Better Informed?

The Internet has made Americans feel better informed, according to a new Pew study. The key point -- 76 percent of respondents say the Internet has made "average Americans" better informed, and 77 percent say the net has made "America's students" better informed. You can see the raw questionnaire here.

A couple of points.

• First, this is perception of being informed, not actual knowledge. Perceived knowledge and actual knowledge are positively correlated, but not perfectly so, and there are segments of the population who believe they are better informed than they actually are, and the consumption of certain media can exacerbate this effect (i.e., talk radio). Here respondents were asked not whether they are better informed thanks to the Internet, but rather whether others are better informed. That's a subtle difference.

• There's an interesting table on the types of information available on the net that makes you feel better informed. Look at it (Q34 on the raw questionnaire, but page 2 of the pdf). In most cases people feel better informed, but the fascinating failure, if you will, is for "civic life and government activities in your community," a 49-49 split. Also the net seems to better serve national and international news as opposed to local news (see top of table). That makes sense, as the Internet destroys geography and cobbles us back together based on interests, partisanship, and the rest.

Those are my two takeaways. There's no a lot here otherwise, in part because it appears this is part of a bigger survey in which the results are not yet out.

Estimating Political Expertise and Fearing the "Passionate Fool"

When we think someone knows what they're talking about, we quite logically pay more attention to what they say. 

Guess someone's expertise correctly and we benefit from good advice.  Guess wrong, we're screwed.  This goes for health information, this goes for car repairs, and according to a new Political Behavior article, this goes for guessing the political expertise of people we speak to most often about politics.

Turns out, we're only so-so at guessing the expertise of others.  According to the author:

This study presents a mixed picture of the public’s ability to identify credible information sources among those with whom they discuss politics. The good news is individuals are able to recognize expertise, but people do make mistakes and systematically overestimate the knowledge of some types of individuals and underestimate it in others.

When someone is passionate about politics we tend to overestimate their actual expertise.  That's an understandable bias on our part.  If someone cares deeply, they must be knowledgeable, right?  Not necessarily. 

We can also be overwhelmed by someone's emotion.  The downside, writes study author John Barry Ryan, is "individuals do run the risk of believing those who are constantly talking, but without any real understanding of the topics about which they speak. It is the passionate fool who may disrupt effective political discussion."

So when it comes to who to trust about politics and public affairs, the message here seems to be to fear the passionate fool.

Full Study Cite:  Ryan, J. B.  (2011).  Accuracy and bias in perceptions of political knowledge.  Political Behavior, 33, 335-356.

What People Think They Know

As interesting as actual knowledge can be as a topic of research (or a blog), even more interesting are perceptions of knowledge -- not only what people know, but what people think they know.  In this case, let's talk global warming/climate change.

The fine folks at Gallup have asked: "Next, thinking about the issue of global warming, how well do you feel you understand this issue -- would you say very well, fairly well, not very well, or not at all?"  The bold face emphasis is mine.  How much do they think they know.  The results?

From 2006 to 2010, the numbers remain largely unchanged, but there is a tick upward in 2010 compared to previous years in what people think they know. See below:

              Understand

              Very Well

2006            21%

2007            22%

2008            21%

2010            26%

Now you might find this bump heartening, but I suggest it's actually a bad thing.  Let me explain.  We've seen a drop in the proportion of people with a clue about science and who doubt global climate change -- sometimes for good reasons, sometimes because for silly partisan ones.  But I suspect this has bumped up the perception that people are knowledgeable when, more likely, they confuse strong feelings about a topic with knowledge about that topic.

I know of what I speak. I've done many studies looking at actual knowledge and how it compares with perceived knowledge.  The two are correlated, but imperfectly.  And often emotion gets in the way and makes people feel informed when, instead, they only think of themselves as informed.  While I don't have data here to explore this further, my educated hunch is this bump in 2010 of perceived knowledge about global climate change masks the role of ideological silliness, partisan pettiness, and a sense of being informed through emotion than really being informed. 

It'd be a fascinating topic.  Hmmmm.  Maybe time to go there.  Off to search for good, solid data.

Objective and Perceived Knowledge

I've written many times about perceived knowledge, the perception that we are informed, and how it is different from -- but related to -- actual or objective knowledge. Indeed the two are often highly correlated, but not perfectly so. My interest has always been in the role the media play in creating the sense of being informed versus actually gaining knowledge.

