Perception of Self vrs Perception of Others

The Coffee Shop
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This is a piggy back off of two other threads. First Rob began a thread asking people to fill out a survey regarding actual reality and perception of reality, and how people think they relate. Some how we started talking about immigration, DNA, and guns, at which point DavidinFL and I started discussing how you perceive your own views versus how others perceive your views.

This sparked another thread regarding how I view gun rights and how others perceive themselves as well as myself on the issue. Simply, they were asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 (left) to 10 (right) on the gun ownership issue and to rate their perception of my views as well.

What I (and perhaps david) had expected was that most people would see themselves as centrists while viewing another’s opinion (mine) as being radically left or radically right, depending on where it compared to their own view.

The results didn’t show that. In this small sample, what it tended to show was that those who had views further to one end of the spectrum or another tended to recognize themselves as being to that extreme. What I found particularly interesting was that the further to one end of the spectrum they were, the more they assume that differing opinions must be equally extreme in the other direction. Specifically, those on the left thought I was on the right of the issue. Those on the right thought I was on the left. Those in the center thought I was in the center.

Of interesting note: I had thought that David in FL would have rated himself much higher than he did, yet at the same time I thought he would rate me much lower. To th every same degree that he thought his opinions were less than radical, he thought that mine were less than radical.

I’m not sure what to make of the results, if anything, beyond continuing to observe people and the way they think. On the one hand, I wonder if people who are more radical recognize that in themselves, yet don’t wish to give too much credence to a position with which they disagree with, even if it is a more centered position, so they tend to want to believe that oposing positions are not centrist or comprmises, but rather equally radical. On the other hand, I wonder if they tend to see things more as black and white binary issues. ie…either you see it my way or you don’t. Therefore every scale should be a zero or a one…or in this case we can say a 1 or a 10, with no middle ground.

Once person brought up that point and I’ve seen the concept in the forum before regarding the abortion issue.

I have mixed opinions. I often bring up a conversation I had with my cousin over TG. He recognizes himself as a 10 on conservative issues. He accused me of being a “far left liberal socialist” based solely on the fact that I voted for Obama (as did 55% of the country). However, in the same conversation he explained that the reason why 55% of the country voted for Obama is because a majority of the country are socialists. Roughly 20 minutes later he said that a true conservative would have blown Obama away in the election…because most of the country is conservative. What I had observed here I think is a combination of what I wrote above. The issues are black and white (you’re either with me or against me) and a perception of others that is more about validating one’s own beliefs rather than attempting to understand reality.

Or, as I heard someone once say on the daily show, people don’t want the news to give them facts. They want it to reinforce their pre-conceived worldviews.

Anyway, no offense intended to the people who answered the survey questions. I think most who answered would be regarded as highly intelligent and thoughtful people. There are many issue with which what I wrote above would apply to me as well. I’ve never claimed not to be a wierdo.

Rank ordered summary of results:

Bull_Winkle…1…10
Clutch Cargo…1…8
Locke…2…9.5
Brick …2.5…7.5
Pedalasaurus…3…9
DaveinFL …3…7.5
bcreager…4…10
BarryP …4…4
bmcmaster11…4.5…10
LTin83…5…8
Giant …5…5
NCtri…5…2
Fleck…5.5…1
dkv…6…6.5
Gobux3…6…2
MJuric …6.5…7.5
jsivvy…7…1
LazyBen…8…1.5

BarryP
Average = 4.4
Median = 4.75

Self Rating
Average = 6.1
Median = 7.5

5 people rated themselves between 1 and 2. They gave me an average rating of 6.3 and a median of 6.

5 people rated themselves between 9 and 10. They gave me an average rating of 2.9 and a median of 3.

8 people rated themselves betwwen 4 and 8. They gave me an average rating of 4.1 and a median of 4.5.

http://i44.tinypic.com/fawhgm.jpg

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Barry, I really hope for your sake that you are a better running coach than social scientist… In other words “don’t quit your day job”…

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Thank you for your valuable contribution.

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The center is for pussies afraid to take a stand.

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Screw the “cycling lizard” (TM Rob C in FL), that was interesting.

It would be interesting to see a larger sample size and something more “Scientific”.

My completely uneducated WAG would be that if there was a large standard deviation in the “Delta” (Difference between self and other, yes I’m making this shit up) those that had a large delta would likely be basing not only their own views, but their views of others on less “Factual” and more “Emotional” basis.

Say for instance you tested 100 people on the question of “Rate your position on abortion to (Enter some relatively neutral persons name here) position on abortion”. Let’s say the Standard Deviation is ends up being .5 for the delta. Someone with a delta of 10 is obviously looking at things very differently than the “Group” and again my WAG is that those results are likely based in non fact and or an emotional response.

Another interesting point would be the deviation between the average of the two responses. I think this would have more to do with ones view of ones self and environment.

For instance one person might respond to the above answer placing themselves at a 2 with the other person at 4. Another person might place themselves at 6 with the other person at 8. These two individuals see the same difference between themselves and the “Other person” and to the same side. However they place themselves at a different place on the scale.

It would be quite possible that these two individuals are very similar in belief, but simply have a different perspective of those around them. One could definitely see something like this happening based simply on where one lives and the attitudes around them. The above question asked of a person in CA versus another person in the bible belt for instance.

~Matt

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actually its screw you matt… Considering between you and barry you have almost 20,000 posts on this board and many of them are these long dissertations about how you see the world… for heaven’s sake please tell me there are more important things in your life going on…

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Out of curiosity, I noticed you edited your post. What on earth did it originaly say before you decided calling centrists a bunch of pussies a better response?

; ^ )

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for heaven’s sake please tell me there are more important things in your life going on.

No not really.

