People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Work

[Danascot]

The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they see it. But a growing body of research has revealed an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem to disprove this notion, and imply instead that democratic elections produce mediocre leadership and policies.

The research, led by David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people's ideas. For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments.

As a result, no amount of information or facts about political candidates can override the inherent inability of many voters to accurately evaluate them. On top of that, "very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is," Dunning told Life's Little Mysteries.

He and colleague Justin Kruger, formerly of Cornell and now of New York University, have demonstrated again and again that people are self-delusional when it comes to their own intellectual skills. Whether the researchers are testing people's ability to rate the funniness of jokes, the correctness of grammar, or even their own performance in a game of chess, the duo has found that people always assess their own performance as "above average" — even people who, when tested, actually perform at the very bottom of the pile

http://news.yahoo.com/people-arent-smart-enough-democracy-flourish-scientists-185601411.html

[snot]

1. Even it true,

it would help if we'd provide better public education.

[yeoman6987]

24. It is more likely that 535 politicians don't know about it

Americans don't vote on anything except the person deciding for us who lie ant give lofty lists that never get complete because of all 535 of them.

[99th_Monkey]

2. THIS is exactly why free college tuition and decent public education is so vital

it makes democracy actually "work".

We've got a lot of work to do to make that happen. GO BERNIE!!!

[Lurker Deluxe]

51. Because??

You think that because someone is well educated they make better decisions? Or that they are inherently "smarter" than those without "higher" education?

I would tend to disagree.

[99th_Monkey]

55. So you think an uneducated electorate is 'good for America'? Really?

Care to elaborate on that. I'd love to hear if that's what you really think, and why.

BTW, I'm not conferring 'higher intelligence' per se to people with some post HS education;
but I do feel that it helps people develop more critical-thinking skills and a better sense of history
and civic-mindedness. Why do you think Universities are notoriously hotbeds of 'revolutionary'
thinking and progressive ideas?

[lumberjack_jeff]

63. We are better educated than at any point in history.

The problem isn't lack of education, it's inexperience. We delegate everything to others.

[99th_Monkey]

65. Not on civics, public affairs, world affairs we aren't

and not with ALL our textbooks being printed in Texas, sanitized of any inconvenient
truths related to slavery, Native Americans, the Labor Movement, etc.

[farleftlib]

3. It doesn't help that the MSM spins and contorts the issues

Many people rely on cable news networks for information and needless to say, they're being fed the disingenuous corporate line. They are groomed daily to vote against their own self-interest.

I tried to engage somebody in a conversation recently about the Obama presidency and all he could go on and on about was the birth certificate--8 years later! It's truly scary.

[unblock]

4. of course, it's far more complicated than that.

you can't pin it all on individuals. there are institutions devoted to providing misinformation, to convincing people to vote based on things other than what's in their own best interests.

fixate on this issue, not the many other issues that affect you.
rule out this candidate because of a personal scandal.
ignore that man because he does not smoke the same cigarettes as you.

we've been told that trust our gut instead of our brain and to prefer someone who appears to be "like you" in the white house instead of someone who actually "likes you", who wants to do things to help you.

we've been told that the best candidate is the one you'd like to have a beer with.


we the people would be far better positioned to evaluate candidates and policies if the institutions that produced candidates and campaigns and covered them in the media weren't so completely screwed up.

[hfojvt]

8. clearly I have been spending too much time on FB

I was looking for the button so I could "like" your post.

[unblock]

11. lol! i think you found it....

[FrodosPet]

42. "Reply to this post" makes a great like button!

n/t

[senseandsensibility]

30. Agree, and very well stated.

I was thinking the same thing, but didn't have the patience to try to put it into words. It's depressing, but your post is spot on.

[BuelahWitch]

58. But if you have critical thinking skills, none of that matters

Which may not bring us back to, "not intelligent enough," but at least that many adult people in our country don't have the skills to discern between hokum and what's real.

[unblock]

61. it's gotten so bad mere critical thinking skills aren't enough.

useful and relevant information is necessary before critical thinking skills can come into play.

when evaluating the effects of tax policies, crime policies, etc., it's useful information is necessary, and that's often difficult to find even if you're actively seeking it out, never mind if, like most people, you find research into political issues something for other people to deal with, then battle it out on t.v.

