Your Beliefs About Public Opinion Are All Wrong
Data is most exciting when it proves you wrong. All of us have intuitions and expectations about how society is structured and how it’s changing. Sometimes, the actual numbers support those perspectives, but occasionally, they upend our world view.
Expectations are particularly influential when it comes to public opinion. Our beliefs and expectations about what other people think determine how we make decisions, how we feel in our communities, and even how we vote in elections. If we have false beliefs about how public opinion is changing on issues like racism, climate change, and gun control, we end up making political choices that are poorly aligned with our priorities.
That’s why polling data is so important. If you believe that atheism and climate change sympathies have been growing, or that gun advocacy and pro-immigration sentiments have been declining, it may be time to check the numbers. One newly published study has taken a long, hard look at how our expectations of public opinion match up with reality.
