is repeatedly witnessed but not publicly challenged, silence may contribute to an indirect production of legitimacy. This does not mean that the silent individual necessarily approves,instead, it means that silence can produce social consequences beyond the individual's intention [6, 10, 26].

The central concept of this article is societal silent consent. We define societal silent consent as a collective process through which repeated individual silences in the face of perceived social deviance contribute to the normalization, legitimation, or reproduction of that deviance, even when individuals do not explicitly approve of it. This definition distinguishes three related but different terms. Silence refers to the behavioural act of not speaking or not reacting. Silent consent refers to the possible legitimating effect that silence may produce. Societal silent consent refers to the broader conceptual model through which individual silences accumulate and become socially meaningful.

Several theories help explain how silence may become socially consequential. The Spiral of Silence Theory argues that individuals refrain from expressing opinions when they perceive themselves to be in the minority, thereby strengthening the visibility of dominant views [18]. System Justification Theory suggests that individuals may defend or rationalize existing arrangements even when these arrangements disadvantage them [11–13]. Moral Disengagement Theory explains how individuals may suspend moral responsibility through cognitive rationalizations such as "my intervention would not change anything" [2, 3]. Pluralistic ignorance similarly shows that individuals may misread the silence of others as agreement, while others are also privately doubtful [24].

Recent scholarship also warns against treating silence as a single and stable phenomenon. Bao [4, 5] conceptualizes silence as multifaceted: it may communicate protection, alienation, resistance, discipline, emotional withdrawal, care, powerlessness, or strategic self-preservation. This multidimensional view is important for the present study because many participants did not describe their silence as approval. They described it as a way of avoiding harm, managing shame, preserving emotional energy, or coping with institutional distrust.

The phenomenon of silence in society can also be explained by classic experimental findings in social psychology. Asch's [1] conformity experiments showed that individuals may suppress what they know to be true under group pressure. Milgram's [16] obedience study demonstrated that individuals may comply with or fail to oppose authority even when the situation conflicts with their internal values. Sherif's [25] autokinetic experiment showed that, in ambiguous contexts, individuals tend to orient themselves toward group norms. These studies suggest that silent consent is not merely individual passivity but may emerge from the drive to conform to social norms, authority, and the perceived majority.

Digital public expression adds another layer to this argument. In online communities, the views that are publicly posted may differ significantly from privately held opinions. Zhao, Yang, and Bernstein (2025) show that perceived minority status can reduce willingness to express views online, while community inclusiveness may reduce this effect. Similarly, Vilone and Polizzi [27] model how opinion misperception and network dynamics can generate silence in online social systems. These studies indicate that silence is shaped not only by personal psychology but also by communicative environments and the perceived distribution of opinion.

The relationship between silence, shame, power, and resistance has also been developed in recent work on domination and exploitation. Poppi's work on narrative resistance and social representations demonstrates how power relations are sustained not only by direct coercion but also by everyday discourse, shame, fear, normalization, and blocked resistance [20–22]. In addition, Poppi and Copes [23] argue that group-based qualitative interaction may produce collective meanings, defensive narratives, and imagined forms of social response rather than simply reporting individual opinions. This insight is methodologically relevant to the present focus group study, because the group setting itself may reveal how participants collectively negotiate what can and cannot be said.

On this basis, the study approaches silence at three interrelated levels. At the micro level, silence may be shaped by fear, shame, trauma, emotional fatigue, moral conflict, and self-protection. At the meso level, it may be shaped by family, workplace, neighbourhood, peer groups, educational settings, and local expectations of respectability. At the macro level, it may be shaped by media, institutions, political culture, dominant ideologies, structural inequalities, and collective memories of punishment. This three-level framework enables the analysis to move from individual experience to broader social consequences without equating every instance of silence with approval.

Accordingly, this study aims to examine how individuals interpret silence, in which contexts they remain silent despite not consenting, when silence is broken, and how repeated silence may become normalized as a form of societal silent consent. The study contributes to social psychology, sociology, communication studies, and political science by extending the concept of silent consent beyond organizational behaviour and grounding it in everyday experiences of fear, conformity, avoidance, shame, and moral conflict.

