MISCOUNTING RACE: EXPLAINING WHITES’
MISPERCEPTIONS OF RACIAL GROUP SIZE
CHARLES A. GALLAGHER
Georgia State University
ABSTRACT: Survey research has documented the extent to which
whites misperceive the size of the nonwhite population in the United
States. However, the sociological reasons for this and the implications for
race relations has yet to be adequately explored. This study uses individual
interviews, focus groups, and opened-ended surveys to examine the explanations white respondents offer for inflating the size of U.S. minority populations. My findings suggest that the media, residential segregation,
racial stereotypes, and perception of group threat each contribute to whites’
underestimation of the size of the white population and the inflation of
group size among racial minorities. How misperceptions of racial group
size may inform race relations research is examined.
The extent to which whites overestimate the nonwhite population and underestimate the white population is well documented. A 2001 Gallup poll found that the
“average American” thinks the United States is 33 percent black, almost three
times the actual percentage (Gallup 2001). A recent poll conducted by the Kaiser
Foundation found that whites estimated the black population at 29 percent, more
than twice the actual number (Kaiser Family Foundation 2001). Another study
found that 54 percent of the U.S. population thinks that blacks account for at least
30 percent of the population, with almost one in seven believing they comprise
more than 50 percent of the total population (Nadeau, Niemi, and Levine 1993). A
Kaiser Family Foundation survey in 1995 found that white Americans believe the
United States is 50 percent white (Patterson 1997). It appears that a sizable number of white Americans go about their day thinking that whites are a thin majority
nationally and that nonwhites, lumped together, are as large or larger than the
white population. The actual census...