Stephen Colbert may (or may not) (or just may again for the hell of it) run in the South Carolina presidential primary as a Democrat (and a Republican) or (both) or (neither).
This blog is about what people know -- in other words, what they learn (or don't learn) about the correct use of parentheses. Oh, and what and how they learn about politics and public affairs. And Stephen Colbert.
Colbert is serious. He means business. And he will pander beyond compare, and that's saying a helluva lot given the cast of characters we presently have running for the second highest office in the land (after being a Red Sox starting pitcher). Fear him. Let's say for the sake of argument he goes through with it. Let's say he's on the South Carolina ballot, or ballots, in which tens of people statewide will participate come primary time. Who does he hurt? Who does he make cry?
Hell if I know. I live in Georgia.
From an academic PhDweeb standpoint, his candidacy offers all the theoretical juice one could hope for. He's got name recognition. He's got an arching eyebrow. He's got the vote of everyone -- except the bears. Lucky for him he is not running in a state loaded with the huge, dangerous, man-eating mammals. Like New Hampshire or New York or Iowa.
On a serious note, whenever someone like this does toss his arching eyebrow into the ring, it brings a few more people to the table to mix metaphors and pay attention to the campaign. It'll be interesting to see if Colbert's name recognition matches that of other well known candidates.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Gender Revisited
Some time back I blogged about research in gender and political knowledge. The short version is this: studies repeatedly find guys do better than gals on tests of public affairs knowledge. One explanation? Men answer questions even when they don't know the answer and sometimes get it right, while women do not.
Here's another theory tested. Unfortunately I can only point to an abstract, not the full text, but the upshot is you can improve how women do when you ask questions that include female politicians.
This makes perfect sense.
One of my own studies explored with conservative Christians do so poorly on tests of political knowledge. In part it's demographics, but when you ask religious questions about candidates (their affiliation) versus what state they are from, the conservative Christians do not fare so poorly. The upshot? Ask people what they know, in a certain domain, and they do better than previous research suggests.
This has a lot to do with cognitive accessibility and all that rot. Fun stuff if you're into research, but translated it just means we have certain things that are important to us and when questions are posed in such a way as to tap those interests (versus those of scholars and news junkies) then we do okay. Better. Not great, mind you, but better.
Here's another theory tested. Unfortunately I can only point to an abstract, not the full text, but the upshot is you can improve how women do when you ask questions that include female politicians.
This makes perfect sense.
One of my own studies explored with conservative Christians do so poorly on tests of political knowledge. In part it's demographics, but when you ask religious questions about candidates (their affiliation) versus what state they are from, the conservative Christians do not fare so poorly. The upshot? Ask people what they know, in a certain domain, and they do better than previous research suggests.
This has a lot to do with cognitive accessibility and all that rot. Fun stuff if you're into research, but translated it just means we have certain things that are important to us and when questions are posed in such a way as to tap those interests (versus those of scholars and news junkies) then we do okay. Better. Not great, mind you, but better.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
People Know Toys
Check out the results of a Pew study results above.People know toys.
Eighty-eight percent knew tainted food or dangerous toys were from China. And 78 percent knew the Democrats control the House.
Toys and the House of Representatives. Kinda fits together.
Frankly I am surprised 41 percent correctly identified the U.S. Sec of Defense and about a third knew a Hispanic was running for president (though I kinda like the guy).
Six percent of U.S. adults surveyed answered all 12 knowledge questions correctly. These are people who need to get a life. In the good news department, only about 1 percent could not answer any of the questions correctly. For the mathematically inclined, the average was 7 of 12 correct, with men slightly outscoring women, older respondents outscoring those irritating youngsters, and better educated people besting those with less education.
All stuff you'd expect. No surprises there.
The report is available online, for those who like to keep up with what people know.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Civic Literacy
A report suggests that students at elite universities are either dumb or not getting their money's worth, at least when it comes to the ability to answer basic civics questions accurately. The questions focus on America's history and institutions, the kind of stuff we ask in surveys to discover what people know, their basic "civics" or "textbook" knowledge.
Who sucked? Yale, Duke, and Cornell.
Who kicked ass? Eastern Conn. State University, Marian College in Wisconsin and Murray State in Kentucky.