Method

Study design

This study employed a qualitative focus group design. Focus group interviews were preferred because the research question concerns socially shared meanings, norms, silencing pressures, and the collective interpretation of silence. The group format enabled participants to respond to one another, confirm or challenge shared assumptions, and produce meanings that may not emerge in individual interviews [14],[17].

The data were analysed using a codebook-oriented thematic analysis informed by Braun and Clarke's [7] six-phase framework. This terminology is used consistently throughout the manuscript. The study did not use a separate content analysis procedure,earlier references to content analysis were removed to avoid methodological ambiguity.

Sample and recruitment

The study participants consisted of 30 individuals aged 18 and over with different socio-cultural backgrounds. Participants were selected through purposive maximum variation sampling in order to capture diverse accounts of silence across age, gender, education, and employment status [19]. Inclusion criteria were being 18 years or older, volunteering to participate, and being able to discuss experiences or observations of silence in response to social deviance. Participation was voluntary and no participant was required to disclose politically sensitive personal information.

Participants' ages ranged from 19 to 61, with an average age of 34.8 ± 12.5. In terms of gender distribution, there were 17 women (56.6%) and 13 men (43.3%). In terms of educational level, 10% of participants had primary education, 33.3% had secondary education, 40% had a bachelor's degree, and 16.7% had a postgraduate degree. In terms of employment status, 63% of participants were actively employed, 20% were students, and 17% were retired or unemployed. These characteristics enabled comparison of silence across educational, occupational, and generational positions.

Additional variables such as detailed rural/urban background, formal socioeconomic class, and prior activism or civic engagement history were not systematically collected as formal sampling strata. This limitation has been acknowledged in the limitations section, because such variables may shape both the likelihood of speaking and the perceived risks of speaking.

Focus group composition

Participants were organized into five focus groups of approximately six participants each. The grouping was based on broad sociodemographic similarity, especially age range, education level, and employment status, in order to reduce status-related inhibition and support open discussion. The groups were not organized around a single variable only. This decision was made because the topic of silence is sensitive: a group composed of participants with very unequal status positions may reproduce the very silencing dynamics being studied. At the same time, some diversity within groups was retained to allow participants to compare experiences and generate discussion.

Data collection tool

A semi-structured interview form was used to collect data for the study (Table 1).

Table 1.

Interview Questions

Semi-Structured Focus Group Interview Form
A. Tendencies to Remain Silent and the Reasons Behind Them
1. When incidents such as injustice, discrimination, corruption or violence occur in society, why do you think people mostly remain silent?
2. Have you ever remained silent in the face of injustice? Why?
3. When you chose to remain silent, what factors influenced this decision? (e.g., fear, indifference, social pressure, etc.)
4. Do you think people choose to remain silent because others are also silent?
B. The Meaning of Silence and Its Social Perception
5. Do you think remaining silent always implies approval? When might silence be approval, self-protection, fear, indifference, or resistance?
6. How do you interpret it when public opinion does not form about an event or when people do not react?
7. What effect does silence have on society? Could you share an example of an event that most affected you?
8. Do you think silence is seen as a virtuous attitude in society, or is it a result of fear?
C. Silent Consent and Power Relations
9. Do individuals who remain silent preserve the existing order? Do you think this is a form of legitimisation?
10. How do you think people or institutions in power use people's silence?
11. Do you think the media, the education system, or religious discourse encourage individuals to remain silent?
12. Do you think silent societies become desensitised over time? Or does this silence accumulate and lead to an explosion?
13. Can you remember a situation in which you or someone else did speak up? What made speaking possible or difficult?

Data collection process

The focus group interviews were conducted face-to-face in quiet university halls that were physically suitable for group discussion. Each focus group interview lasted approximately 65–90 min. Before the focus group interviews began, the purpose of the research was explained to participants, voluntariness was emphasized, and informed verbal consent was obtained.

• All focus group interviews were audio recorded with participants' permission and supported by researcher notes.

• The researcher acted as moderator, supported the natural flow of discussion, and avoided pressuring participants to answer politically or personally sensitive questions.

• Following the focus group interviews, audio recordings were transcribed verbatim to create the raw data set.

• Names and identifying details were removed during transcription.

