Poll: Vast majority of Americans believe political correctness to be a major national problem

A new poll reports that a staggering number of Americans think that political correctness is at an all-time high in the U.S., and believe it to be a big problem.

What are the poll's findings?

A report titled, "Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape" emerged on Wednesday, which featured arguments from scholars like the late Stephen Hawking, Daniel Yudkin, Miriam Juan-Torres, and Tim Dixon.

The study, which was authored by More in Common, featured 8,000 respondents, six focus groups, and 30 one-hour interviews. The study took place from December 2017 to September.

According to the authors, Americans can be divided into several groups, including progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, politically disengaged, moderates, traditional conservatives, and devoted conservatives.

The study revealed that 25 percent of those polled consider themselves to be traditional or devoted conservatives.

About 8 percent of respondents considered themselves to be progressive activists.

According to the report, the two-thirds of those polled who don't belong to either end of the spectrum constitute what the report calls an "exhausted majority." Those respondents in that category "share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation, a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints, and a lack of voice in the national conversation."

A majority of those respondents in the "exhausted majority" believe political correctness is a problem. Of those surveyed, 80 percent of respondents answered in the affirmative that "political correctness is a problem in our country."

When breaking the results down by race, 79 percent of white respondents believe that political correctness is a national problem. Eighty-two percent of Asians believe political correctness is a problem; 87 percent of Hispanics believe it's a problem, and 88 percent of American Indians believe it's an issue, too.

The report noted that African-Americans are most likely to support political correctness, and 75 percent of African-American respondents reported that they oppose political correctness.

Other factors in the study include education level and income.

The survey reported that 83 percent of respondents who make less than $50,000 are opposed to political correctness, compared to 70 percent of respondents who make over $100,000 that are skeptical about political correctness. Eighty-seven percent of people polled who never attended college believe that political correctness is a problem, compared to only 66 percent of those with postgraduate degrees.

What's the definition of 'political correctness,' anyway?

According to the study's focus groups and interviews, some respondents defined political correctness as being worried about their daily interactions and their freedom to express themselves out of fear of being cast out by society for their views, word choices, or actions.

To be clear, the survey did not craft a definition for the survey's participants, and permitted them to draw such conclusions based on their own personal experiences.

You can read the full, comprehensive report here.