Picture an elderly person, supported by social security, sitting in a medicare-subsidized hoveround, holding a sign at a tea party rally that says “get your government hands off my medicare.”

A Cornell study has shown that a substantial portion of Americans who receive government benefits either don’t believe or don’t understand that they are government beneficiaries. We talked with Danny Hayes of American University to figure out what role the media, politicians, and citizens themselves might play in our nation-wide cognitive dissonance.