This video is part of our Kite & Key Shorts series—easy to understand...but hard to forget.
How well do you know your fellow Americans? Chances are … not as well as you think. Researchers asked Americans to guess how many people fell into various groups, and … they didn’t do so hot.
Americans guessed that 30% of their countrymen are vegan.i The real proportion? Just 5%. Respondents estimated 20% of Americans had a household income over $1 million … when, in reality, the proportion is less than 1%. When asked what percentage of Americans live in New York City, the respondents said 30%. The actual number: 3%.
Americans fall just as short at guessing what their fellow citizens believe. When pollsters asked them to estimate how much public opinion has changed over the years … the respondents got almost everything wrong.ii
They assumed that about 50% of Americans have consistently opposed immigration. Actually, 75% of Americans say immigrants strengthen the U.S., three times higher than in the mid-90s. Americans guessed that somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the country still opposes interracial marriage … when the actual approval rate for interracial marriage is 94%.iii They also thought that more than half of Americans were “very interested in politics” … when the real number is less than 25%.
So, if you really want to understand the country, you may want to spend less time with the news … and more time with your neighbors.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
- Americans consistently think large demographic groups are smaller than they are, and vice versa.
- Americans frequently misjudge how much public opinion has changed over the years.
- The belief that immigrants make the country stronger has nearly tripled since the mid-1990s.