Data analysis

The data were analysed using codebook-oriented thematic analysis informed by Braun and Clarke's [7] six-phase approach. First, the researchers familiarised themselves with the data through repeated reading of the transcripts and examination of researcher notes. Second, initial codes were produced by identifying meaningful segments related to reasons for silence, meanings attributed to silence, social sanctions, emotional consequences, and experiences of speaking up. Third, conceptually related codes were grouped into candidate subthemes. Fourth, these subthemes were reviewed against the entire data set. Fifth, the final themes were named and defined. Sixth, the findings were written with analytic commentary and participant quotations.

To increase analytic transparency, coding was first performed by the primary researcher and then reviewed by an independent second coder. Disagreements were discussed until consensus was reached. The coding process moved from descriptive codes such as fear of labelling, avoiding conflict, institutional distrust, emotional fatigue, gendered modesty, and punished speech to subthemes such as social conformity, virtuous silence, internalised silence, perception of inadequacy, the price of speaking out, avoiding conflict, and protecting one's comfort zone.

Thematic sufficiency was assessed during preliminary analysis. Although five focus groups had been planned in advance, the fourth and fifth focus group interviews largely repeated already established patterns and did not generate a new main theme. Therefore, the authors treated the data as thematically sufficient for the purpose of conceptual development rather than as statistically saturated (Table 2).

Table 2.

Example of the analytic movement from data to theme

Participant quotation	Initial code	Subtheme	Main theme
"If I spoke up, everyone would say, 'What's it to you?'"	Fear of social labelling	Social conformity	Learned silence
"Women who talk too much are not loved."	Gendered modesty and shame	Virtuous silence	Learned silence
"Whenever we spoke, nothing changed."	Institutional distrust and futility	Perception of inadequacy	Learned helplessness
"It even affected my promotion."	Punishment after speaking	The price of speaking out	Learned helplessness
"My own peace of mind is more important."	Emotional self-protection	Protecting one's comfort zone	Avoidance
"I warned them, and they shouted at me."	Failed intervention	Breaking silence and returning to silence	Cross-cutting deviant case

Quality Criteria

The study was evaluated in relation to credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability [15].

• Credibility was supported by moderator notes, repeated reading of transcripts, independent coding, consensus discussions, and the use of participant quotations to anchor each theme in the data.

• Transferability was supported by reporting participant characteristics, data collection procedures, focus group composition logic, and the socio-cultural interpretation of findings.

• Dependability was supported by documenting the research process from recruitment and focus group interviews to transcription, coding, theme review, and theme naming.

• Confirmability was supported by the use of a second coder, transparent analytic movement from quotation to code and theme, and the separation of empirical interpretation from theoretical discussion.

Findings

The qualitative analysis revealed a multi-layered structure of silence. Participants' statements indicate that silence is not merely a momentary pause or an individual choice; it is a behavioural pattern shaped by cultural codes, reinforced by social relationships, and internalised through personal experiences. Three main themes and seven subthemes were identified: Learned Silence, Learned Helplessness, and Avoidance. In addition, deviant cases in which participants did speak up were analysed as a cross-cutting section because they help explain when silence is broken and how it may return after punishment or disappointment.

Main theme 1: Learned silence

Learned silence is approached not merely as a temporary attitude or individual inclination, but as an internalised behaviour pattern shaped by historical, cultural, and social processes. In this context, silence becomes a social code transmitted through family, school, religious and moral discourses, cultural norms, and everyday authority relations. Participants often described silence through phrases learned in childhood, such as not interfering, not drawing attention, showing respect, and remaining calm.

A culturally specific dimension of this theme is the moral vocabulary surrounding silence. In the Turkish-speaking context of the participants' narratives, expressions associated with shame, respectability, modesty, and not interfering in others' affairs shaped how individuals interpreted the risks of speaking. Silence was not presented only as fear; it was also described as good manners, maturity, restraint, or social intelligence. This cultural framing helps explain why silence may feel morally appropriate even when the individual recognises an injustice.

The participants' statements show that remaining silent is not a passive reaction to the situation at hand, but rather the result of a culturally and historically transmitted learning process. In this process, silence is constructed as a protective strategy for regulating the individual's relationship with their social environment and as a way of conforming to society.

