We also test popular theories that people overestimate the size of groups they fear. Not the case.

Again, misestimates result mainly from the psychological errors we make anytime we estimate %s, not from anything specific to the group being estimated

And this is the same pattern of errors people make when estimating things like the percentage of dots on a page that are red 👇

Here’s the key figure: people make the same estimation errors regardless of what they are estimating---political and *entirely non-political* quantities.

These are 100k estimates of the size of racial and non-racial groups made by 37k people in 22 countries

We argue that journalists and academics are *wrong* when they interpret these misperceptions as evidence that the public is ignorant and misinformed 👇

New paper on misperceptions out in PNAS @pnas.org

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Why do people overestimate the size of politically relevant groups (immigrant, LGBTQ, Jewish) and quantities (% of budget spent on foreign aid, % of refugees that are criminals)?🧵👇

I'm very happy to share that I'll be joining the Department of Political Science at UNC Chapel Hill as an Assistant Professor this fall. I'm excited for this next chapter and will always be incredibly grateful for my amazing experience at Stony Brook.

We demonstrate these differences empirically by re-analyzing data from recent misinformation studies

Different research designs and outcomes = different conclusions about whether misinformation interventions work

We recommend designs that measure discernment over those that measure only belief/sharing of false content

Importantly, these two designs can lead to different conclusions about whether misinformation interventions work👇

How should researchers determine whether misinformation interventions work?

In a recent paper in Nature Human Behavior (t.co/m3YaS7VaJl) we argue that researchers should 1) measure whether people believe/share both false AND true content and 2) assess efficacy using a measure of discernment.

*Less than half* of misinformation studies expose people to both false and true info, and ONLY 7% measure discernment (the difference between believing/sharing true and false info)!!

misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/what...

Short 🧵 on why you should be measuring discernment👇

The last time there was a "presidental alert" Jesse Lopez & I wrote a POQ paper (doi.org/10.1093/poq/...) about it.

Back then I thought it was crazy that this was being framed as such a polarizing issue.

Enter 2023...