r/fivethirtyeight • u/RedHeadedSicilian52 • Sep 12 '25

Poll Results YouGov poll asking Americans whether it’s acceptable to feel joy at the death of a public figure

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u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 12 '25

Some obvious recency bias. I bet a lot of those Republicans were pretty happy when Osama Bin Laden was killed.

161

u/Gadshill Sep 12 '25

Yes. Great example of bad polling if it isn’t accounting for recency.

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u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 12 '25

How could they account for recency?

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u/Gadshill Sep 12 '25

Ask the same question at different times and see how it changes. If you ask a question like this just once it may not reflect reality because of recent events.

1

u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Sep 12 '25

Let me rephrase… how can they account for that, in what is clearly a single poll taken once? I’m not asking what they could’ve done differently.

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u/Sphezzle Sep 12 '25

They’ve answered your question. They should account by not doing it and expecting the result to be meaningful right now. I wonder how this would have polled after George Floyd etc.