Trump voters too dumb to know how dumb they are

christiefan915

christiefan915

Catalyst
Many commentators have argued that Donald Trump’s dominance in the GOP presidential race can be largely explained by ignorance; his candidacy, after all, is most popular among Republican voters without college degrees. Their expertise about current affairs is too fractured and full of holes to spot that only 9 percent of Trump’s statements are “true” or “mostly” true, according to PolitiFact, whereas 57 percent are “false” or “mostly false”—the remainder being “pants on fire” untruths. Trump himself has memorably declared: “I love the poorly educated.”

But as a psychologist who has studied human behavior—including voter behavior—for decades, I think there is something deeper going on. The problem isn’t that voters are too uninformed. It is that they don’t know just how uninformed they are.

Psychological research suggests that people, in general, suffer from what has become known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. They have little insight about the cracks and holes in their expertise. In studies in my research lab, people with severe gaps in knowledge and expertise typically fail to recognize how little they know and how badly they perform. To sum it up, the knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task—and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at that task. This includes political judgment.

(Continued)

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...rs-dunning-kruger-effect-213904#ixzz49j2TIQ8L

trump_beanie_TOO_BIG.gif
 
Smarts don't always equate to financial earnings but Trump supporters make on the average $10K more than Hillary supporters. What does that say about Hilllary's backers?
 
christiefan915 said:
A lot of us, IMO. After all we are junkies.
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That is very true. I watch my sister with three little kids and a husband who's usually travelling and she's a smart educated woman but she just doesn't have a lot of time to follow politics. She see's headlines and votes but her house is chaos so she has little time to herself.
 
We know that voters generally have higher incomes than non-voters, that primary electorates have higher incomes than general election voters, and that Republicans tend to have higher household incomes than Democrats. But data from previous elections also tells us that Republican voters tend to be older than Democrats. They are more likely to be married and more likely to have more children. And researchers like George Hawley have shown that rising income doesn't correlate with rising support for the Republican Party if income gains are accompanied by higher costs of land or the need for greater educational attainment.

Telling us the household income of Trump supporters without describing the age and number of the earners and dependents tells us not much at all. A 24-year-old single and unmarried Bernie Sanders supporter who makes $28,000 a year may have a college degree and may expect to make a six-figure income by middle age. He may have parents that help him make rent when he comes up short.

But under household-income numbers alone, that Sanders supporter looks more desperate than a Trump supporter who heads a family of five, in which two working parents in their peak earning years make $68,000 as a household. Sometimes being "rich" means you can spend a few years earning $24,000 at a job you love. Sometimes being working class means taking a dangerous job at six figures, but go on disability in your mid-40s. Pay gaps between America's classes are small early in the life-cycle of a career.

And so this raw data leads intelligent journalists to say insane things, as when Matthew Yglesias described the Trump-voting Staten Island as an "affluent" community.

http://theweek.com/articles/623729/myth-donald-trumps-upperclass-support
 
christiefan915 said:
Many commentators have argued that Donald Trump’s dominance in the GOP presidential race can be largely explained by ignorance; his candidacy, after all, is most popular among Republican voters without college degrees. Their expertise about current affairs is too fractured and full of holes to spot that only 9 percent of Trump’s statements are “true” or “mostly” true, according to PolitiFact, whereas 57 percent are “false” or “mostly false”—the remainder being “pants on fire” untruths. Trump himself has memorably declared: “I love the poorly educated.”

But as a psychologist who has studied human behavior—including voter behavior—for decades, I think there is something deeper going on. The problem isn’t that voters are too uninformed. It is that they don’t know just how uninformed they are.

Psychological research suggests that people, in general, suffer from what has become known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. They have little insight about the cracks and holes in their expertise. In studies in my research lab, people with severe gaps in knowledge and expertise typically fail to recognize how little they know and how badly they perform. To sum it up, the knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task—and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at that task. This includes political judgment.

(Continued)

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...rs-dunning-kruger-effect-213904#ixzz49j2TIQ8L

trump_beanie_TOO_BIG.gif
Click to expand...

Ah yes, the typical everyone who doesn't agree with me is just stupid philosophy.

Sadly those people who make such arguments never understand that it says so much more about them than it does the millions of people they are trying to insult and call dumb.
 
Fale said:
Ah yes, the typical everyone who doesn't agree with me is just stupid philosophy. Sadly those people who make such arguments never understand that it says so much more about them than it does the millions of people they are trying to insult and call dumb.
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I see you self-identified.

Fale said:
Experience is the best teacher. There is no substitute for experience. Not education. Not theory.
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