4 ms·

A lot of comments are coming down on the result as “the methodology must be wrong”, and I feel they are expecting people to give mostly reasonable answers. Exce

A lot of comments are coming down on the result as “the methodology must be wrong”, and I feel they are expecting people to give mostly reasonable answers. Except the target of the survey is perception, so just a mental image disconnected with any reality. Perception is usually wildly off, in particular when affecting political positions, and as noted in the article that’s not the first survey to come up with similar results. The Ipsos one [0] has French guessing 30% of population as Muslims (vs 7.5 for reality) for instance. [0] https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/perceptions-are-not-reality-what-world-gets-wrong https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/perceptions-are-not-reality-what...

tedunangst 5y ago
Yeah, kinda weird that everybody is so focused on inconsistencies. These questions directly relate to underlying assumptions for support for various public policies. Does HN think people have coherent views on public policies?
- tobyjsullivan 5y ago
  We are all biased toward thinking we personally hold coherent views. We’re also biased toward thinking we’re average in our capabilities (amongst our in-groups, at least). So it would stand to reason that those biases compose to believing our entire in-group, on average, holds coherent views. We’re rarely wise enough to estimate our own margins of error, nor self-aware enough to know our own actual capabilities relative to others.
lelandfe 5y ago
Expecting 30% of the US to live in NYC does strike me as particularly wild hah
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  The interesting thing is that the equivalent is actually true for Japan and South Korea. The metro populations of Tokyo and Seoul are enormous relative to national population.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    Yes. This trend is also true on a global scale. Looking at the stats[0] for 240 countries, 70+ have 20% of their population in the capital city, 41 of them having above 30% of the population. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_capitals_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_capitals_by_p...
    - krallja 5y ago
      New York City isn’t even the capital city of New York State.
      - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
        Capitals in the US are often not the most populous city.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  Or that one in FIVE people are transgender.
  - izzydata 5y ago
    In their minds nearly every single person who is not christian is transgender. Must be a wild world for them.
    - solarhoma 5y ago
      I doubt that is the case. But rather what the media has been pushing. When half of the cast of every show created today is minority members it is easy for the public to assume that is representative of the nation.
    - jandrewrogers 5y ago
      This is too facile a response, I know people like this who are not Christian, and they are many times immigrants. While these people don't meet very many transgender people, the media gives them the impression that this is because they live in a bubble, which for immigrants is often true. They estimate based on the assumption that their experience is very far from representative. They have the same impression of the number of homosexuals, and they usually know several, but they also get the impression that average Americans know far more than they do. I've lived in immigrant communities for a long time and this has been an amusing point of confusion for decades. Overestimating their prevalence is generally considered more polite than underestimating their prevalence, so people sandbag on the overestimation side. It is similar to if you asked people how old you are or how much you weigh; they will always sandbag to the more socially flattering side of their true estimate.
    - rayiner 5y ago
      I come from a Muslim country, and I never had any Christian think I was transgender. In fact I suspect Muslim Americans probably have the same misconceptions as Christians about how many transgender people there are. In my experience, the liberal white non-Christians I know are just as ignorant about minorities, they just have different priors. A friend of mine thought Vietnamese people supported Trump to get back at America for the Vietnam War. This is a highly educated person. It’s like COVID—conservatives vastly underestimate the effectiveness of vaccines, while liberals vastly overestimate their risk of hospitalization and death. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/briefing/atlanta-shootings-kamala-harris-tax-deadline-2021.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/briefing/atlanta-shooting....
- galangalalgol 5y ago
  And another 30% in Texas, and 32% in California. So 8% spread across the rest of the nation... It would seem we drastically oberestimate the number of Jewish asian Texans.
Bukhmanizer 5y ago
I suspect there is also a race component to the numbers being so wildly off. It’s something that I actually have noticed a lot over the years. About 15 years ago when I was in high school, I asked a classmate “without looking around, how many Asians do you think are in this class right now” (he had just ranted about how the Chinese were taking over everything). He estimated 70%. There were 4 out of around 30 or so. a lady who I later found out was extremely racist once told me quite confidently that NYC was >90% black.
908B64B197 5y ago
> The Ipsos one [0] has French guessing 30% of population as Muslims (vs 7.5 for reality) for instance. Looking at prison population, 30% is actually significantly under the real figure (close to 50%). [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/the-mill-of-muslim-radicalism-in-france.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/the-mill-of-musli...

