Myth: Americans think they know a lot about other countries but really are clueless.
Verdict: Self-cancelling prophesy.
Method: Semi-humorous generalization from a single data series, hopefully inspiring replication instead of harsh judgment :)
I decided to do some analysis about what makes people overconfident about certain subjects, and decided to start with an old stereotype. I compared how people did on the population calibration question (#9) based on their country.
Full disclosure: I’m Israeli (currently living in the US) and would’ve guessed Japan with 50% confidence, but I joined LW (unlurked) two days after the end of the survey.
I normalized every probability by rounding extreme confidence values to 1% and 99% and scored each answer that seemed close enough to a misspelling of Indonesia according to the log rule.
Results:
Americans didn’t have a strong showing with an average score of −0.0071, but the rest of the world really sucked with an average of −0.0296. The reason? While the correct answer rate was almost identical (28.3% v 28.8%) Americans were much less confident in their answers: 42.4% confidence v 46.3% (p<0.01).
Dear Americans, you don’t know (significantly) less about the world than everyone else, but at least you internalized the fact that you don’t know much*!
Next up: how people who grew up in a religious household do on the Biblical calibration question.
Myth: Americans think they know a lot about other countries but really are clueless.
Verdict: Self-cancelling prophesy.
Method: Semi-humorous generalization from a single data series, hopefully inspiring replication instead of harsh judgment :)
I decided to do some analysis about what makes people overconfident about certain subjects, and decided to start with an old stereotype. I compared how people did on the population calibration question (#9) based on their country.
Full disclosure: I’m Israeli (currently living in the US) and would’ve guessed Japan with 50% confidence, but I joined LW (unlurked) two days after the end of the survey.
I normalized every probability by rounding extreme confidence values to 1% and 99% and scored each answer that seemed close enough to a misspelling of Indonesia according to the log rule.
Results: Americans didn’t have a strong showing with an average score of −0.0071, but the rest of the world really sucked with an average of −0.0296. The reason? While the correct answer rate was almost identical (28.3% v 28.8%) Americans were much less confident in their answers: 42.4% confidence v 46.3% (p<0.01).
Dear Americans, you don’t know (significantly) less about the world than everyone else, but at least you internalized the fact that you don’t know much*!
Next up: how people who grew up in a religious household do on the Biblical calibration question.
*Unlike cocky Israelis like me.