The Perils of Perception

"Perils of Perception is a new book by Bobby Duffy, formerly a pollster and now director of the Policy Institute at King’s College, London. It’s about the things that we misperceive, and how that changes how we see the world—our political decisions. The thing which Duffy does very well in the book is he sets out quite dense numerical and psychological topics in a way that is lucid and accessible for almost anyone. He also does a really good job of dispelling the post-Trump (or post-Brexit) idea of people having misconceptions about the state of the world as a phenomenon that began in June 2016, driven by Facebook. It’s actually about the ways we’re hardwired to operate as human beings. It’s a combination of both his disciplines: his long career as a pollster, his background as a student in psychology. It’s just a fascinating insight into how we all think, including some really brilliant stuff about the things we all get wrong. So, when you ask people to guess how many people in the population are over 65, we always think the number is more than it actually is. If you ask them about how many teenage pregnancies there are, we always think it’s more than it is. Of course, some of that is driven by the press, but it’s not like there’s a large press conspiracy to tell us that there are more over-65s than there are. Despite the fact that it’s not a polemical book, it does, in an odd way I think, make you feel slightly more optimistic. A lot of the books that came out immediately after Trump’s election and Brexit—which mostly weren’t very good—wanted to set up this idea that it’s because people have been deluded by technology or apps or whatever. That makes you feel quite depressed and worried. Although he’s not saying that these things aren’t factors, what he posits is the notion that these are not new problems—which does, in an odd way, make you feel that we might again overcome them. Yes, I was called up by Populus, a British pollster, and it was a really surreal experience. Obviously I’ve written and read loads about one of the things which is really maddening for pollsters—social desirability bias. Social desirability bias is when instead of giving the truthful answer, you answer a question with what you think the right answer to be. and you want them to give a truthful answer, not what they think the right answer is. They basically asked: “What are your perceptions of the Royal Air Force?” The questions were incredibly fair and un-slanted. They weren’t trying to get me to give a specific answer. I could tell they didn’t want me to go, ‘Oh, no, I do associate the Royal Air Force with service and strong values,’ but I couldn’t do it. The question which really tripped me up was: ‘Would you say you felt proud of the British Air Force?’ I thought, ‘Is there an option for neither proud nor un-proud?!’ It was really one of those odd things. It was surreal to have that experience of social desirability bias directly. Yeah."