[lumberjack_jeff]

64. If you have some experience in micro politics...

... your union, your church, your fire district, your town, you will be able to recognize the qualities of competence in others.

That's the whole point of the Dunning-Kreuger effect. People whose entire social experience consists of shopping and working don't have the slightest clue and think that democratic competence must look like their CEO.

[longship]

5. Dunning-Kruger!

Look it up. It is important research. A bit chilling as well.

[BlueJazz]

14. I failed to see anything in the article that was important.

[cantbeserious]

19. Yes - A Well Researched Phenomena

eom

[saltpoint]

6. Madison and Jefferson were hoping

for an informed citizenry.

There are pockets of informed citizenry but coast to coast, there is considerable untruth and distortion.

Agree with Snot's comment above about public education. We could shitcan the standardized testing and then rehaul our public school curricula. Many other nations' 18-year olds graduate from high school with more inherent knowledge and ability than most U.S. 18-year olds.

The people who watch FOX News either don't know they're being fed distortions and propaganda or, they know and don't care. The Trump supporter doesn't care about facts, because if you stop to research a position, explore ideas, foster dialogue, and read available documentation, you wind up with a gray area on all issues. Better to just slam your fist down on the bar, ban Muslims, and build a wall along the Mexican border.

The Cruz supporters may not know they're being sold a bill of goods. Cruz is an unrepetant theocrat, and not just research and facts, but all of Science is meaningless. There are way too many people who invoke Biblical authority over the laws of a republic. And a disturbing number of those people have not read either the Bible or the Constitution.

[TryLogic]

29. Unfortunately what we have is a misinformed citizenry.

And lots of self serving politicians, and power hungry billionaires who own them.

We have greedy power freaks like the Kochs, Adelson, Murdoch, etc. The only reason I can think of to intentionally become a billionaire is to obtain the power that big money provides. With few exceptions, I consider them to be dangerous. Their personal empires are not democracies, and I seriously doubt that they value democracy.

[saltpoint]

34. IMO you have good cause to

doubt the billionaires' commitment to democracy.

They appear by and large to use their wealth as influence against meaningful reform socially and to stoke class warfare economically. Control of the media and dividing one group of the population against others are two of the tricks of their trade.

The raw feel of their strategy is that if you aren't part of their Board room circles, you shouldn't have a seat at the table.

[hfojvt]

7. what exactly is an "incompetent person"?

Are they just selectively incompetent? Like most people are not very good at chess, because most people do not bother to learn it or play it, or is that supposed to be talking about something else?

It would seem to be better to say "people who are incompetent in an area" rather than just "incompetent people". That really sounds like a huge put down of humanity.

Which seems to be where Dunning is "most people don't have the sophistication ..." Unlike Dunning, who apparently rates himself as "above average".

How exactly does this arrogant pusbag rate the "funniness of a joke"?

If you just look at competency in tax reform. Well, isn't it possible that people, at least many people, if not everybody, could be educated on tax issues?

When the claim is made that "no amount of information" could make a difference. Well, where has that ever been tried? The trouble with an experiment where you take a random group off the street and spend an hour trying to educate them is that they have heard YEARS of straight up BS about taxes because we are awash in MIS-information. That is part of what makes people incompetent.

[Phlem]

9. absofuckinglutey Spot On.

and our education system proves the point daily.

The question is not why it's fucked up, but who fucked it up on purpose.

I'm thinking follow the money.

[pinboy3niner]

10. Democracy relies on people making choices, for whatever reason

If there were a test for a "good" choice we'd all be required to make it--and that wouldn't be democratic.

[Warpy]

12. People propagandized by a coporate press aren't capable of making the wise decisions

they need to make in order to keep their democracy. Once the demagogues are the only voices people hear and their bullshit is completely unanswered, it's all over.

Democracies have always fallen to the far right. There are no historical exceptions.

[lordsummerisle]

13. The arrogance of this blurb is breathtaking

Quote- As a result, no amount of information or facts about political candidates can override the inherent inability of many voters to accurately evaluate them. On top of that, "very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is," -unquote

WOW

So who determines what a "smart idea" is? And "most people" can't tell what one is?
How big was the sample size for this study?

Goebbels is kicking himself wishing he would of thought of these...

[BlueJazz]

18. You have to admit though that Americans are definitely not the sharpest tools in the box...

...when their country is 18 trillion dollars in debt plus ranking 23 in this and 42 in that, 17 in this..etc.

The end result matters and for the richest country in the world, something is severely wrong in the way the populace in this country votes.

[chervilant]

23. Actually,

this smacks of Edward Bernays, the darling of the "elites" (who are now the hedonistic corporate megalomaniacs). These corporate oligarchs hired Bernays to use propaganda and persuasion to morph the vast Hoi Polloi into consumer zombies. Later in life, Bernays helped the political elites use the same techniques to garner support and votes.


I have long asserted that these "intellectual" elites are grossly underestimating the inquisitiveness and courage of our vast Hoi Polloi. We the People recognize that we are being manipulated into supporting HRC (even unto the end). In the words of one of my fave comedians, "Homey don't play that."

[Lil Missy]

15. That explains a lot of what I see on DU. n/t

[Ron Green]

16. Consider that democracy AT work could be a key to help democracy work better in the public sphere.

As in Richard Wolff's book of the same name. Just as our media-induced stupor has been designed, so we must design a political economy that works for people on the job and in government.
It's a tall order, and Bernie's election would be just a first step.

[The2ndWheel]

17. I'm going to guess that

most posting here will think they're above average in their political assessments. We're always the star of our own movie.

Mass society is abnormal. Not wrong, just abnormal. We haven't really adapted to it yet, if we ever really can. Or maybe we have, and what we do is what we got.

Maybe democracy, being a system developed by human beings, is just as flawed, with as many holes and contradictions, as anything else human beings come up with. Maybe everyone can never be smart enough. Everyone can't do a lot of things. Maybe universality doesn't work period. Or at least, maybe universality doesn't work universally.

[Rex]

20. Well Dubya was a two term POT.

President of Texas.

[starroute]

21. But the alternative is to give absolute power to incompetents

I worked through all this when I was about 15 and came to the conclusion that democracy is at least less bad than autocracy, theocracy, hereditary aristocracies, and any of the other alternatives because it has more checks and balances.

There's been a lot of research done since then, and basically it's about the power of collective decision-making, combined with a situation where the experts don't having to worry about getting their heads cut off if they argue with the boss. Crowd-sourcing can produce excellent results if it's given the freedom to do it's own thing, and that's where we should be looking rather than these regressive declarations that "Democracy can't work."

[kjones]

22. Elitist, egotistical, and nihilistic

At the core of it, it just sounds like the typical "oh, you don't agree
with me? You must just be (stupid, ignorant, incompetent, etc)."

[cprise]

36. Agreed. People don't evaluate politicians directly, we use....

Experts. At least smart(er) people do refer to the Paul Krugmans, Juan Coles, Noam Chomskys, etc. Its a social endeavor.

The premise of the study seems over-simplified to fit a reactionary, anti-democratic agenda. Its like listening to James Burke go on about philosophy and how no one can really know anything because that momentary blur you half-noticed in your peripheral vision was a mystery at that moment (implying its forever a mystery); Reflection and collaborative pursuit of knowledge are fruitless or don't exist.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

53. there is an old saying about the shoe that fits

I think for the half below average it might

[moondust]

25. "Future Shock"

Last edited Sat Dec 26, 2015, 01:11 PM - Edit history (1)

was written in 1970 by Alvin Toffler largely about "information overload." If true that lots of people were overloaded and unable to effectively process large amounts of information in the late 1960s with only three TV networks, newspapers, some radio stations, and no computers or Internet, imagine how confounded they must be now.

I also tend to think some people who have to work very many hours are likely to spend their off time preparing meals, doing chores, shopping, running errands, taking care of children, relaxing, etc., leaving little or no time to follow politics or current events--regardless of their ability to connect the dots.

[LS_Editor]

26. Conservative Uncle Gives Himself Immunity from Providing Evidence

Some timely satire with those of us who have Republican relatives, and even those who support Trump...