Sub-theme 1.1: social conformity

This subtheme explains the individual's preference for silence due to the desire to conform to their social environment and the fear of social labelling. Silence here functions not only as a form of defence but also as a social strategy. Participants' statements show that remaining silent is often linked to the fear of social exclusion, misunderstanding, stigmatisation, or social reaction.

"A man was arguing on the phone on the bus, and it bothered me, but I saw that no one was saying anything. I thought that if I spoke up, everyone would say, 'What's it to you? Why are you getting involved?' In this environment, it's as if people are forced to remain silent." (Woman, 45)

This quotation illustrates fear of stigmatisation and the anticipation of social sanction. The participant did not remain silent because she approved of the behaviour; she remained silent because she expected that speaking would isolate her from the group. The mechanism is therefore conformity through anticipated labelling, not consent.

"I witnessed an elderly man being scolded in the neighbourhood. Other people turned their heads and no one paid any attention. At that moment, I thought, 'If I react now, I will draw unnecessary attention.' Am I the only sensible one?" (Male, 31)

Here, the participant interprets the silence of others as a signal that intervention is socially risky. The quote demonstrates pluralistic ignorance: the absence of visible reaction creates uncertainty about whether others disapprove, and the individual becomes less likely to speak.

"I defended someone who was treated unfairly at work. Then everyone distanced themselves from me. They said, 'He gets involved in everything.' Now I see it, but I have to keep quiet." (Male, 42)

This account links conformity to a previous experience of social punishment. The participant's current silence is not a simple preference; it is learned through exclusion after a previous attempt to speak.

"I saw someone throw rubbish from their car onto the street. I warned them, and they shouted at me. The people around me remained silent too. Then I thought: Who am I telling this to? These people deserve it. Now I ignore such things." (Female, 38)

This example shows how a failed attempt to intervene can produce later resignation. Silence emerges after the participant's moral action is unsupported by bystanders, thereby transforming a moment of resistance into a future tendency toward withdrawal.

Sub-theme 1.2: virtuous silence

This subtheme concerns silence being presented to individuals as a positive form of behaviour by authority figures such as family, school, and society. Silence has been equated with social virtues such as respect, maturity, good manners, and calmness. Participants stated that, particularly during childhood and adolescence, they were encouraged by parents and teachers not to talk too much, not to speak out, and to show maturity by remaining silent.

"My mother always said, 'Women who talk too much are not loved.' We grew up like that. Even if we were treated unfairly, we didn't speak up because it would be 'shameful'. Now, no matter what anyone does, my conscience won't allow it, but I remain silent." (Woman, 39)

This quote demonstrates gendered moral discipline. Silence is linked to loveability, shame, and femininity. The participant's moral discomfort remains active, but cultural expectations of modesty restrict expression.

"My grandfather used to say, 'When you go somewhere, don't talk, don't draw attention to yourself, don't interfere in anyone's business.' I heard this a lot when I was little. Even now, even if I am right in a situation, I cannot speak up because a voice inside me says, 'It is better to remain silent.'" (Man, 41)

This account shows intergenerational transmission. Silence becomes an internal voice that regulates behaviour even when external authority is absent.

"In my circle, silence is a sign of calmness. It's as if you shrink when you speak and grow when you remain silent. This idea has become ingrained in us." (Woman, 33)

The mechanism in this quote is moral valuation: speech is associated with excess, while silence is associated with dignity. This cultural valuation makes silence appear virtuous even when it blocks public reaction.

Sub-theme 1.3: internalised silence

Internalised silence refers to silence becoming embedded in an individual over time, turning into a habit or personality-like tendency. Some participants stated that they now maintain silence even without immediate external pressure; they suppress their feelings and cannot express reactions. This suppression does not only serve the purpose of avoiding social conflict; it also causes individuals to become less responsive to their own feelings.

"I saw a news story about the murder of a little girl, I cried but I couldn't write anything, I couldn't speak. Sometimes a voice screams inside me, but I feel like I've silenced it." (Woman, 29)

This quotation illustrates emotional suppression rather than indifference. The participant is deeply affected but cannot transform affect into public expression.

