The reason for our interest in this subject is because we have previously been sold on the concept of the wisdom of crowds. In most countries the actual figure spent on health hovers at around 10% to 12% of GDP (in the US it is higher at around 18%) but the general population always over estimates the proportion, guessing that it is somewhere between 20% and 30%. For example, if we were to ask what percentage of our GDP is spent on health each year in our country, the chances are we would say the figure is a much higher figure than reality. Rather we want to point out that there are some subjects on which the consensus of the general public is pretty poor and could even be misleading. Our intention is not to mock you for being poor at perceiving reality. In other words, you and your fellow citizens are very unreliable barometers of the truth. These are stats that are echoed in the US with 49% estimating that people are happy when the actual value is 90%. If you are in the UK you probably estimated that just less than 50% of your fellow citizens are happy when in fact more than 90% say that this is the case. You underestimated the happiness figure just as did most of your fellow citizens. The answers to this question we show in the graph at the bottom of this blog. Let us begin today’s blog with a simple question – “When asked in a survey, what percentage of people in your country do you think said they are happy?”.
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