[HN Gopher] Small subgroups of the population seem much larger t...
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       Small subgroups of the population seem much larger to many
       Americans
        
       Author : duck
       Score  : 15 points
       Date   : 2022-03-18 22:14 UTC (46 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (today.yougov.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (today.yougov.com)
        
       | car_analogy wrote:
       | By those estimates, 30% live in California, 30% in Texas, and 30%
       | in New York City. That leaves 10% for the entire rest of the US.
       | Maybe the respondents of this poll just didn't care to think for
       | 5 seconds for each answer, rather than revealing some deep-set
       | misperceptions?
        
         | RajT88 wrote:
         | There probably were relatively few people who responded with
         | those exact figures.
         | 
         | My guess is someone who said 30% of the country lived in CA is
         | unlikely to say 30% of the country lives in Texas. Probably
         | there are outliers for each far above 30% that average out in
         | each category. Would love to see a deeper analysis on how the
         | responses break down across questions.
        
         | AnimalMuppet wrote:
         | It's not that they don't _think_ (though they don 't). It's
         | that they don't have any kind of a realistic feel for how big
         | various groups are. (Which means they would _have_ to think,
         | instead of just responding by intuition - and they don 't
         | think.)
        
       | inhumanist wrote:
        
       | sockaddr wrote:
       | Some people think 2 out of 10 people are transgender or 2 out of
       | 10 make over 1 million per household? I'm struck by either the
       | lack of awareness of the average person or the methodology of
       | this survey.
        
       | blamazon wrote:
       | Note: YouGov is a platform where internet users are paid small
       | amounts to complete surveys. Their primary product is market
       | research and focus group stuff. This link seems like marketing
       | content to drive clicks/eyeballs to their platform. It is not
       | exactly an academic study and there is likely to be selection
       | bias.
       | 
       | That being said, I do like their more entertaining content - such
       | as this: "You're doing Italian food all wrong, say Italians." [1]
       | I'd like to see more data binned as "Acceptable/Not
       | Acceptable/Divisive to Italians".
       | 
       | [1]: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/international/articles-
       | reports/2...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | twofornone wrote:
       | I wonder how much of this has to do with the rabid push for
       | diversity in media, academia, and industry. It would be in line
       | with the total obliviousness that management seems to have with
       | respect to the pipeline problem when they set implicit quotas and
       | indirectly condone the idea that discrimination is the root cause
       | of unequal representation.
       | 
       | The same people who treat underrepresentation of minorities as
       | some carnal sin are hypocritical when it comes to
       | underrepresentation of the majority, and that's probably more
       | harmful in the long run than people realize.
        
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       (page generated 2022-03-18 23:00 UTC)