8 September 2018: In Central London, Bobby Duffy of Ipsos MORI launched his new book, "The Perils of Perception: Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything". Bobby presented highlights and key findings of the book, described by Stephen Pinker as ‘Mandatory reading. This mind-altering book shows how most of us are badly deluded about the state of the world'. Buy the book: http://perils.ipsos.com/book/index.html

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Why we’re wrong about
nearly everything
Bobby Duffy
#PerilsofPerception

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#PerilsofPerception
The Perils of Perception studies…
Over 100,000 interviews, in up to 40 countries…
…guess the reality for their country and compare
From immigration to vaccine safety to obesity levels
to murder rates to happiness to sex…
Reflects Ipsos’ real commitment to understanding society
We’re often incredibly wrong – raises questions: why,
and what can we do about it?
Wi-Fi: The Cloud

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#PerilsofPerception
 NOT just about febrile identity politics and “fake news”
 Problem across all countries and issues – and time…
 …‘Political ignorance’ questions from US in 1940s showed
people were very wrong…
 Updated recently – similar errors on political and social
facts like who’s in power and unemployment rates…
This is NOT a new crisis…

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Suggests wide range of causes…
How we think
Maths and
statistical
skills and
critical
literacy
Biases and
Heuristics,
including
psycho-
physics
Rational
ignorance
Media Social
media/
tech
Politics Our own
experience
Cognitive
capabilities
External
context
What we’re told

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What would make you most proud of your kids?
Good at reading
/writing
Good at numbers Neither…
55% 13% 16%

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But much more to our errors than
numerical limitations
– one of key concepts:
‘Emotional Innumeracy’…

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Total
24 2
23 2
USA
Britain
+21
+31
+22
+18
too high
What percentage of
women and girls aged 15
to 19 in [Country] do you
think give birth each year?
% point differencetoo low
Please see http://perils.ipsos.com/ for full details of all sources.
Huge
overestimates of
teenage births…
19
Country
1.4
Guess Actual
How many of you got it right? 87%...
37 6Argentina

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Why? Vivid,
emotional
stories we
remember…

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Guarantee you will never
see a headline
like this…

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Emotional Innumeracy…
Overestimate what we worry about as much as
worrying about what we overestimate
Cause and effect run in both directions
Makes misperceptions useful indicators of what we’re really worried
about
Vital implications :
- can’t just use facts, misdiagnoses cause – partly emotional
- ‘myth-busting’ seldom full answer…

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0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014
Hispanic
Black
Total
White
38
34.9
24.2
17.3
We’re useless at spotting slow, positive changes…
Trends in birth rates per 1000 females aged 15-19 in US

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We tend to focus on negative
information…

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Experiments showing different images…

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DON’T remember the dead cat…

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80-90% of media coverage of Muslims is negative…

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80-90% of media coverage of Muslims is negative…

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+24
+16
+11
France
USA
Britain
Out of every 100 people,
about how many do you
think are Muslim?
The ‘actual’ data for this question is largely from Pew Research Center. Instances where the ‘actual’ data comes from another
source are indicated with an asterisk (*). Please see http://perils.ipsos.com/ for full details of all sources.
Massive
overestimation
of Muslim
populations…
16 5
17 1
31 8
too high% point differencetoo lowCountry Guess Actual
#PerilsofPerception
How many of you got right? 84%...

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Key implication:
Things are mostly not as bad as we think…

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We also tend to think things are
getting worse –
‘rosy retrospection’…

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Do you think the murder
rate in your country is
higher, lower, or about the
same as it was in 2000?
Please see http://perils.ipsos.com/ for full details of all sources.
Murder rate is
down in 25 out of
our 30 countries,
by 29% on
average - BUT
only 15% think
it’s lower
Average 30
countries
South
Africa
USA
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Actual %
change
-29%
-29%
-11%
Higher About the same Lower DK
#PerilsofPerception
How many of you got right? 56%...

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If it bleeds, it leads…
‘Just out report: "United
Kingdom crime rises 13%
annually amid spread of
Radical Islamic terror."
Not good, we must keep
America safe!’
Donald Trump
“Amid” is a word loved
by fake news websites, to
conflate correlation and
causation. UK crime is also
up “amid” spread of fidget
spinners.
Fraser Nelson
"The murder rate in our
country is the highest it’s
been in 47 years, right?
You won’t hear the press
saying that.”
Donald Trump

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We edit out the bad from past…
mild
disappointment
when back…
But memory
grows fonder longer
away we get…
…from excited
anticipation
reality of
minor niggles
while there,

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Many more examples and effects…

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Our Misperceptions Index…
Index score: 100 = most wrong
100
90
86
78
77
77
76
76
76
72
70
64
53
Italy
US
France
Australia
Belgium
Canada
Spain
Poland
Great Britain
Japan
South Korea
Germany
Sweden
13% of you…
18% of you…
69% of you…
We’re much fatter and
happier than you think…

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NO sign that any worse than
past…
BUT online environment
threatens our view of reality
at new scale…
#PerilsofPerception

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Our online life and reality…
Russian Minister of Defence: information is ‘another type of armed forces’
But much, much broader than information disorder or fake news…
Twin effects: our own filtering and unseen algorithms…
More time on platform = more cash
Surveillance is the business model of the internet – but means
confirmation bias is its currency

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Is there anything
we can do?

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Hmm, doesn’t look hopeful…
Some individual-level approaches:
 start with assumption things are getting better
 avoid assuming you’re utterly normal…
 …or focusing on the extreme
 actively unfilter your world
I’ve been studying this stuff for about 45 years
and I really haven’t improved one bit…
Daniel Kahneman

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We can support a reality-based view of the world…
Critical, statistical and news literacy from schools onwards
Support fact-checking, systemically, pre-emptively
Facts and stories not opposites: use both to explain
Huge untapped potential in more meaningful deliberation, using
technology and traditional approaches
We are NOT automatons, entirely driven by biases and tribal
identities, and unwilling to change…

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Thank you
#PerilsofPerception
perils.ipsos.com
#PerilsofPerception