Posts by BenWilson
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to BenWilson,
If you’re using means for the others, you should compare to a mean.
That said, if you compare medians instead, the median self reporting is 5, but for Labour it’s 3 and National it’s 8. So the median opinion on Labour’s position is that it’s closer to the self-reported median than National. And National is more skewed on this measure. Labour’s mean is higher than it’s median by 0.46. National’s mean is lower than its median by 0.78.
Ironically, in statistics terminology this means that the Labour data is right skewed and the National data is left skewed. Well, probably. Looking at these two graphs it looks like it.
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Fixed. Now we have 11 bars...
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I guess the only real turn up in that graph is that the sample rated ACT and National as about as right wing as each other. It's a little hard to see, because I used yellow for ACT, but it's also nearly overlaid by National's line.
Arse, I notice the x scale got fucked up...will redo
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to Sacha,
Your wish is my command :-)
The colored lines are the mean positions that the sample put the parties at. I also put on the mean of the self reported positioning - it has the solid black line.
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to Rob Salmond,
Not quite, because that same sample rate Labour closer to the ideological median than National. Labour average rating is 3.46, National is 7.22. Same pattern holds for people who self-identify as a 5.
OK, but the median is 5, because this is an integer value and that's by far the biggest group...the mean is 5.44. If you're using means for the others, you should compare to a mean. And National is closer to that than Labour.
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to Sacha,
That might explain the FPP flavour then.
Yes, and it goes to my second comment - that self-identification makes a lot more sense to me than what Rob used. That's Rob's definition of a centrist - is it better than Chris Trotters? I don't know. Certainly if we're going with the vibe of:
But rule 2 in politics is “perception is reality.” That includes the perceptions of people you might not agree with. If they think they’re in the middle, then they are.
...then you have to conclude that actually a lot more people are right wing than left wing...right off the bat. Because that's what they said they were.
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Just for comparison, then I have to split: Piccy of the proportions….hope it works.
ETA: Yay!
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Not that I have a better way of interpreting their centrism necessarily. But looking at self-identification, it seems to me that the numbers on the left are much less than the one-third you put into the post. People answering with 0 through to 4 (where 5 was dead center) only total 30% of the total respondants (excluding non respondants and don’t knows). That’s an upper limit on left-of-center as self-reported. Whereas the right side, respondant answering 6 through to 10 were 45% of the total – more than twice as many people self reported being on that side as on the left.
(Having fun with this data, btw…practicing some R)
ETA: For comparison, the score of 5 covered the other 25%. And corrected my above number for the left to 30%...
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to Rob Salmond,
The people I’ve labelled centrists here place Labour to the left of their self-placement, and place National to the right of their self-placement.
Interesting way of doing it, rather than just using their own self-identification itself. So you yourself are defining centrist in terms of its relation to Labour and National, which is not how the respondents did it.
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I ask this because self-identifying as centrist is not the way a lot of people use the term. They use it to mean “people in the center” although they seldom explain in detail how they define the center.
ETA: Furthermore, when they do define the center, it’s often the case that it’s a different definition for different people. Which is why defining it is something people often won’t do.
ETA2: Which is furthermore why I find using self-identification as a better way of doing it. At least that part is indisputable. It doesn't matter if other people think I'm not centrist - it matters what I think.
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