tedunangst 5y ago

Yeah, kinda weird that everybody is so focused on inconsistencies. These questions directly relate to underlying assumptions for support for various public policies. Does HN think people have coherent views on public policies?

tobyjsullivan 5y ago
We are all biased toward thinking we personally hold coherent views. We’re also biased toward thinking we’re average in our capabilities (amongst our in-groups, at least). So it would stand to reason that those biases compose to believing our entire in-group, on average, holds coherent views. We’re rarely wise enough to estimate our own margins of error, nor self-aware enough to know our own actual capabilities relative to others.

lelandfe 5y ago

Expecting 30% of the US to live in NYC does strike me as particularly wild hah

TulliusCicero 5y ago
The interesting thing is that the equivalent is actually true for Japan and South Korea. The metro populations of Tokyo and Seoul are enormous relative to national population.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  Yes. This trend is also true on a global scale. Looking at the stats[0] for 240 countries, 70+ have 20% of their population in the capital city, 41 of them having above 30% of the population. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_capitals_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_capitals_by_p...
  - krallja 5y ago
    New York City isn’t even the capital city of New York State.
    - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
      Capitals in the US are often not the most populous city.
commandlinefan 5y ago
Or that one in FIVE people are transgender.
- izzydata 5y ago
  In their minds nearly every single person who is not christian is transgender. Must be a wild world for them.
  - solarhoma 5y ago
    I doubt that is the case. But rather what the media has been pushing. When half of the cast of every show created today is minority members it is easy for the public to assume that is representative of the nation.
  - jandrewrogers 5y ago
    This is too facile a response, I know people like this who are not Christian, and they are many times immigrants. While these people don't meet very many transgender people, the media gives them the impression that this is because they live in a bubble, which for immigrants is often true. They estimate based on the assumption that their experience is very far from representative. They have the same impression of the number of homosexuals, and they usually know several, but they also get the impression that average Americans know far more than they do. I've lived in immigrant communities for a long time and this has been an amusing point of confusion for decades. Overestimating their prevalence is generally considered more polite than underestimating their prevalence, so people sandbag on the overestimation side. It is similar to if you asked people how old you are or how much you weigh; they will always sandbag to the more socially flattering side of their true estimate.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    I come from a Muslim country, and I never had any Christian think I was transgender. In fact I suspect Muslim Americans probably have the same misconceptions as Christians about how many transgender people there are. In my experience, the liberal white non-Christians I know are just as ignorant about minorities, they just have different priors. A friend of mine thought Vietnamese people supported Trump to get back at America for the Vietnam War. This is a highly educated person. It’s like COVID—conservatives vastly underestimate the effectiveness of vaccines, while liberals vastly overestimate their risk of hospitalization and death. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/briefing/atlanta-shootings-kamala-harris-tax-deadline-2021.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/briefing/atlanta-shooting....
galangalalgol 5y ago
And another 30% in Texas, and 32% in California. So 8% spread across the rest of the nation... It would seem we drastically oberestimate the number of Jewish asian Texans.

Bukhmanizer 5y ago

I suspect there is also a race component to the numbers being so wildly off. It’s something that I actually have noticed a lot over the years. About 15 years ago when I was in high school, I asked a classmate “without looking around, how many Asians do you think are in this class right now” (he had just ranted about how the Chinese were taking over everything). He estimated 70%. There were 4 out of around 30 or so. a lady who I later found out was extremely racist once told me quite confidently that NYC was >90% black.

908B64B197 5y ago

> The Ipsos one [0] has French guessing 30% of population as Muslims (vs 7.5 for reality) for instance. Looking at prison population, 30% is actually significantly under the real figure (close to 50%). [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/the-mill-of-muslim-radicalism-in-france.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/the-mill-of-musli...