Barnfield Matthew, Phillips Joseph, Stoeckel Florian, Lyons Benjamin, Szewach Paula, Thompson Jack, Mérola Vittorio, Stöckli Sabrina, Reifler Jason
Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
Lecturer, School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Public Opin Q. 2025 May 9;89(1):185-200. doi: 10.1093/poq/nfaf003. eCollection 2025 Spring.
Quantitative forecasts have become increasingly prominent as tools for aiding public understanding of sociopolitical trends. But how much, and what, do people learn from quantitative forecasts? In this note, we show through a preregistered survey experiment that real forecasts of the 2022 French presidential election significantly affect expectations of the election result. The direction of that effect hinges on how the forecast is presented. Voters become more accurate and precise in their predictions of each candidate's vote share when given forecast information in the form of projected vote share. Forecasts presented as numerical probabilities make such expectations accurate and precise. When combined, the effects of both forms on vote share expectations tend to cancel out, but jointly boost voters' ability to identify likely winners. Our findings have implications for the public communication of quantitative information.
作为帮助公众理解社会政治趋势的工具，定量预测变得越来越重要。但是，人们从定量预测中学到了多少以及学到了什么呢？在本笔记中，我们通过一项预先注册的调查实验表明，对2022年法国总统选举的实际预测会显著影响对选举结果的预期。这种影响的方向取决于预测的呈现方式。当以预计选票份额的形式提供预测信息时，选民对每位候选人选票份额的预测会变得更加准确和精确。以数字概率形式呈现的预测会使这些预期准确且精确。当这两种形式结合时，它们对选票份额预期的影响往往会相互抵消，但共同提高了选民识别可能获胜者的能力。我们的研究结果对定量信息的公众传播具有启示意义。
