Pros and cons of public opinion polls - Jason Robert Jaffe - video Dailymotion

TED-Ed

How do public opinion polls work? And, more importantly, are they accurate? Jason Robert Jaffe reveals the complexities and biases of polls and provides tips on how to think about polls as we make everyday decisions.  Lesson by Jason Robert Jaffe, animation by Flaming Medusa Studios.

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00:00We are constantly asked for our opinions. Which team do you think will win the Super Bowl? Who

00:19wore it better on the red carpet? Who are you gonna vote for for mayor? Public opinion polls

00:24are everywhere. Important decision-makers in American government have long relied

00:30on public opinion polls throughout elections and important legislation.

00:33The problem is public opinion isn't easy to track and oftentimes isn't even right.

00:38In 1948 the Chicago Daily Tribune ran a now famous headline, Dewey defeats Truman,

00:46they cried in big bold black and white letters. The problem is that Dewey hadn't

00:52defeated Truman. The Tribune had relied on polls to come to their conclusion.

00:56Whoops. This happens all the time because public opinion polls are either

01:02inaccurate or misleading. So why are they wrong and why do we keep using them?

01:08First let's start with an important term, sample. A sample is the group of people

01:14that respond to questions during a public opinion poll. A poll's quality rests

01:18largely on its sample and the sample can be bad in a few key ways. It can be too

01:24small, too narrow, or the poll itself can be too difficult. Polls that are too small

01:29are bad for obvious reasons. While you can't possibly ask every single person in

01:34America for their opinion, the more people you ask the more accurate your

01:38prediction. Polls that are too narrow, that only ask a certain type of person the

01:43question, are bad too. Consider a poll about whether or not the potato is

01:48the best vegetable in America. If you only asked people in Idaho where the state

01:53food is the potato, chances are that you would get a much different answer than

01:57if you ask people in the state of New Mexico where the state vegetable is beans.

02:02Getting the right kind of diversity in your sample means making sure that your

02:06sample has a range of ages, races, genders, and geographic regions, just to name a few.

02:12Finally, polls that are too hard can't tell you much either. If you're asking

02:18people for their opinions on things about which they have no prior knowledge, the

02:22results will be pointless. You're better off shaking a magic eight ball. It's not

02:27just the people you're asking that can cause bias, though. The person doing the

02:31asking is part of the problem too. That's called interviewer bias.

02:35Interviewer bias is all about the effect that the person asking the questions has

02:41on the sample. Humans generally don't like confrontation. People worry that their

02:46answers may make them look bad. Therefore, we find that people tend to give

02:50socially desirable responses, not necessarily their honest opinions, because

02:55they don't want to come across as heartless, racist, or bigoted. And the way we word our

03:00questions matters too. When polls purposely sway the answers one way or the

03:05other, it's called a push-poll because it pushes people to answer a certain way.

03:10Would you vote for Candidate Smith is a perfectly normal question. Would you vote

03:16for Candidate Smith if you knew that he robs senior citizens is a push-poll. So if

03:22polls are open to all sorts of manipulation and inaccuracies, why are they

03:26still so prevalent? Despite their flaws, public opinion polls provide us with

03:30some sense of the thoughts and moods of large groups of people. They offer

03:35politicians the chance to pass legislation they think a majority of

03:38Americans will support. They help fashionistas on TV know which star wore the

03:43dress better on the red carpet. Finally, they make us, the people who get polled,

03:49feel as though our voice has been heard. So next time you get a phone call asking

03:54your opinion, or if you see a poll online, take some time to think about who is asking

03:59and why they're asking. Then take that poll and its results with a grain of salt or a potato.

04:24so if you're just a tomato, then take that poll.

04:30So if you see a poll online, take a poll.

04:35If you're not getting a poll online, take some of the things you need to do so that I do

04:37because you can actually get the poll until you're asking for the poll.

04:40It's been a poll on the poll, I believe.

04:41I hope that it is my poll.

04:42So I hope you're following the poll.

04:43I hope you're following your poll.

Pros and cons of public opinion polls - Jason Robert Jaffe

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