Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
4-2023
Abstract
How well can social scientists predict societal change, and what processes underlie their predictions? To answer these questions, we ran two forecasting tournaments testing accuracy of predictions of societal change in domains commonly studied in the social sciences: ideological preferences, political polarization, life satisfaction, sentiment on social media, and gender-career and racial bias. Following provision of historical trend data on the domain, social scientists submitted pre-registered monthly forecasts for a year (Tournament 1; N=86 teams/359 forecasts), with an opportunity to update forecasts based on new data six months later (Tournament 2; N=120 teams/546 forecasts). Benchmarking forecasting accuracy revealed that social scientists’ forecasts were on average no more accurate than simple statistical models (historical means, random walk, or linear regressions) or the aggregate forecasts of a sample from the general public (N=802). However, scientists were more accurate if they had scientific expertise in a prediction domain, were interdisciplinary, used simpler models, and based predictions on prior data.
Keywords
Forecasting, Expert judgment, Well-being, Political polarization, Prejudice, Meta-science
Discipline
Experimental Analysis of Behavior | Social Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Nature Human Behaviour
Volume
7
First Page
484
Last Page
501
ISSN
2397-3374
Identifier
10.1038/s41562-022-01517-1
Publisher
Nature Research
Embargo Period
3-16-2023
Citation
GROSSMA, Igor, HARTANTO, Andree, MAJEED, Nadyanna M., & See comments for full list of authors, et al.(2023). Insights into accuracy of social scientists' forecasts of societal change. Nature Human Behaviour, 7, 484-501.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3747
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01517-1