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Perceptions and mis-conceptions



The Large One

Who's Next?
Jul 7, 2003
52,343
97.2FM
From The Independent - dated 9th July 2013

A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society and King's College London shows public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration.

The research, carried out by Ipsos Mori from a phone survey of 1,015 people aged 16 to 75, lists ten misconceptions held by the British public. Among the biggest misconceptions are:

- Benefit fraud: the public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed. Official estimates are that just 70 pence in every £100 is fraudulent - so the public conception is out by a factor of 34.

- Immigration: some 31 per cent of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants, when the figure is actually 13 per cent. Even including illegal immigrants, the figure is only about 15 per cent. On the issue of ethnicity, black and Asian people are thought to make up 30 per cent of the population, when the figure is closer to 11 per cent.

- Crime: some 58 per cent of people do not believe crime is falling, when the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that incidents of crime were 19 per cent lower in 2012 than in 2006/07 and 53 per cent lower than in 1995. Some 51 per cent think violent crime is rising, when it has fallen from almost 2.5 million incidents in 2006/07 to under 2 million in 2012.

- Teen pregnancy is thought to be 25 times higher than the official estimates: 15 per cent of of girls under 16 are thought to become pregnant every year, when official figures say the amount is closer to 0.6 per cent.

Among the other surprising figures are that 26 per cent of people think foreign aid is in the top three items the Government spends money on (it actually makes up just 1.1 per cent of expenditure), and that 29 per cent of people think more is spent on Jobseekers' Allowance than pensions. In fact we spend 15 times more on pensions - £4.9 billion on JSA vs £74.2 billion on pensions.

Hetan Shah, executive director of the Royal Statistical Society, said: "Our data poses real challenges for policymakers. How can you develop good policy when public perceptions can be so out of kilter with the evidence?

"We need to see three things happen. First, politicians need to be better at talking about the real state of affairs of the country, rather than spinning the numbers. Secondly, the media has to try and genuinely illuminate issues, rather than use statistics to sensationalise. And finally we need better teaching of statistical literacy in schools, so that people get more comfortable in understanding evidence."

Bobby Duffy, the managing director of Ipsos Mori Social Research Institute, said: "A lack of trust in government information is also very evident in other questions in the survey - so 'myth-busting' is likely to prove a challenge on many of these issues. But it is still useful to understand where people get their facts most wrong."
 


Winker

CUM ON FEEL THE NOIZE
Jul 14, 2008
2,372
The Astral Planes, man...
"The public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed"
"Some 31% of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants"
etc etc

Where do these figures come from and how did the public arrive at them?
If the public were given multiple choice questions on the figures then I guess you would get a large percentage of wrong answers, depending on the awareness etc of those polled.
If you were to ask me what percentage of girls under 16 become pregnant every year I wouldn't have a clue, so why would I say 15%?

This survey seems misconceived.
 


The Large One

Who's Next?
Jul 7, 2003
52,343
97.2FM
"The public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed"
"Some 31% of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants"
etc etc

Where do these figures come from and how did the public arrive at them?
If the public were given multiple choice questions on the figures then I guess you would get a large percentage of wrong answers, depending on the awareness etc of those polled.
If you were to ask me what percentage of girls under 16 become pregnant every year I wouldn't have a clue, so why would I say 15%?

This survey seems misconceived.

I would guess it's an average taken from the responses.
 


One Love

Well-known member
Aug 22, 2011
4,346
Brighton
From The Independent - dated 9th July 2013Benefit fraud: the public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed. Official estimates are that just 70 pence in every £100 is fraudulent - so the public conception is out by a factor of 34.

Or the official estimate is.
 


Bevendean Hillbilly

New member
Sep 4, 2006
12,805
Nestling in green nowhere
It suits the Governments agenda to stoke these particular fires. You hear government ministers referring to highly localised issues where immigration and benefit reliance is disproportionally high and inferring this is a national phenomena.
 




Lincoln Imp

Well-known member
Feb 2, 2009
5,964
89 per cent of Daily Mail readers think the EU costs us £100bn a year. 0% of Daily Mail readers believe that thousands of British residents are in Germany to claim the better benefits over there.
 


KZNSeagull

Well-known member
Nov 26, 2007
19,692
Wolsingham, County Durham
"The public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed"
"Some 31% of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants"
etc etc

Where do these figures come from and how did the public arrive at them?
If the public were given multiple choice questions on the figures then I guess you would get a large percentage of wrong answers, depending on the awareness etc of those polled.
If you were to ask me what percentage of girls under 16 become pregnant every year I wouldn't have a clue, so why would I say 15%?

This survey seems misconceived.

This may be so, but perceptions and misconceptions come from everywhere nowadays, particularly the internet/social media etc. It is very easy to write something as a "fact" and it soon becomes accepted, even though it is wrong. This survey may well be flawed, but I can believe it!

I can only talk from my experience in South Africa working part time for an organisation that tries to get to the truth of common misconceptions (amongst other things) about SA - the guy I work for has done over 500 presentations to corporations, universities etc and starts his presentation with 10 multiple choice questions regarding SA (things like "SA's police to population ratio is the worst in the world" for example) - the average score people get correct is 3 out of 10 and they almost always choose answers that are far worse than the actuality.
 


Husty

Mooderator
Oct 18, 2008
11,973
"The public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed"
"Some 31% of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants"
etc etc

Where do these figures come from and how did the public arrive at them?
If the public were given multiple choice questions on the figures then I guess you would get a large percentage of wrong answers, depending on the awareness etc of those polled.
If you were to ask me what percentage of girls under 16 become pregnant every year I wouldn't have a clue, so why would I say 15%?

This survey seems misconceived.

That was my first reaction as well.
 


MattBackHome

Well-known member
Jul 7, 2003
11,689
"We need to see three things happen. First, politicians need to be better at talking about the real state of affairs of the country, rather than spinning the numbers. Secondly, the media has to try and genuinely illuminate issues, rather than use statistics to sensationalise. And finally we need better teaching of statistical literacy in schools, so that people get more comfortable in understanding evidence."

Hard to argue with any of this bit at least.
 



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