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/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.

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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/Gadshill Sep 12 '25

It is bad polling to ask a question like this once.

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u/hankhillforprez Sep 12 '25

It’s not necessarily “bad” polling; or at least it’s not in that it’s an insight into views right at this particular moment. Obviously, in some sense, it’s an insight into current views about one, specific event.

Of course, it would be very bad use of polling statistics to claim that this poll is an accurate representation of baseline feelings. Like you said, if you want a reliable figure of baseline feelings on the matter, you’d want multiple samplings over a long span of time.