The Forecasting Collaborative
Insights into the accuracy of social scientists’ forecasts of societal change
The Forecasting Collaborative; Grossmann, Igor; Rotella, Amanda; Hutcherson, Cendri A.; Sharpinskyi, Konstantyn; Varnum, Michael E. W.; Achter, Sebastian; Dhami, Mandeep K.; Guo, Xinqi Evie; Kara-Yakoubian, Mane; Mandel, David R.; Raes, Louis; Tay, Louis; Vie, Aymeric; Wagner, Lisa; Adamkovic, Matus; Arami, Arash; Arriaga, Patrícia; Bandara, Kasun; Baník, Gabriel; Bartoš, František; Baskin, Ernest; Bergmeir, Christoph; Białek, Michał; Børsting, Caroline K.; Browne, Dillon T.; Caruso, Eugene M.; Chen, Rong; Chie, Bin-Tzong; Chopik, William J.; Collins, Robert N.; Cong, Chin Wen; Conway, Lucian G.; Davis, Matthew; Day, Martin V.; Dhaliwal, Nathan A.; Durham, Justin D.; Dziekan, Martyna; Elbaek, Christian T.; Shuman, Eric; Fabrykant, Marharyta; Firat, Mustafa; Fong, Geoffrey T.; Frimer, Jeremy A.; Gallegos, Jonathan M.; Goldberg, Simon B.; Gollwitzer, Anton; Goyal, Julia; Graf-Vlachy, Lorenz; Gronlund, Scott D.; Hafenbrädl, Sebastian; Hartanto, Andree; Hirshberg, Matthew J.; Hornsey, Matt...
Authors
Igor Grossmann
Amanda Rotella
Cendri A. Hutcherson
Konstantyn Sharpinskyi
Michael E. W. Varnum
Sebastian Achter
Mandeep K. Dhami
Xinqi Evie Guo
Mane Kara-Yakoubian
David R. Mandel
Louis Raes
Louis Tay
Aymeric Vie
Lisa Wagner
Matus Adamkovic
Arash Arami
Patrícia Arriaga
Kasun Bandara
Gabriel Baník
František Bartoš
Ernest Baskin
Christoph Bergmeir
Michał Białek
Caroline K. Børsting
Dillon T. Browne
Eugene M. Caruso
Rong Chen
Bin-Tzong Chie
William J. Chopik
Robert N. Collins
Chin Wen Cong
Lucian G. Conway
Matthew Davis
Martin V. Day
Nathan A. Dhaliwal
Justin D. Durham
Martyna Dziekan
Christian T. Elbaek
Eric Shuman
Marharyta Fabrykant
Mustafa Firat
Geoffrey T. Fong
Jeremy A. Frimer
Jonathan M. Gallegos
Simon B. Goldberg
Anton Gollwitzer
Julia Goyal
Lorenz Graf-Vlachy
Scott D. Gronlund
Sebastian Hafenbrädl
Andree Hartanto
Matthew J. Hirshberg
Matthew J. Hornsey
Piers D. L. Howe
Anoosha Izadi
Bastian Jaeger
Pavol Kačmár
Yeun Joon Kim
Ruslan Krenzler
Daniel G. Lannin
Hung-Wen Lin
Nigel Mantou Lou
Verity Y. Q. Lua
Aaron W. Lukaszewski
Albert L. Ly
CHRISTOPHER MADAN CHRISTOPHER.MADAN@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Assistant Professor
Maximilian Maier
Nadyanna M. Majeed
David S. March
Abigail A. Marsh
Michal Misiak
Kristian Ove R. Myrseth
Jaime M. Napan
Jonathan Nicholas
Konstantinos Nikolopoulos
Jiaqing O
Tobias Otterbring
Mariola Paruzel-Czachura
Shiva Pauer
John Protzko
Quentin Raffaelli
Ivan Ropovik
Robert M. Ross
Yefim Roth
Espen Røysamb
Landon Schnabel
Astrid Schütz
Matthias Seifert
A. T. Sevincer
Garrick T. Sherman
Otto Simonsson
Ming-Chien Sung
Chung-Ching Tai
Thomas Talhelm
Bethany A. Teachman
Philip E. Tetlock
Dimitrios Thomakos
Dwight C. K. Tse
Oliver J. Twardus
Joshua M. Tybur
Lyle Ungar
Daan Vandermeulen
Leighton Vaughan Williams
Hrag A. Vosgerichian
Qi Wang
Ke Wang
Mark E. Whiting
Conny E. Wollbrant
Tao Yang
Kumar Yogeeswaran
Sangsuk Yoon
Ventura R. Alves
Jessica R. Andrews-Hanna
Paul A. Bloom
Anthony Boyles
Loo Charis
Mingyeong Choi
Sean Darling-Hammond
Z. E. Ferguson
Cheryl R. Kaiser
Simon T. Karg
Alberto López Ortega
Lori Mahoney
Melvin S. Marsh
Marcellin F. R. C. Martinie
Eli K. Michaels
Philip Millroth
Jeanean B. Naqvi
Weiting Ng
Robb B. Rutledge
Peter Slattery
Adam H. Smiley
Oliver Strijbis
Daniel Sznycer
Eli Tsukayama
Austin van Loon
Jan G. Voelkel
Margaux N. A. Wienk
Tom Wilkening
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 the 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. After we provided them with historical trend data on the relevant domain, social scientists submitted pre-registered monthly forecasts for a year (Tournament 1; N = 86 teams and 359 forecasts), with an opportunity to update forecasts on the basis of new data six months later (Tournament 2; N = 120 teams and 546 forecasts). Benchmarking forecasting accuracy revealed that social scientists’ forecasts were on average no more accurate than those of simple statistical models (historical means, random walks 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.
Citation
The Forecasting Collaborative, Grossmann, I., Rotella, A., Hutcherson, C. A., Sharpinskyi, K., Varnum, M. E. W., …Wilkening, T. (2023). Insights into the accuracy of social scientists’ forecasts of societal change. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(4), 484-501. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01517-1
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Dec 19, 2022 |
Online Publication Date | Feb 9, 2023 |
Publication Date | Apr 1, 2023 |
Deposit Date | May 16, 2023 |
Publicly Available Date | Aug 10, 2023 |
Journal | Nature Human Behaviour |
Electronic ISSN | 2397-3374 |
Publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 7 |
Issue | 4 |
Pages | 484-501 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01517-1 |
Keywords | Behavioral Neuroscience; Experimental and Cognitive Psychology; Social Psychology |
Public URL | https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/17087610 |
Publisher URL | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01517-1 |
Additional Information | Received: 26 June 2022; Accepted: 19 December 2022; First Online: 9 February 2023; : The authors declare no competing interests.; Free to read: This content has been made available to all. |
Files
Forecasting Collaborative Grossmann NHB
(3.5 Mb)
PDF
You might also like
Shock and awe: distinct effects of taboo words on lexical decision and free recall
(2017)
Journal Article
Priming memories of past wins induces risk seeking
(2014)
Journal Article
Temporal summation of global form signals in dynamic glass patterns
(2014)
Journal Article
High reward makes items easier to remember, but harder to bind to a new temporal context
(2012)
Journal Article
Cortical complexity as a measure of age-related brain atrophy
(2016)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Repository@Nottingham
Administrator e-mail: discovery-access-systems@nottingham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search