The appendix to this study is damned confusing. What the hell is "value added" and why are the numbers lower for the supposedly bad performers? It's not explained very well and like a lot of pr releases, the quality is -- ahem -- missing. And there is probably some political axe to grind her, one I don't have the time or energy to chase down. And there is the question of how well those Yale, et al., kids might do compared to those Marian College grads in synthisizing a lot of information and composing arguments.
In other words, it's unclear what we're measuring here other than ability to answer straightforward factual questions. Still, you'd think those Ivy guys and gals would do better. Wassup with that?
Take the quiz yourself if you want to be humbled.
Oh, and my school, The University of Georgia, scored #32. Beat out again by the University of Florida, at #22.
At least we beat Duke.
Who sucked? Yale, Duke, and Cornell.
Who kicked ass? Eastern Conn. State University, Marian College in Wisconsin and Murray State in Kentucky.
The appendix to this study is damned confusing. What the hell is "value added" and why are the numbers lower for the supposedly bad performers? It's not explained very well and like a lot of pr releases, the quality is -- ahem -- missing. And there is probably some political axe to grind her, one I don't have the time or energy to chase down. And there is the question of how well those Yale, et al., kids might do compared to those Marian College grads in synthisizing a lot of information and composing arguments.
In other words, it's unclear what we're measuring here other than ability to answer straightforward factual questions. Still, you'd think those Ivy guys and gals would do better. Wassup with that?
Take the quiz yourself if you want to be humbled.
Oh, and my school, The University of Georgia, scored #32. Beat out again by the University of Florida, at #22.
At least we beat Duke.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Grazing
Grazing gets a bad rap. Let's face it, we all graze certain content: the TV news, dull conversations with family, memos from our boss. A couple of scholars looked specifically at news grazers, who they defined as people who watch the TV news with a remote in hand, ready to switch around when a story of little interest appears on the screen.
Yeah -- been there, changed that channel.
(btw: I didn't know the first remote, from Zenith, was called Lazy Bones. That's funny.)
Men graze more than women. Grazers are less likely to read the newspaper and, indeed, they are more likely to avoid any hard news of any type: local, national, international. As is now kinda obvious, grazers tend to know less about public affairs, at least as measured in the study. This makes sense. Inadvertent, haphazard exposure to news is simply not enough to be informed. What is not measured here is the difference between recall and recognition. Theoretically (yeah, I used the T-word), we would expect grazers to do better at recognition questions because they would have the answer on the tip of their tongue. Reading or carefully attending to the news would lead to higher recall scores (as is the case here).
The so what? Seventy percent of young people are grazers. They may feel informed through picking up bits and pieces here and there, from TV news or Jon Stewart or the web, but grazing doesn't lead to actually being informed. Grazing works well only for cows.
Yeah -- been there, changed that channel.
(btw: I didn't know the first remote, from Zenith, was called Lazy Bones. That's funny.)
Men graze more than women. Grazers are less likely to read the newspaper and, indeed, they are more likely to avoid any hard news of any type: local, national, international. As is now kinda obvious, grazers tend to know less about public affairs, at least as measured in the study. This makes sense. Inadvertent, haphazard exposure to news is simply not enough to be informed. What is not measured here is the difference between recall and recognition. Theoretically (yeah, I used the T-word), we would expect grazers to do better at recognition questions because they would have the answer on the tip of their tongue. Reading or carefully attending to the news would lead to higher recall scores (as is the case here).
The so what? Seventy percent of young people are grazers. They may feel informed through picking up bits and pieces here and there, from TV news or Jon Stewart or the web, but grazing doesn't lead to actually being informed. Grazing works well only for cows.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Unsure
In presidential politics we always watch the swing votes, the "unsure" voters, those wacky undecided folks who, despite a billion ads and debates and stories, can't make up their minds.1
Well, it's too early to have a favorite, at least not for any rational person, but let's look at those "unsure" party nomination numbers just for fun.
On the Democratic side, the "unsure" vote was at 13% in March and has steadily dropped to 7% in September (CBS/NYT poll). On the Republican side, "unsure" was at 10% in June, jumped up to 18% in August, but by September settled back to 10%. There is a lot more churn on the GOP side, what with Fred Thompson (from my hometown of L'burg, Tenn.!!!) entering the race, the troubles with Bush's own numbers, and the war.
