//

The way we perceive the world around us can be completely wrong sometimes.

The research company Ipsos MORI just published the results of a new survey called “Perils of Perception” that reveals some of the biggest misconceptions people have about their own country.

The survey asked citizens from 33 countries to estimate things like the average age of people in their country, how many people live in rural areas, and the size of the immigrant population.

People were way off on most questions.

Keep scrolling to see how much people overestimated or underestimated on each question, or skip straight to the quiz to see how well you know your own country.

In the charts below, the answers are tabulated by country. Red bars are guesses that were too low, and green bars were guesses that were too high. To the far right of the chart the respondent’s average answer and the actual answer are shown for each country. 

Q: What proportion of the total household wealth do you think the wealthiest 1% own?

People tended to overestimate how wealthy the 1% are.

Q: What proportion of the total household wealth do you think the wealthiest 1% should own?

And they thought the 1% should own way less than they really do.

Q: Out of every 100 people aged 20 years or over, how many do you think are either overweight or obese?

People seriously underestimated the obesity rate in their countries.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

from Business Insider http://ift.tt/1lYi2lx