"I even swallow my anger. It's as if I've forgotten how to express myself. I worked for years, witnessed injustice, and always kept it inside. Now, when someone does something wrong, I just feel suffocated, but I don't say anything." (Man, 50)

The phrase "swallow my anger" reveals embodied silence. The participant experiences silence as a physical and emotional burden, showing that internalised silence may harm the self even when it protects the person from external conflict.

"I saw someone throwing rubbish out of their car onto the ground. I wanted to warn them, but a thousand thoughts crossed my mind. Because we see similar news stories. Someone warns someone else, and fights break out. Even if you make a justified warning, you could lose your life. In fact, just recently, a 16-year-old girl stabbed a man for the same reason. That's why it's best to keep quiet and not get involved." (Woman, 36)

This quotation shows how media narratives and perceived social danger enter the individual's decision-making. Silence is produced by anticipatory fear: the participant imagines possible escalation and chooses safety over intervention.

Gendered silence as moral discipline

Although gender was not the sole basis of the analysis, several female participants described silence through norms of modesty, shame, respectability, and emotional restraint. These accounts indicate that silence is not distributed equally across social positions. For women, speaking was sometimes framed as being excessive, disrespectful, shameless, or socially undesirable. Therefore, gendered silence should be understood not only as an individual coping behaviour but also as a moral discipline that regulates who is allowed to speak, how loudly, and at what social cost.

Main theme 2: learned helplessness

The participants' statements reveal that silence is fuelled not only by cultural or social norms but also by feelings of ineffectiveness and helplessness. Many individuals, even if they want to speak, suppress this energy and choose silence because they think nothing will change or that institutions will not listen. Particularly on public issues such as injustice, corruption, femicide, and human rights violations, people believe that their individual contributions will not be sufficient, and this belief can turn into passive acceptance over time.

A critical distinction emerged under this theme: some individuals did not begin as silent. They spoke, complained, defended someone, or challenged a decision, but later became silent after being ignored, punished, mocked, or isolated. Thus, silence is not only a learned outcome of passivity; it can also be the consequence of failed or punished resistance.

Sub-theme 2.1: perception of inadequacy

Participants clearly expressed feeling small, powerless, and alone in the face of the magnitude of the system or society. Although they wanted to speak up, they chose silence because they believed their voice would not make a difference. This reflects learned helplessness at the level of civic and everyday moral action.

"There is an economic crisis, poverty is growing, but we cannot speak out. Why? Because whenever we spoke, nothing changed. We see what happened to those who spoke out. Over time, you give up too." (Male, 49)

This quotation demonstrates both futility and fear. The participant's silence is shaped by the belief that speech is ineffective and by observation of consequences faced by others who spoke.

"My child was discriminated against at school. I told the authorities, but they didn't care. That's when I realised that the system doesn't listen to you anyway. So I kept quiet. Then I withdrew even more into myself." (Woman, 38)

Here, institutional non-response produces withdrawal. The participant's silence emerges after a formal complaint fails, suggesting that institutional indifference can become a mechanism of silencing.

"In an exam, favouritism was blatantly shown, and someone who didn't deserve it was accepted. No matter how much I complained, nothing changed. I think those who did this are aware that they are wrong. But do you know what they think? There's a saying, 'The dog barks, but the caravan moves on'. That's exactly how they see it." (Woman, 36)

This quote captures the perceived arrogance of unaccountable power. The proverb indicates that complaint is heard but treated as inconsequential, which deepens the participant's sense that speaking has no practical effect.

Sub-theme 2.2: the price of speaking out

This theme highlights the price of speaking out, a dimension that is critical for understanding silence. Some participants stated that they learned to remain silent because of consequences they faced when they raised their voices in the past, such as exclusion, threats, job-related costs, or social isolation. These experiences silence not only the individual but also observers, who learn from the punishment of others.

"One day, I submitted a written petition to a municipal official regarding women's rights. Then people in my social circle excluded me, calling me a feminist and saying I was exaggerating. I was very hurt. Now, even though I feel like speaking up, I try not to." (Woman, 33)

The participant's experience links speaking to shame and social exclusion. The mechanism is blocked resistance: speaking becomes emotionally costly because it threatens belonging.

"I criticised a member of parliament on social media. Some unfollowed me, others sent me messages. People left me alone, saying, 'Let's not get ourselves into trouble.' I kept quiet because I didn't want to be alone." (Man, 28)

This quote connects digital expression to social risk. Online speech produces offline relational consequences, and isolation becomes a reason to retreat into silence.