But let's talk condoms.

There is this study, published in Pediatrics, that examines perceived and objective knowledge about adolescent male condom use. Other than being a neat topic, I found the methodology kinda interesting.

No it's not what you think, so keep reading.

They used a 5-item scale to measure knowledge and a 5-item scale to measure confidence about that knowledge. Is confidence the same as perceived knowledge? That's an interesting question; it's fascinating to tap not only a set of knowledge items but confidence about those very same items. So if you missed a few of the five but were very confident, you are high in perceived knowledge without being high in actual knowledge. Typically we ask a very different kind of question to measure "perceived knowledge," a set that often look very much like internal efficacy. I think the approach here may be much better, given that it's domain specific rather than general, like efficacy.

Why does all of this matter? Simple. I argue that some news programming, especially entertainment-based news programming, can lead to the sense of feeling informed (my empty calorie theory) when you're actually not all that informed, or at least not as much as you believe. Feeling informed, those empty calories, mean you don't eat your spinach (serious news, that sort of thing).

In the abstract of the condom study, the authors report:

However, those with higher perceived knowledge, particularly in the context of low objective knowledge, may be at greater risk for not using condoms. Addressing not only objective but also perceived knowledge may increase the effectiveness of interventions that are designed to increase rates of condom use among male adolescents.

In other words, high perceived knowledge but less actual knowledge is a bad combination. I'd make the same argument across a number of domains, from health to consumption of serious news as part of being a citizen in a democratic society.

Actual and Perceived Knowledge

Interest in the difference between what people know (actual knowledge) and what people think they know (perceived knowledge) crosses a number of scholarly disciplines. I've done work on whether listening to talk radio or TV faux news shows increases knowledge or merely the perception that one is informed.

I'm not alone in my fascination with the difference between actual and perceived knowledge.

For example, this study finds elementary school teachers often overestimate what they know about literacy development in children. There's similar work in pharmacy, counseling, and political science (the latter gets into some fascinating gender differences and I hope to write more about this tomorrow).

My point? What people think they know can have a number of consequences, thus should be studied when looking at any type of standard knowledge. What consequences? If a person feels informed, he or she may engage in early closure, not seek out additional information, perhaps reach a faulty conclusion. Persons may fill up on "empty calories" of junk news or entertainment-based news and think themselves informed when perhaps they're not truly informed.

Perceived knowledge can lead to greater feelings of efficacy. That's the good. But if those feelings of efficacy are based on weak, insubstantial actual knowledge, you have to worry about any final judgments -- be it in the classroom with teachers, or in the voting booth by citizens. Or in any number of possible scenarios, from doctors to government workers.

I've always wanted to dig deeper into the theoretical possibilities of actual versus perceived knowledge, perhaps even write a good NSF grant aimed at what the consequences of this are for democracy. Maybe I will. Some day. But I firmly believe that if you're studying knowledge, you need to also study perceived knowledge.

Third Person and Racism

A Non-Political Post. Yah!

One of my favorite areas of research is the third-person effect. Simply put, this is the notion that the media content won't influence me, but it will influence other people. I also like it because it touches on another favorite topic of mine: perceived knowledge, or what you think you know.

Third person is not only interesting from a psychological perspective but it also has policy ramifications. If I think other people are susceptible to certain kinds of media content, I may be more likely to support banning such content or at least placing constraints on it.

One small study looked at children and perceptions about race. The argument is straightforward: racism is learned, not inherited, and kids who think they are unaffected by certain media content may become less critical viewers or readers. It's an interesting hypothesis.

Knowledge in this modest study had no effect on third-person perceptions, perhaps due to the way it was measured, especially self-ratings on how knowledgeable they are. I would expect self ratings of knowledge to be positively associated third-person effects. Or, to get out of PhDweeb mode, the more you think you know, the more likely you'd see yourself as unaffected by some media content but see others as victims of such content.

This area deserves more work. We know third person is associated, in part, with maintaining self esteem, and I'd guess that perceived knowledge fills much the same role, but the latter should also have other sources. What people know is often positively associated with what they think they know. One might boost third person perceptions, the other might lower them. That's a hypothesis waiting to be tested.

Note: it's so nice to not blog about presidential politics.