Conservative Uncle Gives Himself Immunity from Providing Evidence

EAST PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (The Nil Admirari) - Today, conservative Uncle Dick Goop gave himself immunity from having to provide evidence in support of his political arguments while he attended a Christmas dinner at his mother-in-law's house. Goop, a Republican and resident of neighboring Massachusetts, refused to grant such immunity to any of his progressive family members, whom he hounded mercilessly to provide evidence for everything they said.

+

Crossington added, "He gave himself complete immunity from his own lofty standards. Uncle Dick really outdid himself this year when it came to not substantiating anything he said. He called Bernie Sanders 'a communist' and 'a fascist,' told me to prove they were mutually exclusive, then refused to look at the Internet source I found with little effort."

[Luke Notyourfather]

27. Mee Knot Unnerstant

Wat doo u meen?

[Dustlawyer]

28. That explains all of the terrible, so called "singers" trying out for American Idol who believe

they are great!

[DonCoquixote]

31. despite the fact that I diagree with this article

here is an article from one of the scientists quoted in this op: The "Dunning" of Dunning-Kruger

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793

[struggle4progress]

32. "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin

and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"

-- Winston Churchill
House of Commons
11 November 1947

[NobodyHere]

33. +1

[NobodyHere]

35. Democracy has worked well enough for me

What alternative are these researchers proposing?

[TreasonousBastard]

37. Seems to me the Greeks understood this well..

and Plato's Republic doesn't think all that much of democracy.

Modern democracies seem to a bit longer lasting than, say Rome's, but thrre's still no guarantee they'll make it too much longer.

Anyway, I see a lot of blame being passed about in this thread-- the schools, the press, Republicans, businesses...

The truth is that it is all of us and the remnants of our cave-dwelling nature to accept the wrong idea. Remember that half of us are below average, but none of us are willing to admit it.

The best I come up with until we manage to evolve a bit more is that the dumbasses might be balanced out by the smartasses and we might therefore accidentally come up with the right solutions some of the time.

So far.

[pampango]

38. Kings, tsars and emperors have been saying this for centuries. It's about time that liberals

acknowledged that the 'people are smart enough' to govern ourselves. We require royal families or other 'informed elites' to govern us for our own good.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

39. Maybe we should require passing a civics test before being allowed to vote.

We could probably reuse some old tests. Just erase the "stars and bars" from the top of the page, and they'll be good to go.

[hughee99]

46. It's even easier than that. We should just ask them who they're going to vote for, and if they give

the wrong answer, they're not smart enough to vote.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

49. That method is tried and true

I think Saddam Hussein and Kim Jung Un used it to great success!

[Mnpaul]

60. Don't say that

It looks good at first, but in reality, it's banned by the Voter Rights Act of 1965 and has an ugly history in this country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test

[philosslayer]

66. He (or she) was being sarcastic

It didn't look good at first, and it has NEVER looked good at first. There should be one requirement for voting... that you are 18 years old. Thats it. Period.

[Bluenorthwest]

40. Reads like satire. The 'funniness of jokes' is not exactly an objective standard that can

be subjected to metrics like this. Rating the funniness of jokes is not science. If the researchers are using their own sense of humor as the standard, this sort of makes them exemplars of those who rate themselves as 'above average' and others as 'incompetent'.
To be taken seriously, they should be speaking of things with objective metrics grammar is in fact a set of rules and one is either following them or not following them. Humor is the sort of thing where a comic can have thousands of laughing fans and hundreds of others who do not think they are funny and both groups are right.
It is like saying 'incompetent people don't recognize how delicious my favorite food is, some of them don't even like it, proving that they are below average, unable to even figure out what is delicious and what is not. Incompetent people like music that I do not care for. This proves they can't really judge good music....'

[hfojvt]

44. according to wiki (snork)

they did test the Dunning Kruger effect using humor.

I can't figure how a person tests that either.

There might be more of a case with music, as music elitists try to explain to me. Often they really HAVE studied more music than I have. All I have done is play musical instruments and sing for decades, never taken a class or even read a book about it.

One thing I noticed about Dunning-Kruger is that they found incompetence and over-estimation in "the bottom quartile".

The thing is, the vast majority of people, are NOT in the bottom quartile. Something like 75% of people are not. But people like the throw Dunning Kruger around as if, of course, the person they are disparaging MUST be in the bottom quartile.

I have observed a funny thing. I often hear other people saying "people are idiots", and I usually do not say such things.

