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Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

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Re: Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

#21

Post by tantalor »

codingslave wrote: post #6

If you look at pride month and the level of marketing and news associated with it, one would estimate that the gay population is huge. Nearly every major corporation on linkedin has a rainbow logo, my uber the other day showed their ride path as a rainbow. The level of influence that LGBTQ currently has in the American mind share far outsizes their population, even now I am worried my account will be banned for menti…

> LGBTQ in the American mind share far outsizes their population

What does that even mean? Population is one thing, but can mindshare be measured? You're comparing apples and oranges.

Re: Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

#23

Post by reaperducer »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #11
codingslave wrote: post #6

If you look at pride month and the level of marketing and news associated with it, one would estimate that the gay population is huge. Nearly every major corporation on linkedin has a rainbow logo, my uber the other day showed their ride path as a rainbow. The level of influence that LGBTQ currently has in the American mind share far outsizes their population, even now I am worried my account will be banned for menti…

Corporations are cashing in on the trend. I'm both equally happy and unhappy about it. It means that being LGBT has finally become mainstream enough, but it also shows a two-faced side to the corporations who will also donate to anti-LGBT politicians. It's pandering to us, is what it is. That part, I'm not so much a fan of.

Corporations are cashing in on the trend

This is true. But it's also true that companies are afraid of being "corp-shamed" on the internet.

No marketing or PR department wants to answer the question, "Why don't you support xyz!" on the internet.

Steve Jobs didn't have a Reality Distortion Field half as powerful as Twitter.

Re: Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

#24

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

Is this just not classic recency bias? Many TV shows feature a gay couple/character, and gay marriage was in the national news for years. People are shown examples through media constantly, and therefore think it's more prevalent than it really is.

This applies to almost all issues too, plane accidents being one of the more obvious ones (plane travel is many times safer than car travel, and yet many people don't see it that way).

Thinking Fast and Slow is a great book that covers at length recency bias and its affects [1]. Quite eye opening to me was one study where people were asked to spin a wheel with 1-100, and then asked how many African nations are in the UN. The number on the wheel had a profound affect on the number people picked [2], despite the fact that the number on the wheel should clearly has no meaning.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp...

[2] https://www.realclearscience.com/lists/10_problems_with_how_...

Re: Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

#25

Post by Geimfari »

This can also be explained by the fact that humans are terrible at estimating percentages. I would assume we'd see similar result for other questions. "3% of the population" sounds ridiculously low, but if you interact with 30 people each day you're likely to meet someone in that small category.

Re: Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

#26

Post by tastygreenapple »

tantalor wrote: post #21
codingslave wrote: post #6

If you look at pride month and the level of marketing and news associated with it, one would estimate that the gay population is huge. Nearly every major corporation on linkedin has a rainbow logo, my uber the other day showed their ride path as a rainbow. The level of influence that LGBTQ currently has in the American mind share far outsizes their population, even now I am worried my account will be banned for menti…

> LGBTQ in the American mind share far outsizes their population What does that even mean? Population is one thing, but can mindshare be measured? You're comparing apples and oranges.

Well, what other groups make up 5% of the population and get corporate logos changed in recognition of that group?

About 5% of Americans watched the NBA finals, did brands go out of their way to make NBA fans feel included?

Do news shows bring on their NBA correspondent to talk about NBA issues?

Re: Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

#27

Post by drawnwren »

modeless wrote: post #15

These people were asked to choose between 6 options. Every number in every option was higher than the true value. Is it any wonder people overestimate when primed this way? I wonder how many other poll results people rely on are this obviously biased. Edit: I now believe this is incorrect, see below.

Eh, it's clear priming didn't have too much of an effect here. The single most selected answer in every year was >25%. Respondents thought the number was too low to begin with.

Re: Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

#28

Post by meruru »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #16
wool_gather wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the "what's your estimate" question specifies "gay or lesbian", whereas the self-identity question apparently includes the B and T. Obviously this would make the high estimate for just "gay or lesbian" even further off, but it still doesn't say anything good about the article's conclusion.

Maybe a minor point, but I think sexual fluidity remains under-addressed by these polls. Some people are, for all intents and purposes, identifying as LGBT during, say, their college years, but then go on to settle down with an opposite-sex spouse. If the person once identified as LGBT, but doesn't today, is it based on what they "actively" are? Or if you ever once identified as LGBT, for purposes of polling, you rem…

Not a minor point at all. I think sexual fluidity is one of the most relevant aspects of sexuality and I would love to see it measured. Labels like "Gay" and "Bi" are way too simplistic.

Re: Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

#29

Post by drawnwren »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #9
trackofalljades wrote: post #3

Is it possible that what you're seeing in this data is less about inaccuracy and more about how comfortably out people are? It says the estimates skew greater for younger people and women responding. Well are younger people and women more likely to know which of their friends are LGBT, because of a host of societal reasons that tend to influence men or older folks to wall off their feelings and communicate less about…

> the 4.5% number feels low to me (as in, impossibly so). I think it's contextual to location. A lot of LGBT people move to cities for acceptance. If you live in a big city, you're more liking to know relatively more LGBT people than if you lived in a rural or suburban area.

Age is also huge. It's easy to forget that half of the population is over 38.

Re: Americans Greatly Overestimate U.S. Gay Population

#30

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

reaperducer wrote: post #23
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations are cashing in on the trend. I'm both equally happy and unhappy about it. It means that being LGBT has finally become mainstream enough, but it also shows a two-faced side to the corporations who will also donate to anti-LGBT politicians. It's pandering to us, is what it is. That part, I'm not so much a fan of.

Corporations are cashing in on the trend This is true. But it's also true that companies are afraid of being "corp-shamed" on the internet. No marketing or PR department wants to answer the question, "Why don't you support xyz!" on the internet. Steve Jobs didn't have a Reality Distortion Field half as powerful as Twitter.

I don't have any issue with companies taking no stand, so long as they don't have negative impact on the LGBT community through political contributions.

Do people genuinely _expect_ Apple, et. al. to proactively support LGBT rights? I think it's asking a bit much, but also, I'm no marketing expert.

I get that people want to associate with brands that they feel can 'get them'. And brands can freely choose what they identify with. But this is just marketers getting you to buy, it isn't a real political stance.

So I would say to the person who exclaims, "Why doesn't support ?", is largely ineffective. You got a bunch of social media icons to be rainbow-colored, and no actual legislative agenda for your issue, on behalf of these companies. Can we consider that progress? To me "Support LGBT rights " does not sound like progress.

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