Only 12% of People Think This is 'a' Penguin

And why that should matter to you

It was a sunny afternoon when my family found ourselves laughing at the antics of our mischievous little cat, Tigger.

He had taken a liking to our neighbor's flowerbed. Something about those elegant purple phloxes just screamed at him to make a tiny deposit as often as he could. Perhaps he felt he owned them, in only a way a cat could think.

To us, it seemed like playful behavior, and hey, perhaps Tigger was just helping fertilize those beautiful blooms that made the neighborhood a little brighter.

But of course, our neighbor didn't share our amusement. To her, Tigger was a menace, a tiny furball of terror that was desecrating her cherished garden.

One could often spot her brandishing a broom, swinging it wildly at Tigger, trying to shoo him away. But Tigger was swift, darting around with a mischievous glint in his eye, always eluding capture.

The scene, though comical, was a vivid depiction of contrasting perceptions.

What we saw as innocent fun, our neighbor saw as utter nuisance. Eventually, after a few calls from the city and threats to apprehend our furry companion, Tigger became an indoor cat — well, whenever he wasn't quick enough to slip outside.

Recalling this everyday encounter got me thinking a bit.

Here was a common scenario, a friendly spat between otherwise friendly neighbors. Yet the interpretations of the catscapades were as different as night and day.

How often do we come across situations where what seems clear as daylight to us is a perplexing enigma to others?

It's easy to understand that people have different tastes in food, art, or politics. But could it be that even with simple, straightforward things, we're not quite on the same page?

I See What You See?

Take a term as basic as 'penguin' for instance. You'd think we all have a similar image in mind; a cute, chubby, waddling bird in a tuxedo perhaps?

Well, Dr. Celeste Kidd and a group of researchers at U.C. Berkley decided to dive into this simple notion, and what they discovered was both amusing and astonishing.

Turns out, when it comes to understanding even the plainest of nouns, we're more of a mixed bag than a unified front.

The researchers engaged nearly 1,800 individuals in a quirky test, asking them questions such as comparing penguins to finchs or dolphins, and others such as if a penguin was considered noisy or not. Through some number-crunching magic, they figured there were about 10 to 30 different ways people were picturing a penguin.

But here’s the kicker — if you randomly pick two people, there's only a 12% chance they're thinking of a penguin in the same way.

Imagine that, something as simple as a penguin, and take 100 people, and only 12 actually think they consist of the same weight, look, feel, and noise level.

Idiotic, right?

But wait, how does a penguin look, feel, and sound?

If you asked me, I’d say your typical waddling quacker is around 3 feet tall, barks a lot in a quietish tone, has a yellowish beak, bears a tuxedo fur coating a fat little body, and probably weighs about the same as 3 delicious turkey dinners (anyone up for a new thanksgiving delicacy?)

Now, I could list the actual stats for a specific breed of penguin, but that’s not the point.

The point is, how many of you would describe the thought of a simple penguin in your head in roughly the same way?

According to that study, it’s only 12% of you — and that’s kind of frightening.

Penguin, It’s What’s for Dinner

The researchers called this phenomenon discrepant views and if the study’s results are representative of society at large, it might explain a few things.

Especially knowing they found that about every individual felt around “2/3 of participants will agree with them.”

That is, if I told you about this super cute cat named Tigger, I’d inherently assume 66% of you would be picturing my dark brown Maine Coone fluffball (R.I.P. Tigger) before remembering that he grew up before the age of Instagram and thus missed out on the world record for most likes.

But if I told you to picture an apple, a bowl of rice, or a waddling penguin, I probably wouldn’t pause and think, “Does this person even know what a bird is?”

I usually save that question for conversing with puppies, children, or MAGA fanatics.

But there’s the rub.

If we unknowingly can’t even agree on what the hell a penguin is, how are we to engage in meaningful productive discourse on things that actually matter?

Think Different

I’m reminded of the ideas behind “The medium is the message” and its follow-up, Amusing Ourselves to Death. These books postulated the idea our perception is shaped significantly by the medium through which we receive information.

As in, if information appears in a newspaper, it’s seen as more formal and authoritative, and if it appears on TV, it’s often seen as more engaging yet potentially less serious.

Think of an article appearing in AP News versus a talking head on Fox or CNN. One engages the brain, the other the heart.

I’m positive at least 66% of you understand what I mean by that.

But there's another layer to this, one that the penguin study brilliantly displays. It's not just the medium that shapes our understanding; it's our individual lenses of perception that color the information we receive.

Our minds are like invisible Raybans, interpreting the data into a unique range of colors only we truly experience. One person might be colorblind and another a super-seeing tetrachromacist.

And we don’t know who is wearing what style of Raybans at any given time.

That is, of course, unless we stop to ask. To try to understand the other party’s perceptions, life experiences, and reasons for believing and saying what they are.

But in our chaotic modern digital world, where every thought can be boiled down to a like, a retweet, or a 150-character expression of our entirety of being, who among us has the willpower to actually stop and think?

To ponder on the idea that beneath the world wide web of ideas is a nearly infinite ocean of varied understandings influenced by our past experiences, beliefs, and personal narratives.

Perhaps, before jumping at the temptation of one-upping another person with opposing penguinisms, we might try to stop and ask what the penguin did to them, first?

Or at least if they’ve had it for a delicious holiday dinner.

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Written by a Tigger-missing JJ Pryor

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