this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025

687 points (97.5% liked)

Mildly Interesting

21597 readers

1679 users here now

This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

Just post some stuff and don't spam.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

marcar@lemmy.world

WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world

687

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

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Wulri@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

215 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Phineaz@feddit.org 4 points 1 day 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.