IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0260042.html

Unobtrusive measures of prejudice: Estimating percentages of public beliefs and behaviours

Author

Listed:
  • Adrian Furnham
  • Jan Ketil Arnulf
  • Charlotte Robinson

Abstract

This study was concerned with how accurate people are in their knowledge of population norms and statistics concerning such things as the economic, health and religious status of a nation and how those estimates are related to their own demography (e.g age, sex), ideology (political and religious beliefs) and intelligence. Just over 600 adults were asked to make 25 population estimates for Great Britain, including religious (church/mosque attendance) and economic (income, state benefits, car/house ownership) factors as well as estimates like the number of gay people, immigrants, smokers etc. They were reasonably accurate for things like car ownership, criminal record, vegetarianism and voting but seriously overestimated numbers related to minorities such as the prevalence of gay people, muslims and people not born in the UK. Conversely there was a significant underestimation of people receiving state benefits, having a criminal record or a private health insurance. Correlations between select variables and magnitude and absolute accuracy showed religiousness and IQ most significant correlates. Religious people were less, and intelligent people more, accurate in their estimates. A factor analysis of the estimates revealed five interpretable factors. Regressions were calculated onto these factors and showed how these individual differences accounted for as much as 14% of the variance. Implications and limitations are acknowledged.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrian Furnham & Jan Ketil Arnulf & Charlotte Robinson, 2021. "Unobtrusive measures of prejudice: Estimating percentages of public beliefs and behaviours," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0260042
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0260042
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0260042&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0260042?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Furnham, Adrian & Boo, Hua Chu, 2011. "A literature review of the anchoring effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 35-42, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wettstein, Dominik J. & Boes, Stefan, 2022. "How value-based policy interventions influence price negotiations for new medicines: An experimental approach and initial evidence," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 112-121.
    2. Daniel Fonseca Costa & Francisval Carvalho & Bruno César Moreira & José Willer Prado, 2017. "Bibliometric analysis on the association between behavioral finance and decision making with cognitive biases such as overconfidence, anchoring effect and confirmation bias," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1775-1799, June.
    3. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: A Unified Explanation for Equity Puzzles," MPRA Paper 68729, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Scott S. Wiltermuth & Timothy Gubler & Lamar Pierce, 2023. "Anchoring on Historical Round Number Reference Points: Evidence from Durable Goods Resale Prices," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(5), pages 1839-1863, September.
    5. Labro, Eva & Lang, Mark & Omartian, James D., 2023. "Predictive analytics and centralization of authority," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1).
    6. repec:osf:socarx:a9436_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Sang-June Park & Youjae Yi, 2016. "Performance-only measures vs. performance-expectation measures of service quality," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(15-16), pages 741-756, December.
    8. Edwards, Chase J. & Bendickson, Joshua S. & Baker, Brent L. & Solomon, Shelby J., 2020. "Entrepreneurship within the history of marketing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 259-267.
    9. Christian Koch, 2021. "Can reference points explain wage rigidity? Experimental evidence," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 55(1), pages 1-17, December.
    10. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till E., 2015. "Anchoring in social context," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 29-39.
    11. Daniel Simonet, 2025. "Stakeholder Analysis, Territorial Networks, and Regulatory Reforms in France," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 1587-1603, September.
    12. Fischer, Sabine & Grosch, Kerstin, 2025. "Contract breach with overconfident expectations: Experimental evidence on reference-dependent preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 145-163.
    13. Eva Labro & Mark Lang & Jim Omartian, 2019. "Predictive Analytics and Organizational Architecture: Plant-Level Evidence from Census Data," Working Papers 19-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    14. Yang, Guang & Huang, Ruixian & Shi, Yukun & Jia, Zhehao, 2021. "Does a CEO's private reputation impede corporate governance?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    15. Alistair Munro & Marieta Valente, 2016. "Green Goods: Are They Good or Bad News for the Environment? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment on Impure Public Goods," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(2), pages 317-335, October.
    16. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2020. "At what age does the anchoring heuristic emerge? Evidence from Jeopardy!," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 757-766.
    17. Papyrakis, Elissaios & Parcero, Osiris Jorge, 2022. "The psychology of mineral wealth: Empirical evidence from Kazakhstan," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    18. Francesca Gioia, 2017. "Peer effects on risk behaviour: the importance of group identity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(1), pages 100-129, March.
    19. Gavin Nicholson & Abdallah Bader Mahmoud Al-Zoubi, 2024. "The effect of decision recommendations and approval expectations on directors’ decision control: an experimental investigation of anchoring effects," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 437-465, September.
    20. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2017. "Anchoring in financial decision-making: Evidence from Jeopardy!," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 164-176.
    21. Bastian Schulz, 2023. "Behavioral Finance and how its Behavioral Biases Affect German Investors," ACTA VSFS, University of Finance and Administration, vol. 17(1), pages 39-59.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0260042. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.