Survey: Can Americans Name a Nobel Prize Winner?
Nobel Prize Coin
Ahead of next week’s announcement of the 2023 Nobel Prize laureates, we have made a survey representative of the adult American population to find out how many Nobel Prize winners they can name, and who they think should win the Nobel Prize.
CAN YOU NAME A NOBEL PRIZE WINNER?
In the first question, the respondents were asked to name up to 3 Nobel prize winners from the top of their head. 54.6% of respondents were not able to name correctly ANY Nobel prize winners in history, 14.92% of respondents named correctly all three, 11.33% named correctly two past Nobel laureates, and 19.07% named correctly only 1 Nobel prize winner.
The most popular answers from the correctly named winners were: Albert Einstein (named by 16% of respondents), Barack Obama (named by 14%), Marie Curie (named by 7.7%), Martin Luther King Jr. (named by 6.8%)and Mother Theresa (named by 4.8%), respectively.
When looking at the incorrect answers, the most commonly named people who have not won the Nobel Prize were: Gandhi, Maya Angelou, Robert Oppenheimer, Rosa Parks, A.G.Bell and Donald Trump, respectively.
Some interesting standalone answers of the respondents that were incorrect also included Will Smith, Lionel Messi, Denzel Washington, or Michael Phelps.
CAN YOU NAME A NOBEL PRIZE WINNER (from the past 10 years)?
In the second question, the respondents were asked to name up to 3 Nobel Prize winners of the last 10 years from the top of their head. 86.7% of respondents were not able to name ANY Nobel prize winners of the last 10 years, 5.4% of respondents named correctly 3 winners of the last 10 years, 1.99% named correctly 2 winners of the last 10 years, 5.8% named correctly only 1 Nobel prize laureate of the last 10 years.
The most popular answers from the correctly named winners of the past 10 years were: Bob Dylan (named by 1.89% of respondents), Ales Bialiatski (named by 1.64% of respondents), Annie Ernaux (named by 1.54% of respondents), Malala Yousafzai (named by 1.49% of respondents) and Maria Ressa (named by 1.49% of respondents).
Some interesting standalone answers of the respondents that were incorrect included Bruce Jenner, David Beckham, Sheldon Cooper, Tom Hanks or Morgan Freeman.
CAN YOU RECOGNIZE A NOBEL PRIZE WINNER?
In the third question, the respondents were given a list of 20 individuals, and they were supposed to choose one (or more) individuals that have won the Nobel Prize - 10 of the individuals were famous people that have not won the Nobel Prize, 10 were recent Nobel Prize winners chosen across multiple categories.
The top 5 answers were all famous people that have not won the Nobel prize, namely: Bill Gates (30% of votes), Oprah Winfrey (25%), Steve Jobs (20%), Neil deGrasse Tyson (20%) and David Attenborough (16%).
The highest ranking Nobel laureate (being the 6th most popular choice overall) that was recognized by the respondents as a rightful Nobel Prize winner was Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, the 2018 Nobel Prize Recipient for Literature (15%).
When looking at the rest of the top 10 answers, non-winners Jeff Bezos and Michael Jackson tied with Chinese writer Mo Yan, the 2012 Nobel Prize Recipient for Literature, for the 7th-9th place with 12% of the votes, and Swedish political scientist and economist Elinor Ostrom, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009, ended up in 10th place with 11% of the votes.
WHO SHOULD WIN THE NOBEL PRIZE?
In the 4th question of the survey, the respondents were asked to name anyone who they believe SHOULD win the Nobel Prize in any of the categories.
From the open-choice questions, the top 10 most common answers amongst the respondents were:
- Donald Trump (6.2% of votes)
- Oprah Winfrey (2.76%)
- Elon Musk (2.5%)
- Bill Gates (2.023%)
- Barack Obama (1.6%) - *Obama won in 2009, so it can be assumed that the respondents didn’t know that he had already won
- Michael Jackson (1.23%)
- Steve Jobs (1.23%)
- Volodymyr Zelenskyj (1.23%)
- Greta Thunberg (1.18%)
- Neil deGrasse Tyson (1.18%)
Some interesting standalone answers of the respondents also included: family member suggestions (my husband, my sister, my mother…), and celebrities such as Kelly Clarkson, Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, The Rock, Bono, Pink, Faith Hill, J.Cole, Jay-Z, Jim Parsons, Mr.Beast, Lil Uzi Vert, Nicki Minaj, Shania Twain, Shaquille O’Neal or Tyler Perry; one respondent also suggested that the video-conferencing service Zoom should be the recipient of the Nobel Prize.
METHODOLOGY
- The survey was conducted between 20th September and 25th September 2023
- The sample size of the survey: 2003 US adults, representative of the US population
- All research conducted adhered to the Market Research Society code of conduct
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