Irish people are self-aware and wise but have blind spots, poll shows

The Ipsos MRBI Perils of Perception Study reveals both our national brilliance and individual biases. The study compares our understanding of what Ireland looks like in 2015 with the reality, as part of a global Ipsos study involving 32 other countries.

The Irish study polled a random sample of 1,000 Irish adults, asking questions on topics that seldom feature in everyday conversations or media debate, such as population size, wealth concentration and educational attainment.

Gut feeling

Yet, without significant schooling in these matters and relying mostly on gut feel, the public came very close with many of their answers and were seldom wide of the mark.

By global standards, we are very wise indeed. Of the 33 countries taking part in the study, Ireland ranked as the second most informed nation, ahead of Poland, China and the United States in third, fourth and fifth position respectively.

When asked how many of us live in rural areas, the level of female participation in the workforce and the proportion of Dáil members that are women, public perceptions chimed quite closely with reality. Estimates of internet penetration and third-level participation were reasonably accurate. On these measures of how our society is shaped, the public reckoning was never out by more than six percentage points – quite an achievement.

Taken individually, our own situations can give a distorted view, but when we combine 1,000 perspectives, the bigger picture is revealed. Accuracy, therefore, is both a function of knowledge and statistics – the wisdom of crowds.

The statistical tendency for larger samples to conform makes non-conformance – or wildly incorrect estimates – all the more interesting. When we get it badly wrong, this usually signals either a fear we all share or a bias we all suffer.

We fear getting older. We imagine the average age of an Irish person to be 50, when it is just 36. Conveniently, the older we are the older we think everyone else is.

Our age perception bias is in evidence elsewhere in the study.We overestimate the number of children in Ireland. The reality is that 22 per cent of the population is aged 14 or under, much lower than the 33 per cent we imagine.

Overstated age

Incredibly, in 32 out of the 33 countries surveyed, the public overstated both the average age and the proportion of children in their populations.

Younger people see Ireland as more equal than it is (highest estimates of female workforce participation), better educated (highest on proportion with third-level qualification) and more diverse (highest immigrant population estimate).

Part of the explanation is a natural availability heuristic bias, which means we attach greater importance to what we see and experience every day. The reality is that, in our everyday, children are more visible than the elderly and so the world looks younger. Added to our fears and biases are the truths that we collectively deny. We think only a minority of the population have weight issues when, in fact, the majority do.

Ireland should take a collective bow for how relatively well we understand some aspects of our society, and we can take comfort in not being alone in the biased perspectives we do have. B+ maybe?