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Why Do Voters Often Undersell Their Ignorance of Politics?
Insights from the Field
political knowledge
self-awareness
electoral behavior
public opinion
Political Behavior
Pol. Behav.
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3 datasets
2 LaTeX files
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Dataverse
Self-Awareness of Political Knowledge was authored by Matthew Graham. It was published by Springer in Pol. Behav. in 2020.

### What It Means

This article examines how voters perceive their own political knowledge. Contrary to what many assume, people frequently underestimate their understanding—or overestimate it—of complex political topics.

### How the Study Was Done

Researchers surveyed respondents about their confidence in politics while testing their actual factual grasp through controlled experiments and standardized questionnaires.

### Key Findings

  • Voters display measurable gaps between self-assessment and reality across all demographic groups
  • These misperceptions are statistically significant but vary by political topic, region, or ideology
  • The findings suggest widespread epistemic humility about complex governance issues exists among citizens globally

### Why It Matters

Understanding this phenomenon helps explain voter behavior patterns in democratic systems. The results can inform future research on descriptive representation and public opinion dynamics.

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Political Behavior
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