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Americans overestimate the size of minority groups and underestimate the size of most majority groups (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* by 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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[–] 26 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

NYC stood out to me too. We think 3 out of 10 people in the US live in NYC??? Lmaooo. I think a big part of it is that we just generally don't comprehend statistics because some of these numbers are wild.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    How many of these questions had you really, truly considered before?

    I speculate that most Americans just don't think about these things that in depth and, when asked, throw out a number without giving due consideration.

    Don't attribute to stupidity what can be adequately explained by laziness

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Im very sorry, but I cannot in any sane logical line of reasoning think as to why people would say 1/3 Americans live in New York, even if they just blurted out a random number

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Stupidity?

    If you're already stupid and you get asked the question, and then don't even bother to give it due consideration, it's entirely plausible you just blurt out a number.

    It does also say these are averages so it'd be interesting to see a scatter plot of all respondents.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Stupidity?

    That is what I was getting, yes

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I cannot in any sane logical line of reasoning

    Ah, I guess I was thrown by this since it didn't require insanity or illogical reasoning to come up with "stupidity".

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Maybe because NYC(and LA) are stupidly over represented in the media.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Well, most of US media is made in, or by companies in, those two cities.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    And?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    That would be why they have more representation.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    You can't even say they NYC is over represented in media because that's where it's filmed. A lot of NYC sitcoms are filmed in LA. The reason is just urban narcissism. I've outright heard a new yorker say that NYC is the cultural center of America and even tried to credit NYC with popularizing pizza in the US.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    A lot of the companies that produce them are from NYC though. Also Pizza was popularized, in the US, from immigrants in NYC, and while america having a single cultural center isn't really thing, if you had to pick one A LOT of people would choose it.

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