this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025

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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

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

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[–] mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 7 hours ago

Yeah, and this is before we even get into availability heuristic biases that would screw over people who do understand percentages. Most people are very bad estimators. If they live in a town with 40% Hispanic people, they're gonna overestimate the total % of Hispanic people.