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Americans overestimate the size of minority groups and underestimate the size of most majority groups (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by Wulri@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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Source: https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Imagine thinking 1 in 5 people are trans... Just... This has to be a math understanding issue, right??

[–] matlag@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well, the survey does not show the distribution of answers. So my guess (it's a guess, not data) is the people living in densely populated areas answered lower numbers, and people living in rural or remote areas ridiculously overestimated the number of trans people based on how much of a big "issue" medias are making of them.

[–] qarbone@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'd honestly believe the opposite, with people living in liberal cities overestimating. Personallt, in a friend group of about 15, 4 are trans.

Just because you're progressive, doesn't mean you're good at math or understand statistics.

[–] matlag@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

You know, thinking back about how big the number is, it's probably both.

[–] mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

For sure. Many Americans are confused by percentages. They do not understand that 20% is equivalent to saying "in a room of 100 people, 20 of them are trans", and even if they did understand that, they wouldn't have the proactive reasoning to make sure their percentage estimates add up/overlap in a way that makes sense, e.g not implying that 20 people in the room are all Hispanic Asian atheist Catholic bisexual transgender millionaires.

[–] pajam@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

they wouldn’t have the proactive reasoning to make sure their percentage estimates add up/overlap in a way that makes sense

Yeah the moment I saw 40% Hispanic, I had to go see how they answered on other races. 40 Black, 40 Hispanic, 30 Asian, 60 White. 170%

[–] mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah, and this is before we even get into availability heuristic biases that would screw over people who do understand percentages. Most people are very bad estimators. If they live in a town with 40% Hispanic people, they're gonna overestimate the total % of Hispanic people.

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 1 points 10 months ago

Perhaps people confuse/conflate it with a more broader category, like https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/nearly-1-5-young-adults-say-they-re-not-straight-n1270003