"I had a friend who was treated unfairly at work. I supported them, then my manager turned against me. It even affected my promotion. Now, if someone else is treated unfairly, I keep quiet. Because when you get involved in someone else's business, they make you pay the price." (Woman, 41)

This account shows how organizational and social contexts overlap. The participant's workplace punishment becomes a general lesson about the cost of moral intervention.

Main theme 3: Avoidance

Some participants clearly stated that silence stems not only from fear or helplessness, but also from the desire to protect their own emotional comfort zone. For these individuals, silence has become a kind of emotion management strategy. Even when they have the power and opportunity to speak, they consider intervention to be unnecessary fatigue, tension, or wasting energy and consciously choose to withdraw.

The theme of avoidance shows that silence is directly related not only to external threats but also to the individual's internal boundaries, psychological health, and motivation to protect relationships. This finding reinforces the need to avoid equating silence with approval: avoidance may be a strategy of emotional survival even though, at the societal level, accumulated avoidance may normalize injustice.

Sub-theme 3.1: Avoiding Conflict

Among participants, a significant proportion remain silent even when they have the potential to speak up, simply to avoid arguments, unrest, or disruption. Silence is particularly favoured in close social environments such as family relationships, circles of friends, and the workplace, in order to prevent damage to relationships.

"My manager at work was treating someone unfairly. It ate away at me, but I kept quiet. Because if I said anything, it would cause an argument and ruin the atmosphere. It would even harm me. So I had no choice but to remain silent." (Woman, 33)

This quotation reveals moral discomfort combined with relational calculation. Silence is chosen to avoid conflict and possible harm, not because the participant agrees with the unfair treatment.

"At home, my mum and dad constantly argue when they talk about politics. I don't say anything anymore. Because when I intervene, things get really messy, and my peace of mind is disturbed. Sometimes keeping quiet saves you." (Woman, 24)

This quote illustrates silence as domestic peacekeeping. The participant withdraws from political talk not because the topic is meaningless but because speaking destabilizes family relationships and personal calm.

"One day on the bus, someone was speaking very rudely. If I intervened, there would be a fight. So I put on my headphones and turned my head away. I don't want to bother with things that aren't worth arguing about." (Man, 40)

Here, silence is an avoidance strategy mediated by perceived escalation. The participant uses headphones as a physical and symbolic boundary between himself and public conflict.

Sub-theme 3.2: protecting one's comfort zone

This subtheme shows that individuals choose silence not only to avoid conflict, but also to avoid responsibility, emotional burden, and exhaustion. Through silence, individuals feel less emotionally affected and less worn out. Some participants stated that they do not follow or comment on social events because it tires them too much.

"Some days I don't even watch the news. Violence against women, economic crisis, injustice... It all exhausts me. Sometimes I even think people deserve what happens to them. I can't throw myself into defending other people's rights anymore. Because I don't think it's worth it. I stay silent now to protect myself." (Woman, 32)

This quotation shows emotional fatigue and defensive distancing. The statement that people may deserve what happens to them can be read as a moral disengagement strategy that protects the participant from the pain of constant exposure.

"I saw an incident, it was injustice. But I said to myself, 'I can't solve this, I can't bother.' Life is exhausting enough. It's best to keep quiet." (Man, 29)

The mechanism here is exhaustion-based withdrawal. The participant recognises injustice but frames intervention as an unbearable additional burden.

"People are so strange, so selfish. They do things they shouldn't. Even though they know what they're doing is selfish, if you warn them, you end up being the one at fault. That's why I don't intervene anymore. My own peace of mind is more important." (Woman, 41)

This quote combines distrust of others with self-protection. Silence is an active boundary-setting practice, but its repeated use may also contribute to social desensitisation.

Cross-cutting deviant cases: when silence is broken

Several participants described moments in which they did not remain silent: they warned someone, defended a colleague, submitted a petition, complained to an institution, or criticised a public figure online. These deviant cases are analytically important because they show that silence is not universal and that participants often possess moral awareness and a desire to act. However, many of these attempts were followed by isolation, ridicule, institutional non-response, or direct hostility. Therefore, breaking silence did not always lead to empowerment; in several accounts, it produced a return to silence.