1 As a methodological aside, we often use the inability to generate an attitude about a political actor as a negative in computing political knowledge. You'll especially find this in anlysis of ANES data. No opinion counts a "0" and some opinion as a "1" in creating an index of knowledge (along with other, more obvious, items like who is chief justice of the supreme court or which party controls congress).
Well, it's too early to have a favorite, at least not for any rational person, but let's look at those "unsure" party nomination numbers just for fun.
On the Democratic side, the "unsure" vote was at 13% in March and has steadily dropped to 7% in September (CBS/NYT poll). On the Republican side, "unsure" was at 10% in June, jumped up to 18% in August, but by September settled back to 10%. There is a lot more churn on the GOP side, what with Fred Thompson (from my hometown of L'burg, Tenn.!!!) entering the race, the troubles with Bush's own numbers, and the war.
1 As a methodological aside, we often use the inability to generate an attitude about a political actor as a negative in computing political knowledge. You'll especially find this in anlysis of ANES data. No opinion counts a "0" and some opinion as a "1" in creating an index of knowledge (along with other, more obvious, items like who is chief justice of the supreme court or which party controls congress).
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Memory and Mismemory
Okay, as I move into my, um, later years, this story hits a little too close to home.
The Washington Post reported on how when the CDC gave a list of truths and myths about flu, older people who read the flier -- in just 30 minutes! -- misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true.
In other words, it took only a half hour to get a quarter of the stuff wrong. Myth becomes truth! And in three days, 40 percent made the dramatic change from myth to fact.
Scary.
Now I am starting to remember back to all those myths I learned when I was a kid in school and, even worse, I wonder if I am misremembering some stuff as being fact. Did Mary Beth Lumpkins mean it when she said she liked me in the fifth grade? Or am I misremembering that so that myth became fact. Beth, if you're out there, lemme know. I'm really confused.
Anyway, back to the question at hand -- what people know. Or maybe I should call this blog, what people think they know.
Younger people didn't ace this test either (yes, you hear me sighing in relief). They did better early on, but within three days young people did as poorly as older folk. So what's all this mean? "This phenomenon may help explain why large numbers of Americans incorrectly think that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in planning the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi," says the article. "Similarly, many in the Arab world are convinced that the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was not the work of Arab terrorists but was a controlled demolition; that 4,000 Jews working there had been warned to stay home that day; and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile rather than a plane."
In other words, myth becomes reality.
What do people know? Whatever their minds create as fact, apparently. I'd love to know if certain kinds of people are more likely to do this than others. Perhaps some other time I'll explore possible personality or individual differences.
The media role? Reminding people what is fact, what is myth, and why it matters that people keep the differences straight in their heads.
Beth? Fact or myth?
The Washington Post reported on how when the CDC gave a list of truths and myths about flu, older people who read the flier -- in just 30 minutes! -- misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true.
In other words, it took only a half hour to get a quarter of the stuff wrong. Myth becomes truth! And in three days, 40 percent made the dramatic change from myth to fact.
Scary.
Now I am starting to remember back to all those myths I learned when I was a kid in school and, even worse, I wonder if I am misremembering some stuff as being fact. Did Mary Beth Lumpkins mean it when she said she liked me in the fifth grade? Or am I misremembering that so that myth became fact. Beth, if you're out there, lemme know. I'm really confused.
Anyway, back to the question at hand -- what people know. Or maybe I should call this blog, what people think they know.
Younger people didn't ace this test either (yes, you hear me sighing in relief). They did better early on, but within three days young people did as poorly as older folk. So what's all this mean? "This phenomenon may help explain why large numbers of Americans incorrectly think that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in planning the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi," says the article. "Similarly, many in the Arab world are convinced that the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was not the work of Arab terrorists but was a controlled demolition; that 4,000 Jews working there had been warned to stay home that day; and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile rather than a plane."
In other words, myth becomes reality.
What do people know? Whatever their minds create as fact, apparently. I'd love to know if certain kinds of people are more likely to do this than others. Perhaps some other time I'll explore possible personality or individual differences.
The media role? Reminding people what is fact, what is myth, and why it matters that people keep the differences straight in their heads.
Beth? Fact or myth?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)