The Results for the Famous People Study are in!

Here are the results many of you have been waiting for! The results to my Famous People study!

Though I’m not going to post the pictures of the individuals on here, I will name them for you at this time. If you don’t still have your pictures to look at you can email me and I’ll resend them to you if you’d like.

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Sammy Davis Jr.
3. William Shakespeare
4. Martin Luther King Jr.
5. Connie Chung
6. Franklin D. Roosevelt
7. Edgar Allen Poe
8. Condoleezza Rice
9. Michael Jackson
10. Thomas Jefferson
11. Fidel Castro
12. Benjamin Franklin
13. Audrey Hepburn
14. Adolf Hitler
15. Mark Twain
16. Frederick Douglas
17. Princess Diana
18. Mohandas Gandhi
19. Frank Sinatra
20. Richard Nixon
21. Mother Teresa
22. George W. Bush
23. Elvis Presley
24. Oprah Winfrey
25. Osama Bin Laden
26. Charles Manson
27. Barney
28. Jesus
29. Albert Einstein
30. Babe Ruth

Some of the most common misconceptions were:
6. Lyndon B. Johnson; Dwight Eisenhower; Theodore Roosevelt
7. John Wilkes Booth; Charlie Chaplin
10. George Washington; John Adams; Andrew Jackson
11. Yasser Arafat; Joseph Stalin
13. Katherine Hepburn
15. Albert Einstein (of course, many people just thought it was him until they got to the second page…SERIOUSLY a TON of people thought this)
16. George Washington Carver; Eli Whitney

Now, in any study preformed there will be some limitations. And while I’m not going to take the time to go into all the limitations of this study here, I will share this one, that yes, in the beginning, when I first emailed out this study, I was unaware of the “cheat factor” it had. For SOME of the individuals, the attachment would open in an internet browser window, instead of a Word Document window, which in that case it would allow the person to scroll their mouse over the picture and a link would come up to the website that I got the picture from. And in the link it would have the famous individual’s name. So, with this slight flaw, there is always the thought that some of the individuals that did respond with 30 correct answers might have got a little “added help” from the links. But hey, I needed some sort of a flaw for my ALMOST perfect study, right!? HA!

Anyways…on with the data!

Okay, so I ended up with 78 responses to the survey (thus far), I’m still accepting responses assuming people don’t come get the real answers off this blog! HA!

Let me give you the demographic breakdown first:

Gender:
Females…………………….…..59
Males…………………….…….19

Age:
5-10 years………………….……2
11-20 years………………….…..7
21-30 years………………….…45
31-40 years………………….…..8
41-50 years………………….…..8
51+ years………………….…….8

Educational Background:
Elementary…………………..….2
Middle School…………….……..2
Some High School………………3
High School Graduate…………..6
Some College…………………..24
Bachelors Degree………………22
Some Graduate School……….….8
Masters Degree………………….8
Doctorate………………………..3

Now, having seen these results, some specifics I want to draw your attention to before I reveal the stats for the particular pictures are these:

--It is important to remember that I did get responses from some individuals who are younger than 10, as well as an individual in the 60 years and the 80 years age brackets, so be sure to take this into consideration when looking at these results.

--For example, you might think to yourself, “How might someone not know who Barney is?” Well, it is totally understandable if someone in their 40’s or 50’s has never had kids, they probably don’t sit around the house and watch PBS and keep up with the purple dinosaur shows. Or, someone in their 70’s might have kids, but Barney obviously wasn’t around when their kids were younger.

--Another example, you might think to yourself, “How might someone not know who Michael Jackson or Osama Bin Laden are when they are ALL over the news and television?” Well, I can totally see a 5 year old not knowing either of these two, especially when what they are on the news nowadays is for things I would prefer my five year old not fully knowing about.

So, with these clarifications out there, feel free to see how the results turned out. Below I will list the number and name of the famous person from the study and tell the number of people out of 78 that got that person correct. I will also provide the percent of how many people knew that picture so you don’t have to go figure it out on your own.

1.Abraham Lincoln
Correct: 78 (100%)
2. Sammy Davis Jr.
Correct: 45 (57.7%)
3. William Shakespeare
Correct: 54 (69.2%)
4. Martin Luther King Jr.
Correct: 75 (96.2%)
5. Connie Chung
Correct: 61 (78.2%)
6. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Correct: 28 (35.9%)
7. Edgar Allen Poe
Correct: 22 (28.2%)
8. Condoleezza Rice
Correct: 58 (74.4%)
9. Michael Jackson
Correct: 76 (97.4%)
10. Thomas Jefferson
Correct: 24 (30.8%)
11. Fidel Castro
Correct: 39 (50%)
12. Benjamin Franklin
Correct: 64 (82.1%)
13. Audrey Hepburn
Correct: 42 (53.8%)
14. Adolf Hitler
Correct: 68 (87.2%)
15. Mark Twain
Correct: 41 (52.6%)
16. Frederick Douglas
Correct: 19 (24.4%)
17. Princess Diana
Correct: 65 (83.3%)
18. Mohandas Gandhi
Correct: 61 (78.2%)
19. Frank Sinatra
Correct: 50 (64.1%)
20. Richard Nixon
Correct: 60 (76.9%)
21. Mother Teresa
Correct: 66 (84.6%)
22. George W. Bush
Correct: 78 (100%)
23. Elvis Presley
Correct: 78 (100%)
24. Oprah Winfrey
Correct: 78 (100%)
25. Osama Bin Laden
Correct: 70 (89.7%)
26. Charles Manson
Correct: 28 (35.9%)
27. Barney
Correct: 75 (96.2%)
28. Jesus
Correct: 77 (98.7%)
29. Albert Einstein
Correct: 76 (97.4%)
30. Babe Ruth
Correct: 73 (93.6%)

Here comes the part that is gonna make you feel really good about yourself or not so good about yourself. Hey, let’s all face it, we love to compare ourselves to one another, so let’s see if you did better than most people, or not. ;)

The most frequent number of correct responses was 27 out of 30 correct. The least correct was 6 out of 30 faces correct and that happened 2 times. The most correct was 30 out of 30 correct and that happened 4 times.

The mean or “average” number correct was 22. I suppose this is the number you’ll use to compare yourself to others! ;)

Here is the whole breakdown for number of correct responses:

Number of Correct Responses………………..# of people that got that many correct
6……………………………………………………2
11…………………………………………….……..1
12…………………………………………………...1
14…………………………………………………...4
15…………………………………………………...2
16…………………………………………………...3
17…………………………………………………...2
18…………………………………………………...4
20…………………………………………………...6
21…………………………………………………...7
22…………………………………………………...2
23…………………………………………………...5
24…………………………………………………...7
25…………………………………………………...8
26…………………………………………………...6
27…………………………………………………...9
28…………………………………………………...4
29…………………………………………………...1
30…………………………………………………...4

So, if you are looking at these findings and wanting to know where you fit into the bunch because you don’t know how many you got right, feel free to email me and I’ll gladly tell you how many you got correct.

So…what can we conclude from all of this you ask? Well that Kimberly has more female friends. And that most of her friends either have some college background or have a bachelor’s degree. And….oh okay, maybe that’s not what we’re talking about here….HA!

Okay, what can be concluded from this study is that more people will be able to identify people such as Oprah Winfrey and Barney over some of the American Presidents. Also, as seen from this study, the individuals that are the most recognizable this day in age by their pictures are: Abraham Lincoln, George W. Bush, Elvis Presley, and Oprah Winfrey.

I want to give a thanks again out to all who participated! Thanks for taking your time to complete this study for our viewing entertainment! ;)