The conditions that made speaking possible included moral urgency, identification with the victim, a belief that the situation was clearly wrong, and the presence of a concrete target for complaint. The conditions that made speaking difficult included absence of bystander support, fear of being labelled, hierarchical dependence, distrust of institutions, and concern for personal safety. These cases strengthen the conceptual argument: societal silent consent emerges not because individuals always approve of deviance, but because the social environment often fails to support those who try to interrupt it.

Discussion

The findings show that silence in response to social deviance is a multidimensional practice shaped by learning, fear, shame, social conformity, institutional distrust, emotional fatigue, and avoidance. The discussion is organized around four interpretive movements: silence as learned social conduct, silence as fear and self-protection, silence as failed or punished resistance, and silence as collective legitimation.

Silence as learned social conduct

The first interpretive movement concerns silence as learned social conduct. Participants described silence as something learned through family, school, neighbourhood life, gendered expectations, and cultural sayings. This finding is consistent with theories of conformity and public opinion because individuals often monitor the reactions of others before deciding whether to speak [1, 18, 25]. It also aligns with Bao's [4, 5] argument that silence may carry multiple meanings, including discipline, protection, restraint, and powerlessness.

In the present study, learned silence was culturally grounded. Silence was often described through moral language: respect, maturity, not interfering, modesty, and shame. Such language does not merely describe silence; it legitimizes it. This is particularly visible in the gendered accounts, where women associated speech with being disliked, shameless, or excessive. Therefore, silence is not only a general social behaviour but also a gendered moral discipline.

Silence as fear and self-protection

The second interpretive movement concerns silence as fear and self-protection. Many participants remained silent because they anticipated ridicule, exclusion, escalation, or physical harm. These accounts show why it would be analytically inaccurate to treat silence as automatic approval. Silence often protected the individual from immediate risk. At the micro level, it protected emotional and physical safety; at the meso level, it protected family, workplace, and neighbourhood relationships; at the macro level, it reflected broader distrust of institutions and authority.

These findings resonate with Moral Disengagement Theory and System Justification Theory. Individuals may rationalize silence by telling themselves that intervention will not matter, that responsibility lies elsewhere, or that speaking will only harm them [2, 3, 11]. Such rationalizations should not be understood simply as moral failure,they may also be survival strategies in contexts where speaking is perceived as unsafe.

Silence as failed or punished resistance

The third interpretive movement concerns failed or punished resistance. A major contribution of the findings is that many participants had previously spoken up. They had defended someone, complained, warned, or criticised. Their later silence was often produced by the negative consequences of these actions. This finding complicates the idea of the silent person as passive. Some participants became silent after resistance failed.

Recent work by Poppi is useful here because it shows how shame, discourse, and normalized power can block resistance and sustain domination [20–22]. In the present study, participants' narratives similarly show that silence is reinforced when power turns speaking into a costly act. In this sense, silence is not merely the absence of resistance,it may be the residue of punished resistance.

Focus group interaction also mattered. Participants did not only report isolated opinions; they sometimes co-constructed shared meanings of fear, disappointment, and moral exhaustion. This supports Poppi and Copes's [23] methodological argument that group-based qualitative interaction can reveal collective meanings and defensive narratives that remain hidden in individual accounts.

Silence as collective legitimation

The fourth interpretive movement concerns the transition from individual silence to collective legitimation. The strongest version of the argument is not that silence always means approval. Rather, repeated, observed, normalized, and institutionally exploited silence may contribute to the social production of consent. When bystanders do not react, victims may feel abandoned, perpetrators may feel tolerated, and institutions may face less pressure to respond. In this way, silence can produce social effects even when the silent individuals do not explicitly approve.

This process is visible in digital environments as well. Zhao et al. [28] show that publicly expressed opinion may diverge from privately held views, and Vilone and Polizzi [27] show how opinion misperception can generate silence in online systems. These studies help explain why silence can be misread as consensus: what is visible in public may not represent what individuals privately believe.

