This level of inaccuracy is startling given that
approximately 40 percent of our sample of 268
students were attending one of the most selective
public institutions of higher education in
the United States (the University of California,
Berkeley). We have explored the correlates of
this particular misconception in a variety of
ways. We looked at the performance on this
question as a function of students’ level of reading
volume and television watching. We
observed a clear effect of reading volume on the
scores on the question and a significant effect of
television viewing, but the effects were in opposite
directions! Reading volume was associated
with higher scores on the question, but television
exposure was associated with lower scores.
Scores among the group high in reading volume
and low in television exposure were highest,
and the lowest scores were achieved by those
high in television exposure and low in reading
volume. Our analyses confirmed that these
relationships were not due to differences in
general ability.