Someone (who has yet to provide me with their name) posted an interesting subject in a previous article. I wanted to post it here – in case anyone else views this site =) – because it’s worth thinking about as it’s own topic. Here’s what this person said:
“I was reminded of a radio program that I was listening to this morning. There was something like 70% of people in a survey who were bothered daily by people who cussed, but there were only 8% who said that they cussed on a daily basis. I find this to be a little difficult to grasp. Does everybody seem to interact with those 8% of the sample group? Or is it that people say what they think others want to hear.”
So, what we have here is a survey that seems to be contradictory. 70% of people say they are bothered daily by people who cuss, but only 8% “admit” to cussing on a regular basis. Here’s my idea of what happened in this survey. Let me know what you think.
It seems like this contradiction could only happen by a flaw in the surveyor’s techniques, lack of specificity, or “dishonesty” =) (from previous article). Here’s what I mean:
#1: Flaw in Techniques:
Let’s say you do this survey at a church. Let’s say 90% say they are bothered by cussing on a regular basis. Then you ask the same group how many of them cuss. Maybe 2% admit to it. This is a simple problem of bad surveying, in that the percentages don’t represent the larger community of a people, but one group within a culture, which makes it biased and inaccurate
#2: Lack of Specificity:
There may be a conflict in definitions that would make this survey difficult. Examples:
Ex.1: Bothered: It could be that 70% are actually bothered by 8% who cuss, whereas another 22% of people (who themselves do not cuss) aren’t actually bothered by it.
Ex.2: Cussing: Some don’t consider cr*p, p*ss, or d*mn to be cussing. So, some who are bothered by cussing might actually be cussing by someone else’s standards but say, “H*ll no, I don’t cuss on a regular basis.”
#3: Dishonesty:
I have known those who cuss up a storm who, when confronted, also whole-heartedly deny it to the death. There might be those who would say they are bothered by cussing and would also deny cussing, when they do actually cuss up a storm in certain situations.
#4: My conclusion:
The fact that there are many more people saying they are bothered by cussing than people admitting to cussing means one or more of the following occurred:
a) Flaw in Technique
b) Lack of Specificity
c) Dishonesty
I think that you have made some very valid points; I’m not familiar with the method of the survey, I just heard it. It reminded me of another survey that I came across while doing research for a paper:
in numerous surveys taken in the past “x” years, close to 40% of Americans surveyed say that they regularly attend church. When Protestant and Catholic church leaders actually counted heads on Sundays and compared those numbers with directory data, it was found that only 10-20% of congregations attended regularly.
So using your points, let’s take a glance at this survey…
1)Techniques:
The sample groups aren’t taken into consideration for there to be enough variety of the US culture as a whole.
2)Specificity:
This is easy…what is meant by “regularly?” weekly, monthly, or regularly on Easter and Christmas.
3)Dishonesty:
I still want to come back to this…
The USA is usually thought to be a Christian country (although that concept often scares me). It seems like we have churches every few blocks in metropolitan areas. When Christian topics come up, don’t we as a society want to be seens as good or “christian” people? Therefore, a person would say that they regularly attend church, becasue that is the expected and desired response.
THEREFORE:
Is this malicious dishonesty? I think that we are often dishonest, sometimes without even realizing it, or easily shrugging it off. Hence the speeding illustration, or telling white lies. Is this ok? No, it’s an easy scapegoat so that we don’t have to face our own dishonesty.
Ha ha, very good stuff.
I think too that you made some important points about the flaws that can occur in surveys in general.
However, I’m wondering if the “flaw” in this survey is not really a “flaw” after all. What I mean is, while there can certainly be flaws in Technique, Specificity, and Dishonesty…..could there be a more common problem with survey results. Our interpretation of them!
In this case, there appears to be a conflict between the 70% result and the 8% result. We’re not really sure intuitively if the numbers should be closer to the same number….or if they should add up closer to 100%….or even what the numbers are really telling us about the behavior / experience of the people surveyed.
We might try to make sense of the results in this way. There are three possible groups of people out there.
(1) Those who cuss, and dont mind it.
(2) Those who dont cuss, and are offended.
(3) Those (like myself) who dont cuss, but are not offended.
(Of course there could be a fourth group…those who do cuss and also are offended. Likely this is an insignificant percentage.)
If the number of people offended is 70%….then the remaining 30% are not offended. Since there are two groups left, both not offended, we would expect that the group that does the daily cussing would be smaller than that 30%. (Some not classifying themselves as daily cussers and others not cussing at all.)
So, indeed, the results could make sense from this point of view….but, in the end, do not really tell us very much.
More interestingly, how could the 70% of people be offended by only 8% of the people. Perhaps this also has a simple explanation.
The surveyed group is not likely a “controlled” group. In other words, lets say 1000 people participated in the survey. The surveyers could not have asked if the surveyees were offended specifically by other members of the controlled group. The 70% group is likely saying that in all of their interactions with all people in their world they get offended daily. So the 70% are not likely complaining specifically about the 8%…they are making a broader statement about themselves and the situations they find themselves in.
Finally, some of surveyees could honestly answer that they do not cuss daily. So, even if there was a “controlled” group….there could conceivably be an arrangement where many people cuss infrequently. If the group is mixed sufficiently the results of the same survey could be:
100% of the group is offended daily and 0% of the group cuss daily. Then we’d really have some explaining to do.
Bottom line is that the survey results have absolutely no correlation. So, while they appear odd or contradictory they really have nothing to do with each other. It would be like saying, “it seems like everytime I get a pay raise, they increase the price of gas”. The two have nothing to do with each other, even if it feels like they do.
What do you think?
Very insightful! I fully agree that there is a flaw in the logic and interpretation of these results!
I was thinking about this again the other night (I’ve been real busy so couldn’t come back here sooner), and I was sort of thinking the same thing, but my thought process kind of went like this:
There is a logical flaw in how the Radio hosts presented the data. It does not logically follow that the 70% who are offended “daily” can only be offended by the 8% who cuss “daily”. There is another 22% who apparently don’t cuss daily, but aren’t offended by those who cuss.
It’s this 22% that isn’t accounted for. Some don’t cuss but aren’t offended, and some cuss but not daily. Of these, those that cuss but aren’t offended are also those who are offending the 70%.
So you’re right, the percentages aren’t exactly related. It might be of more significance to find out how many admit to cussing “at all”, and compare that number to those who don’t cuss “at all” and are offended.