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Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

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Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#131

Post by ForHackernews »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #128
ForHackernews wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds to me like a variant on the idea of a "meme" (in its original sense): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme Consider that ideas (even facts!) might be like mind-viruses: you could imagine they propagate themselves in human minds, but are not actually produced by those minds. What if human minds are just the substrate?

at some point some ideas have to be created by some individual human who then transfers it to others, if we do not agree that the idea created by the individual human is created in their mind then we have to come up with another explanation of what they are created in. If we assume that a new idea, never before propagated creates itself we should have an explanation for how that works, which memetics does not have a…

IMHO, this depends what you consider a "new" idea: ideas mutate and change, they are combined or applied in a different context but rarely (perhaps never) do they arise sui generis from nothing. Analogously, viruses mutate and change in their hosts, and at some point their lineage diverges enough that we declare it a "new" virus - but this is a categorization applied by an observer, and somewhat false.

Perhaps the earliest "ur ideas" were something like instinctive emotions. Even very simple creatures seek food and avoid noxious stimuli. Is hunger an idea? Maybe from hunger arose desire, and from desire arose searching, and from searching arose planning... Ad astra per fame.

Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#132

Post by dang »

godelski wrote: post #18

The actual title is > Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change Not "Study: Americans consistently overestimate how much culture has changed." And from the abstract > Participants overestimated the amount of change on 29 attitudes (57%), underestimated change on 10 attitudes (20%), estimated change in the wrong direction on 10 attitudes (20%), and estimated change correctly on only two attitudes (4%). (o…

Ok, changed now. Thanks!

Submitted title was "Study: Americans consistently overestimate how much culture has changed".

Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#133

Post by hhmc »

comfypotato wrote: post #130
imgabe wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you could get good survey data by disguising it as a Buzzfeed quiz on Facebook. Just make the title something like "Which Kardashian are you?", then ask whatever questions you want and randomly select a Kardashian at the end.

As someone who has never taken, and will probably never take, a Buzzfeed quiz: I think it probably risks the same kind of sampling bias. Not sure what the best way to overcome this is. Joke: government mandated surveys with monetary punishments based on your net worth if you fail to take them.

Unless you make survey taking a society wide, randomly sampled, civic duty -- like jury duty -- you're always going to be vulnerable to some biases.

Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#134

Post by manimino »

somenameforme wrote: post #84

There is a severe demographic problem with this study (among others). A current trend in the social sciences is using Amazon Mechanical Turk and Prolific to run surveys. These sites are based around paying people pennies to compete menial tasks (like complete surveys), and populated with large numbers of "professional" menial task executers. This study offered the big bucks of $1.50 - $2.25. There are two major probl…

Why would undergraduates be more representative of society than Mechanical Turk users? Surely the Turk users span a much wider range of age and geolocation.

Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#135

Post by Der_Einzige »

martijnvds wrote: post #107
imgabe wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you could get good survey data by disguising it as a Buzzfeed quiz on Facebook. Just make the title something like "Which Kardashian are you?", then ask whatever questions you want and randomly select a Kardashian at the end.

"You are Gul Dukat."

Cardassian, Kardashian, all the same to me!

Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#136

Post by MarkPNeyer »

ForHackernews wrote: post #110
raspberry1337 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlighten me, what does it mean that truth and knowledge are anonymous automata?

It sounds to me like a variant on the idea of a "meme" (in its original sense): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme Consider that ideas (even facts!) might be like mind-viruses: you could imagine they propagate themselves in human minds, but are not actually produced by those minds. What if human minds are just the substrate?

We can apply this same notion of thinking to ideas like “mark neyer” or “the neyer family”. This closes the loop, though - who I am is both an idea and a substrate for ideas, at the same time.

Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#137

Post by elijaht »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #124
inglor_cz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both car safety and emergency medicine have got a lot better over time. In Czechia, the death toll from car crashes is one third of what it used to be at the end of the last century. And people definitely do not drive less.

> Both car safety and emergency medicine have got a lot better over time. Don't let the walkable city and cycling activists hear you say that. From the way they tell it, modern cars have become rampaging murder machines.

You are talking about safety inside of a car, the activists are talking about safety outside of a car

Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#138

Post by andsoitis »

arkis22 wrote: post #54
andsoitis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only one has targeted attacks of human rights of minorities.

The only minority worth protecting beyond reproach of politics are those afflicted with poverty. I have found both parties incompetent in this regard. 800k shacks with outlets in LA for the homeless. The complete dismissal of the responsibility we have as a society to rehabilitate people in the prison system. the absolute abandonment of native americans that ultimately lead to an institution of sexual abuse. Unions r…

> The only minority worth protecting beyond reproach of politics are those afflicted with poverty. I have found both parties incompetent in this regard.

How do you think we, the people, can make a really meaningful impact to change this?

Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#139

Post by schoen »

ForHackernews wrote: post #131
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at some point some ideas have to be created by some individual human who then transfers it to others, if we do not agree that the idea created by the individual human is created in their mind then we have to come up with another explanation of what they are created in. If we assume that a new idea, never before propagated creates itself we should have an explanation for how that works, which memetics does not have a…

IMHO, this depends what you consider a "new" idea: ideas mutate and change, they are combined or applied in a different context but rarely (perhaps never) do they arise sui generis from nothing. Analogously, viruses mutate and change in their hosts, and at some point their lineage diverges enough that we declare it a "new" virus - but this is a categorization applied by an observer, and somewhat false. Perhaps the ea…

Per famem, because per governs the accusative, right?

Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change

#140

Post by psychstudio »

somenameforme wrote: post #84

There is a severe demographic problem with this study (among others). A current trend in the social sciences is using Amazon Mechanical Turk and Prolific to run surveys. These sites are based around paying people pennies to compete menial tasks (like complete surveys), and populated with large numbers of "professional" menial task executers. This study offered the big bucks of $1.50 - $2.25. There are two major probl…

I wrote about this problem a few years ago. Even more relevant today: https://www.psychstudio.com/articles/research-participation
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