Societal silent consent: a three-level conceptual framework

Based on the findings, societal silent consent can be conceptualized as a multi-level process. At the micro level, individuals remain silent because of fear, shame, trauma, fatigue, moral conflict, or self-protection. At the meso level, silence is reinforced by family expectations, workplace hierarchies, neighbourhood norms, peer reactions, and gendered respectability. At the macro level, silence is shaped by media discourses, institutional non-response, political culture, structural inequalities, and the normalization of injustice.

The concept therefore refers not to a psychological state of approval inside the individual, but to a social process through which individual silences accumulate and become consequential. Societal silent consent emerges when the behaviour of remaining silent is repeatedly observed, normalized, and treated by others as tolerance, compliance, or lack of opposition. This framework allows the study to distinguish between silence as behaviour, silent consent as effect, and societal silent consent as a broader model of collective legitimation.

Implications

Theoretically, the study extends discussions of silent consent beyond organizational behaviour by developing a societal-level conceptualization grounded in everyday life. Practically, the findings suggest that encouraging individuals to speak is insufficient unless the social and institutional costs of speaking are reduced. Educational, civic, and media interventions should therefore focus not only on expression but also on bystander support, institutional responsiveness, and protection against retaliation.

The study also suggests that gender-sensitive approaches are necessary. If silence is taught as modesty or respectability, interventions should address the cultural codes that make speech appear morally inappropriate for some groups. Similarly, in digital spaces, inclusive community norms may reduce the perceived cost of opinion expression and help prevent the false appearance of consensus.

Strengths and limitations

This study has several strengths. First, it develops a conceptually precise distinction between silence, silent consent, and societal silent consent. Second, it uses focus group interviews to examine how silence is collectively interpreted and socially negotiated. Third, it grounds the analysis in vivid participant quotations while connecting those quotations to specific mechanisms such as fear of labelling, gendered shame, punished speech, institutional distrust, emotional fatigue, and avoidance. Fourth, it extends organizational discussions of silence into everyday public, familial, neighbourhood, workplace, and digital contexts.

The study also has limitations. The research is limited to a qualitative design and 30 participants. Although maximum variation sampling was used, the findings cannot be generalized to the whole of Turkish society. They should be interpreted as contextual and conceptual rather than statistically representative. In addition, detailed rural/urban background, formal socioeconomic position, and prior activism or civic engagement history were not systematically collected as formal variables. Future research should examine how these social positions shape silence differently.

A further limitation concerns focus group dynamics. Because the study examines silence, the group setting may both reveal and reproduce silencing pressures. Participants may have moderated their accounts due to social desirability, fear of judgment, or the presence of others. However, this limitation is also analytically meaningful because it reflects the social nature of the phenomenon under study. Finally, saturation was assessed as thematic sufficiency rather than through a formal saturation protocol, and no detailed subgroup comparison was conducted by gender, age, occupation, or marginalised status.

Conclusion and recommendations

This research examined why individuals remain silent in the face of injustice, discrimination, authoritarian interventions, violence, and other forms of social deviance. The findings show that silence is not simply the absence of speech. It is a socially learned, emotionally managed, and structurally conditioned practice through which individuals negotiate fear, belonging, responsibility, and power.

The strongest conclusion of the study is not that silence always means approval. Rather, repeated, observed, normalized, and institutionally exploited silence can contribute to the social production of consent. Societal silent consent emerges when individual silences accumulate and help normalize injustice, even when the individuals who remain silent do not necessarily approve of what they witness.

Future studies should develop quantitative instruments to measure societal silent consent, examine differences across gender, age, class, occupation, rural/urban background, and civic engagement, and conduct longitudinal or experimental research on how silence is produced, broken, and normalized over time. Practice-oriented interventions should support civic courage, strengthen bystander support, reduce retaliation against those who speak, and build institutional mechanisms that respond visibly to public complaint.

Authors’ contributions

ŞA conceived the research idea, while YK, TE analyzed the data and drafted the introduction and results. ŞA interpreted and discussed the results and formatted the final version of the manuscript. The final version was edited by YK, TE and ŞA. All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data availability

Access to the datasets used and analyzed in this study is available with the corresponding author and will be provided upon reasonable request.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Before starting the study, written permission was obtained from the Artvin University Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Committee (number: E-18457941–050.99–204950 dated 12.12.2025).

Informed consent was provided at the commencement of the data collection.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.