{"id":152,"date":"2017-10-12T20:22:24","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T20:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/?p=152"},"modified":"2017-10-12T20:22:24","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T20:22:24","slug":"reversion-to-the-mean-and-ratings-of-democratic-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/2017\/10\/12\/reversion-to-the-mean-and-ratings-of-democratic-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Reversion to the Mean and Ratings of Democratic Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brightline recently released the report of their third wave of expert surveys concerning the health of U.S. democracy.\u00a0 \u00a0The survey report is here:\u00a0http<\/span><\/span>:\/\/brightlinewatch<\/span><\/span>.org<\/span><\/span>\/blw<\/span><\/span>-survey-wave3\/.<\/p>\n

One of the interesting\u00a0aspects of this wave of the survey is that the authors compare the results of the expert survey with results from a\u00a0YouGov<\/span><\/span>\u00a0survey of the American public.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately I think part of the interpretation of Figure 1 is wrong.\u00a0 The authors write “Far from being\u00a0com\u00adpla\u00adcent<\/span><\/span>, the American public is in many ways more alarmed than political\u00a0sci\u00aden\u00adtists<\/span><\/span>\u00a0are about the health of U.S. democracy.”\u00a0 But I think this interpretation is flawed.\u00a0 My read on Figure 1 is that it shows a reversion to the mean phenomenon.\u00a0 Answers from the public have a larger ‘random’ component in the sense that people miss things or are inaccurate in their perceptions.\u00a0 As a result, the\u00a0public responses tend more towards the center — the 50 percent mark — than the ratings of the experts.\u00a0 It’s not that the public is more\u00a0saguine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0or more alarmed.\u00a0 It’s that the public has views that are more heterogeneous and (perhaps) less well informed.\u00a0 Where the experts are particularly alarmed, the public is more optimistic, and vice-versa.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brightline recently released the report of their third wave of expert surveys concerning the health of U.S. democracy.\u00a0 \u00a0The survey report is here:\u00a0http:\/\/brightlinewatch.org\/blw-survey-wave3\/. One of the interesting\u00a0aspects of this wave of the survey is that the authors compare the results… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/jrichman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}