Who Really Won the "Debate"?

This past Tuesday afternoon, October 16th, Jimmy Kimmel Live asked people off the street, "Who won 'last night's' debate?"

 

The rub?  The debate between President Obama and Governor Romney actually took place that Tuesday evening.  So, as of that afternoon, there was no debate the night before.  On the face of it, these people made for a hilarious video, commenting on a debate that hadn't taken place.  Chuckles and guffaws, all around.

Let's step back, and reflect on this.

The scientific slant

It may be easy to conclude that the average America is ignorant or dishonest, as some YouTube viewers suggested, but I say, Not so fast!  We do not know how many people the producers actually interviewed, and what proportion this handful of unfortunate souls, who made it on video, represented.   

To draw a conclusion about a group of people requires proper statistics and research methods.  There are over 300 million Americans, for example, and it is categorically impractical to interview every single one of them, in order to determine the population's characteristics, such as knowledge and honesty.  

Social scientists, then, resort to random sampling.  In brief, they may secure an enormous list of phone numbers and e-mail addresses, and randomly select, say, 1000 people to contact.  This process can be as simple and silly as putting each of their names into a large basket, shaking it well, and picking out one name at a time.  The point is, there mustn't be any bias or prejudice in the selection of these 1000 people.

The sample size itself has to be large enough to lend 'power' to the statistical analysis, and social scientists determine this figure on a study-by-study basis. 

So the producers may have kept approaching people, until they had the handful who were funny enough to air on the show.  But to conclude that Americans were ignorant or dishonest from this episode is patently unfair and wrong.  The colorful language, notwithstanding, this particular viewer had it right:

People. These are not representative. I could walk around Hollywood and ask random people if they worship Satan. I might have to go through 4-500 interviews but I'm sure I could pull a couple idiots. No one knows how many people needed to be interviewed to find these dumbasses.    

The internet slant

In general, there may be two camps regarding the accuracy or truthfulness of stuff on the internet. One is dismissive, and relies just minimally on information culled online.  The other is believing, and looks at it and reacts to it as if it were in fact, well, fact.

That said, let me mention this.  I'm working on a film project on bullying, so when I stumbled on an article about a young lady who was bullied and recently committed suicide, I took immediate notice, read it through, and clicked on a link to watch a video of her.  Needless to say, I was saddened by her story, and angered at the perpetrators.  

Then, I made myself pause, breathe, and reflect.  I have much research to do on this terrible issue, and I have to remind myself to keep a skeptical mind on what I watch, read, and hear about.  The marvel of the internet is the absolute wealth of information, accessible literally at our fingertips.  The challenge, as they say, is to separate 'the wheat from the chaff.'  It is not so easy to distinguish the real and accurate, from the fake and erroneous.

I propose a third camp, in between the dismissive and the believing camps I mentioned above, which is open but cautious to the breathtaking fare of information online.  It is always a good idea to check multiple, trustworthy sources to help us determine the accuracy of a story.  

This segment from The Jimmy Kimmel Live looks genuine, but the vast majority of us are not privy to the strategizing and planning that they go through in closed quarters.  So we don't know for sure.    

The psychological slant

We seem prone to doctor our stories, in order to make ourselves look as good as possible in the eyes of others.  This leads us to look at things and describe them in certain ways.  There is enough evidence suggesting that if we were to have 100 people witness the same, particular event, we'd come away with multiple versions of the story.  We're just not in sync on many things, it seems.

In part, this is due to the real limitations and pitfalls of the thinking machine in our head.  What we pay attention to, what we say and do, how we relate, are often narrowly determined.  Also, in part, it can be attributed to what psychologists call 'social desirability.'  That is, we fashion our outward persona, as best as we can, in ways that others expect and value and, in our parlance nowadays, simply like.

So, assuming this video is in fact genuine, we find this handful of people exposed for their baldfaced misrepresentations.  Lies, dishonesty, and foolishness, we can add.

But at the end of the day, I would like to say they represent a real part of our humanity.  The irony is that they probably speak true to many of us watching them:  we, who are selectively attentive, occasionally reactive, and often keen to impress.

So, laugh at them, but only for the sake of a genuine, harmless fun.  Let's not laugh at them harshly.  

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD