The Monmouth University Polling Institute and the Gannett New Jersey newspaper group just released a series of polls assessing New Jersey\u2019s reaction to Governor Corzine\u2019s toll hike plan and budget proposal. One of the questions I am frequently asked as a pollster is if the public can truly understand what\u2019s going on, particularly in terms of the details.<\/p>\n
My response is that while most individuals do not absorb all the finer points of public policy, the body politic tends to \u201cget it\u201d even for complex issues. This view has its roots in the concept of \u201ccollective wisdom\u201d \u2013 the idea that the knowledge of a group qua group is superior to that of the vast majority of its members.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the best known demonstration of collective wisdom in action was recorded during the turn of the 20th century. Sir Francis Galton, an anthropologist and statistician \u2013 and relative of Charles Darwin \u2013 was attending a county fair and became intrigued by a competition to guess the weight of an ox. He watched as 800 local residents attempted a guess, but no one came up with the animal\u2019s actual weight \u2013 1,198 pounds. Curious about the villagers\u2019 apparently universal lack of estimating ability, Galton recorded each of their guesses and calculated the average estimate for the entire group. It turned out to be 1,197 pounds!<\/p>\n
Journalist James Surowiecki recounts this episode in his book The Wisdom of Crowds<\/em>. Surowiecki posits that \u201cunder the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.\u201d<\/p>\n What does that mean for public opinion polls, especially those that ask the public to assess complex spending and financial restructuring issues? Well, the public might not know every line in a budget, but they can develop a pretty good sense of whether they trust the approach that is taken by their political leaders. And collectively, they can be pretty on-target in understanding the scope of an issue.<\/p>\n So, the Monmouth University\/Gannett New Jersey Poll tried an experiment. We asked New Jersey residents to estimate exactly how much debt the state is in. Among the two-thirds of poll respondents brave enough to hazard a guess, only about 10% were able to come within $5 billion of the actual figure (which is somewhere between $30 and $32 billion, depending on who you ask). However, when all the guesses were averaged together, the collective estimate stood at an amazingly accurate $31.6 billion!<\/p>\n