POSC150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: The Literary Digest
Document Summary
The miracle of aggregation : individuals make mistakes. Many people don"t actually know: if you add those mistakes up, then they cancel each other out. On a whole, getting close to the right answer: only works if the mistakes are random. Not work if not guessing randomly and have a bit of. Information shortcuts information: ways of influencing things from info you have to make up for info you don"t have. Using limited information to make decisions is something that everyone does every single day. Very common: assuming someone"s party based on the beliefs expressed is the most common shortcut, this only works if the shortcut is accurate. Issue public: voters who care about one issue. They know a lot about one issue if they care very strongly about it and will vote based on that issue: but they tend to be more extreme.