This, in spite of the fact that I am supposedly above average. I mean, here is my 4th grade SRA. It says: composite 95th percentile, reading 92nd, language 85th, math 98th, social studies 87th, science 94th, use of sources 88th. Here's my 2nd GRE test (after I had gotten my MA ten years earlier) some 28 years later. Verbal 95th percentile, quantitative 99th, analytical 98th.

Supposedly I am pretty high up the scale (if you can believe standardized tests) and yet I do not generally judge people as idiots. My speculation is that, let's say somebody is a 4 in intelligence on a 10 point scale or a 5. Not very high on the scale, but still above or close to even with a lot of people. A 5 might quickly declare a 4 or a 3 to be an "idiot" or even find another 5 or a 6 to be an idiot. Calling that out is a way to boost their self esteem.

Whereas, let's face it, as a Sunday school teacher told me a long time ago. Even if you are 95th percentile, well in a nation of 300 million there are 15 million people who are your equal or superior, and another 15 million who are pretty close to your equal. That's a fair amount of people.

Then there are various specialties. If a guy can fix a car or put in a wax ring, then I am not gonna look down on him just because he hasn't read Tolstoy and isn't a very good chess player. For one thing, their knowledge seems to be much more practical than mine, so who am I to judge?

Speaking of Tolstoy though, this post got kinda long.

[B2G]

41. Does that explain Obama's 2 terms in office?

[Facility Inspector]

43. I, for one, welcome a Camacho administration.

[jwirr]

45. I have always loved history and other social science glasses.

But I have heard so many high school age children complain about those types of classes. You know the names, dates and places classes.

I think this type of "dumbness" starts with classes that fail to awaken an interest in the grade and high school student. And that often starts with a teacher who feels the same. My sister did not like history. But she at least understood it needed to be taught. She taught on a reservation and would bring in elders to tell the stories of the tribes history. At least she tried to make it interesting.

Today we have so many tools for teaching such as movies, documentaries etc. that no class should be boring. Also we have educational channels and that can teach if no one else can.

And schools need to start teaching civics again. As to those already out of school?

[treestar]

47. That's why the founders made it a Republic

They figured the smarter people would be the ones to win the elections. Harder to do today when they didn't realize what powers the media would have.

[alarimer]

48. People think they are smarter than they really are.

It's called the Dunning-Krueger effect. Same guy that did this study.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence, they may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others, and they may incorrectly suppose that their competence in a particular field extends to other fields in which they are less competent.[1] The bias was first experimentally observed by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University in 1999.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

But as others have said, there is a LOT of misinformation out there, deliberately spread by (especially) the right-wing and FOX.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

50. very true and very sad

half are below average and the average is way down

[Octafish]

52. PNAC never left.

Neoliberal. Neoconservative. Doesn't make a bit of difference. Money trumps peace.

Ask Leo Strauss.

[Baitball Blogger]

54. It isn't a question of intelligence.

They are plenty intelligent. It involves indoctrination into a way of life that allows them success by skirting the democratic process. Under a microscope, their subculture is not American by any imagination, but they are adept at wrapping themselves in the flag, or propping their affiliations to church or military service as an alternate to following the tenets of the Constitution.

[MohRokTah]

56. Our form of government is the WORST form of government...

with the exceptions of every other form of government that has been attempted.

[grahamhgreen]

57. Horseshit - from Ending the Wars to Guaranteed Healthcare, the people know best, just check this pol

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.boldprogressives.org/images/Big_Ideas-Polling_PDF-1.pdf

[sailfla]

59. To quote Churchhill

"The best argument against democracy is having a five minute conversation with the average voter"

[lumberjack_jeff]

62. The issue isn't intelligence, it's experience.

The Dunning-Kreuger effect describes the inability of people who lack expertise in a given area to recognize competence in it. "I don't know how to do this, therefore it must be easy".

That effect translates to democracy when the great mass of people lack experience in any form of governance. Not in their unions, not in civics class, not in their churches, not in local politics. It's because of disengagement, the "bowling alone" effect, not idiocracy.

Where once we were citizens, now we're taxpayers... because we understand business transactions.

Trump supporters are less stupid than simply lacking any fucking idea what governance is about.