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

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 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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[-] andyburke@fedia.io 5 points 4 months ago

Everyone here talking about the minority groups when I think the real story is people thinking 1/5 Americans are making $1M/yr.

What are these people smoking? I need some.

[-] joel_feila@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

bullshit there is no way people believe that 34% of the population is lefthanded.

[-] Goldholz 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

30% bisexuals. Not even I would have guessed that high.

I would have said 5% and am happy im kinda close

[-] Ava 6 points 4 months ago

This is one of those things where context being broken down affects a lot. If you ask only GenZ, they respond more like 15% bi, and millennials is somewhere in the ballpark of 5%. I'd be willing to bet the responses used to make the OP are similarly skewed by demographic for the obvious reasons.

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[-] Phineaz@feddit.org 4 points 4 months ago

This might just be a study of how our perception tends to disregard or "dilute" extreme numbers. Imagine someone had an accurate feel for these percentages. They might trend towards a less extreme value, producing a similar result.

[-] celeste 4 points 4 months ago

Actually it's 50% on everything you either belong to a group or you don't /j

[-] maxwells_daemon@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

The social media revolution and its consequences...

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 months ago

We had this term “the Information Age.” I think it’s time we coined the term “the misinformation age”, and it’s super appropriate that they are chronologically adjacent. It perfectly illustrates how humanity turns a useful technology into destructive harmful garbage in almost no time just so the greedy can greed.