~Matt

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actually its screw you matt… Considering between you and barry you have almost 20,000 posts on this board and many of them are these long dissertations about how you see the world… for heaven’s sake please tell me there are more important things in your life going on…

Than conserning ourselves with how much someone else posts on a forum? Yes, there are more important things going on.

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In that conversation with my cousin where he called me a “far left liberal socialist” based solely on the fact that I voted for Obama, I explained to him that I was in the majority. His response was, “Being far left has nothing to do with a bell curve.”

I found that to be intriguing because I would assume that far left, left, center, right, and far right was all about the bell curve. Maybe that’s just because I’m a math guy. I really see no other way to define it when you are talking about issues that really can’t be quantified any other way.

In his world view, however, it seemed that positions on issues are more defined by A) how he defines his own views and B) how he perceives others relative to his own views. For example, he considers himself a conservative and takes enormous pride in it. Center? Might as well not exist. Anyone who disagrees with him is labled far left. He’s always right, end of debate.

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Barry - I think your conclusions are interesting and thought-provoking. I am not altogether certain they are accurate but you acknowledged that so I won’t warn you too strenuously about the risk of relying upon your study.

What I find curious about my assessment of our positions is that I am unwilling to own a gun and think it is unwise, yet I favor less regulation than you, a gun owner. I ranked you at 2.5 because of your willingness to limit ownership to reasonable self-defense. I consider that standard one that is subject to tremendous abuse and could easily result in a near total gun grab. In any event, thanks for doing this. It continues to be interesting. Paul

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Center? Might as well not exist. Anyone who disagrees with him is labled far left. He’s always right, end of debate.

Which, for the most part is an emotional, not a factual, point of view. I would also guess that his “delta”, in comparison to average, would be very large.

So as a N=1, my theory seems to be working :slight_smile:

~Matt

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Thanks Brick. Yeah, the conclusions are certainly well in the biased conjecture stage. Even as far as the small survey is concerned, I was asking triathletes who post in the LR. Hardly representative of the general population. ; ^ )

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Oh, one more thing.

I remember a couple of times expaining the difference between what a think a good gun law would be and my position to tell people what to do. ie…I suggested that all semi-autos should be banned, BUT I don’t think it is anyone’s place to tell people that they should be banned. IOW, I don’t think you should own them, but I also don’t think I should tell you that you can’t. Its a balance of safety vrs. freedom kinda thing, and I value both.

You seem to be on a similar page, but obviously enough different to warrent your ratings.

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So as a N=1, my theory seems to be working :slight_smile:

Quick, get a publisher and get that book written!

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Considering between you and barry you have almost 20,000 posts on this board and many of them are these long dissertations about how you see the world… for heaven’s sake please tell me there are more important things in your life going on…

And yet here you are responding daily to each and every long dissertation. Apparently you also don’t have anything going on in your life. LOL…

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i call it multitasking…:wink:
.

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“First Rob began a thread asking people to fill out a survey regarding actual reality and perception of reality, and how people think they relate.”

Not quite. The survey seeks to determine whether one’s views of reality derive more from looking at reality directly or from the views of other people. I designate the two approaches as POE-orientation (Primacy Of Existence) and POC-orientation (Primacy Of Consciousness) respectively.

The “actual reality” vs. “perception of reality” issue enters in only because POC people don’t tend to focus directly on actual reality and may even deny its existence or think that reality is a matter of perception. In other words, it’s just one indicator of the larger world-view issue.

“In this small sample, what it tended to show was that those who had views further to one end of the spectrum or another tended to recognize themselves as being to that extreme. What I found particularly interesting was that the further to one end of the spectrum they were, the more they assume that differing opinions must be equally extreme in the other direction. Specifically, those on the left thought I was on the right of the issue. Those on the right thought I was on the left. Those in the center thought I was in the center.”

I don’t think the reasons for that are hard to understand. However one defines “left” and “right,” it’s clear that the terms are only measures of degree. In other words, there is no non-arbitrary dividing line between “left” and “right”; it all depends on where you decide to place the origin on your axis, which is a matter of arbitrary convention. If you ask a person whether he is tall or short (as a multiple-choice question), he’ll first wonder for a moment just where you wanted to draw the dividing point. Then, if he (or she) is an adult, he’ll recognize that people usually tend to measure such things relative to the rest of the population, so if he’s taller than average, he’ll answer “tall,” and inversely. (It’ll be fuzzy, though, since the average height may vary from population to population.) OTOH, if you ask him whether YOU are tall or short, he’ll probably tend to view it from his own perspective: If you’re taller than he is, he’ll likely call you “tall,” and inversely. The results you report for “left” and “right” work in just the same way.

The important thing to recognize is that there are no non-arbitrary dividing lines, so it’s rather silly to argue about which category someone falls in unless some convention is established for demarking the boundaries.

“I wonder if people who are more radical recognize that in themselves, yet don’t wish to give too much credence to a position with which they disagree with, even if it is a more centered position, so they tend to want to believe that oposing positions are not centrist or comprmises, but rather equally radical.”

Wow! Have you thought about the implicit premise in that line of thinking? The assumption is that positions that are “radical,” in the sense that they do not conform to the majority of the population, should automatically get less “credence” than those than are “centrist,” in the sense that they fall “in the middle” relative to the views of others. That’s exactly the kind of thinking that would be identified as POC on my test. Of course, it isn’t really clear from your statement whether you’re agreeing with that attitude yourself, or merely identifying it in others.

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My basic response to all of this is to ask why someone would give a damn what others perceive them to be. Just my 1.6 cents worth of opinion.

T.

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My basic response to all of this is to ask why someone would give a damn what others perceive them to be. Just my 1.6 cents worth of opinion.

I answered a similar question to Rob in a PM.

  1. People vote, so its good to be able to have an accurate understanding of what people think and why.

  2. Just curious.