The Guardian reports on a multi-national survey by the Ipsos Mori market research company, comparing people's perception of a number of national statistics with the actual statistics. There's also an interactive quiz which allows you to feel superior to your countrymen. Some of the findings:
- In most countries, people overestimate the number of immigrants, often by large margins. In USA, the average guess was 33%, the real figure is 14.3%.
- Similarly, most countries grossly overestimate the number of atheists and agnostics.
- The country with the most accurate self-perception was South Korea, followed by Ireland and Poland.
- Mexico, India, and Brazil were the most inaccurate.
- Britain ranked mid-table in 16th place, while the US was fifth.
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How Well Do You Know Your Own Country?
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(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @01:44PM
I seriously doubt that the statistics were accurate in these countries. Also, South Koreans are batshit crazy.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:25PM
That's a fact--I'm married to one. They also have hot tempers and smell like kimchi and...[NO CARRIER]
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:48PM
I work with one. She is a software dev. It's non-stop cursing in Korean, burping, slamming doors, and simultaneous complaining to other nearby devs to keep quiet.
She is special.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:05PM
Take care--she'll cut you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:18PM
LOL - I often read people who say "I'm married to (fill in favorite or least favorite nationality, religion, culture, race, etc) and THEY AREN'T LIKE YOU SAY!" Now, when a person writes, "I'm married to _____________ AND THEY ARE FUCKING NUTS!" - well, I can believe that. I mean, she had to be fucking nuts to marry you, right? ;^)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 03 2015, @11:14PM
Well, at least deeply mistaken.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2015, @12:52AM
Well one would surely assume that fucking, and particularly the use of someone's nuts, would eventually happen given a long enough marriage!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @02:17PM
Stats like obesity rate, religious affiliation, wealth of 1% seem all subjective, vaguely defined to say anything much concrete.
Hope the polling company lose money on such shoddy work.
(Score: 4, Touché) by ikanreed on Thursday December 03 2015, @02:51PM
Obesity is medically defined by being BMI 30+. That's objective, if not necessarily a perfect reflection of health.
Religious identification is self-reported.
"Wealth" is a legitimate gripe, but can be estimated through net worth.
(Score: 2) by gargoyle on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:19PM
Yes, but what does BMI +30 look like to someone who isn't used to working with BMI (i.e. not an active gym going geek, personal trainer or GP).
The problem isn't defining what any of those categories are, but defining what the average laypersons understanding of those things is. It's knowing what the other person means when they say Obese that is wooly and vague not the category directly.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Geezer on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:49PM
People who are too lazy to look up any terms they don't understand are probably in the BMI +30 group already.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:58PM
http://www1.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Shawn+Crawford+USA+Outdoor+Track+Field+Championships+wyG3mNp2SGvl.jpg
This guy has been overweight (as measured by BMI) so long he's even given up on using shoes with laces, as he can't bend over to tie them any more - fact!
http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Roman+Sebrle+12th+IAAF+World+Athletics+Championships+JawQ8ahMwCRl.jpg
(according to this list here: http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/bmiathletes.php )
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday December 03 2015, @05:43PM
Low end of obese can look pretty normal to Americans. Low end of overweight can look fit. Moreover, depending on exact circumstances, you can be fit and overweight.
A middle-of-healthy range BMI is what most people would describe as a "runner's figure". You can also get into obese ranges as a bodybuilder, but it's hard.
(Score: 1) by tfried on Thursday December 03 2015, @05:16PM
Obesity is medically defined by being BMI 30+. That's objective, if not necessarily a perfect reflection of health.
True. But the likely issue underlying the systematic error is that people are mis-estimating the "level of fatness" that doctors consider overweight, not that they are systematically wrong at estimating, say, how many people are fatter than themselves.
"Wealth" is a legitimate gripe, but can be estimated through net worth.
Yes, but it's hard to put into a single figure. People might actually know some indicator like percentage of wealth owned by the poorest half of the population, or percentage of population owning half of the nations wealth, or ratio of wealth between top 1% and median, or percentage of wealth owned by top 10%, or... And the problem is, even if you know one or two of these indicators, you still don't have much of a basis for estimating an arbitrary other (such as the one the researchers asked for). (Also, in fact, I'd imagine the smaller the slice you are asking for, the higher the systematic error in estimates that you will find.)
Similar problems for estimating average age, or percentage of people below 14 years. Neither is likely to be an often cited statistic (contrary to, say, percentage people below voting age, or percentage people above typical retirement age). And even if you happen to have a pretty clear idea of the shape of your countries age pyramid, estimating either value in a few seconds is still a non-trivial exercise. Thus, no surprise to find people resorting to some sort of error-prone heuristic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @05:49PM
From the Guardian article, go to the link in the final paragraph, ipsos-mori.com->Interact with the data -> Average age...
How old do you think the average person in [country] is?
And the options are represented in the graph as percentages.
"Yes officer, I am 18% old".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NickFortune on Thursday December 03 2015, @02:25PM
Fifth most accurate. or fifth least?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:04PM
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3664/Perils-of-Perception-2015.aspx [ipsos-mori.com]
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/ipsos-perils-of-perception-charts-2015.pdf [ipsos-mori.com]
United States was 5th most accurate out of 28 countries. 5 other countries weren't included for some reason (see references to 33 countries)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @08:25PM
Interesting and not surprising that the US was held up as the first example of large inaccuracy in views and slanted as the fifth, leaving ambiguity and adding spin to make their story fit the "Ignorant American" view of bigots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:50PM
Actually, on the end of the quiz, it listed the US at sixth place. First place being me. ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:05PM
since I just have the data that I get from what I see and what the news tells me. My ego bashed, I'll just gripe -- the quiz offers no citations or details about their stats.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:29PM
Here is the data used:
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/ipsos-perils-of-perception-sources-2015.pdf [ipsos-mori.com]
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/ipsos-perils-of-perception-charts-2015.pdf [ipsos-mori.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:15PM
I think South Korea did so well because they nailed the obesity question. I think it's no coincidence that China, Japan, and India were the only to overestimate obesity.
One question is "What proportion of the total household wealth do you think the wealthiest 1% should own?" Since that is an opinion, I hope it wasn't factored into the ignorance index.
It would be nice to see the atheist/agnostic question reranked by multiplier. Which would have India topping the list along with Saudi Arabia, etc. So I will do that in a moment.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:27PM
Sorted by the % of atheists/agnostics guests divided by the actual amount yields a more interesting list:
Atheists are like boogeymen in India, Turkey, Saudia Arabia, Serbia, Peru, etc.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:31PM
*guessed
The accuracy may be off, since it seems to be rounded to the nearest integer for every country except India, but the ranking should be correct.
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(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Friday December 04 2015, @03:14AM
I just want to mention one thing - no one reads The Guardian in India. There is no circulation of The Guardian in India and has never been.
The only people who are reading The Guardian are then responding to this poll are highly educated, mostly Non-Resident Indians (NRI), i.e., highly educated immigrants to other countries. For that to happen they were 100% born in highly educated family who were also well to do to give such education to them.
If you ask their parents they will have better idea about actual India. People responding to this poll are a representative of what education does to people.
On a side note, people's awareness about how many women are in parliament and how many women are working only reflects the pro-women bias in media that is obsessed with feminism and never reports on male issues.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 04 2015, @03:52AM
This poll has nothing to do with The Guardian. It was conducted by the Ipsos Mori market research company.
Maybe you are right about the poll, but it's on the pollster to take a representative sample. There are methods to help do so.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Friday December 04 2015, @09:02AM
Hmmm. I didn't know that. I still don't believe it is a representative of extremely populous countries like India or Brazil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:05PM
Where do you get that from? On the quiz page I get: "What proportion of Germany's total household wealth do you think the wealthienst 1% own?" No "should" anywhere.
In the article the question is given as: "What proportion of your country’s total household wealth do you think the wealthiest 1% own?" Again, no "should" in sight.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:48PM
They did ask it, but apparently they asked both questions.
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/ipsos-perils-of-perception-charts-2015.pdf [ipsos-mori.com]
Pages 3 through 6
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(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:29PM
Woo hoo! Must be because I watch Fox News religiously. NOT!
I do think their stats are old. Yesterday I saw official stats that in the US the 1% owns 43% of the wealth. This poll thought it was 37%.
Also, the BMI baseline cannot use North Koreans as the standard.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:08PM
So do you watch it agnostically or atheistically? ;-)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 03 2015, @05:04PM
I guess it depends on who is counting, and when.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/wealth-inequality/ [cnn.com]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday December 03 2015, @04:47PM
Makes sense.
Mexico: *snorts cocaine* "I am the biggest and fastest Vato in all of Mexico! Ayeppa Ayeppa Andale Yehaaaaaaaa!" *Rat-tat-tat-tat!*
India: "MUH space program!" *Shits in street*
And it goes without saying that those Brazilian women have butts thrice as wide as the rest of their bodies, which can make things tricky to measure.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Thursday December 03 2015, @06:01PM
And it goes without saying that those Brazilian women have butts thrice as wide as the rest of their bodies, which can make things tricky to measure.
Your experience with Brasilian women seems to differ significantly from mine...
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2, Funny) by xav on Friday December 04 2015, @01:31AM
Are you sure they were actually born women? ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2015, @08:16AM
He probably means women from Brazil, not women with a Brazilian. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2015, @08:22AM
I guess there's a who lot more natives that I though.