Sociological Misperceptions

A recent You Gov survey uncovered some interesting misperceptions that Americans have about their fellow countrymen. It found, for example that we tend to vastly overestimate the actual size of some population groups and vastly underestimate the size of others.

For example, what is the proportion of the population that is gay or lesbian? The survey found that respondents tended to put the number at 30% when, in fact, the actual number is 3%. Respondents also thought that 21% of the population is transgender when the actual number is 0.6%.

It's not just sexual minorities. We also seem to have a distorted picture of the numbers of religious and racial minorities in our country.

• Muslim Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%)
• Jewish Americans (estimate: 30%, true: 2%)
• Native Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%)
• Asian Americans (estimate: 29%, true: 6%)
• Black Americans (estimate: 41%, true: 12%)

Interestingly, a similar pattern exists in estimates of majority groups:

People tend to underestimate rather than overestimate their size relative to their actual share of the adult population. For instance, we find that people underestimate the proportion of American adults who are Christian (estimate: 58%, true: 70%) and the proportion who have at least a high school degree (estimate: 65%, true: 89%).

The most accurate estimates involved groups whose real proportion fell right around 50%, including the percentage of American adults who are married (estimate: 55%, true: 51%) and have at least one child (estimate: 58%, true: 57%).

One question that this raises is why our estimates are so skewed. You Gov offered some possible explanations:

Misperceptions of the size of minority groups have been identified in prior surveys, which observers have often attributed to social causes: fear of out-groups, lack of personal exposure, or portrayals in the media.

Yet consistent with prior research, we find that the tendency to misestimate the size of demographic groups is actually one instance of a broader tendency to overestimate small proportions and underestimate large ones, regardless of the topic.

If exaggerated perceptions of minority groups’ share of the American population are due to fear, we would expect estimates of those groups’ share that are made by the groups’ members to be more accurate than those made by others. We tested this theory on minority groups that were represented by at least 100 respondents within our sample and found that they were no better (and often worse) than non-group members at guessing the relative size of the minority group they belong to.

Black Americans estimate that, on average, Black people make up 52% of the U.S. adult population; non-Black Americans estimate the proportion is roughly 39%, closer to the real figure of 12%. First-generation immigrants we surveyed estimate that first-generation immigrants account for 40% of U.S. adults, while non-immigrants guess it is around 31%, closer to the actual figure of 14%.

Personally, I suspect that our entertainment media play an out-sized role in creating these misperceptions. Television commercials and programming, for instance, commonly feature a high percentage of minorities, both racial and sexual, and rarely feature religious individuals or families of any denomination.

That exposure surely must influence Americans' perception of reality, at least among those who imbibe a lot of television programming.

There's much more data from this survey at the link.