It is not hard to scroll through a huge global opinion survey and find the outliers. They are many and compelling: vaccine-doubters, conspiracy theorists, arch-pessimists and even people who approve of Theresa May.

The danger however is that these newspoints can give us a certain impression about the world: that outliers are the norm, that eccentrics are far more prevalent than they actually are.

But the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism survey of more than 25,000 people in 23 countries, which the Guardian unveiled this week, is actually remarkable for the unremarkable things it points out.

In this age of extremes and opposites, most people are pretty normal. They tend to like Italian food, watch American telly, travel a little abroad. If there is one word that captures (most people’s) politics, it is probably “moderate”.

They tend to trust local media and television news but – not without justification – distrust social media and government officials. Most people think it’s bad for immigrants to come specifically to claim benefits in a new country. But most think it’s OK for them to come to flee war.

Yes, many people – particularly in the developed world – are gloomy about future prospects for their own country and for the world itself. But when asked about their own prospects, there are more optimists than pessimists. Deep down people have not given up hope.

Most people think the UN is OK; most are suspicious of banks and pharmaceutical companies. Conspiracy theories may be popular among populists, but overall relatively few people believe hoaxes about 9/11, aliens, the Holocaust or Aids. Most think that most jobs are equally suited to both genders. Most acknowledge that minorities and gay and transgender people still face discrimination. Most support abortion and gay sex. Whatever else this era is, it is not a throwback to the 1950s.

Most feel a keen sense of belonging, both to their local community and their country – very high numbers are at least a little patriotic and say that buying local produce is important. Most are worried about climate change, and the direction of travel for both health and education. The vast majority do not see themselves as part of an elite, and believe it would be very hard to become so.

Catholic countries are pretty positive towards Christianity. Muslim-majority countries tend to have a favourable impression of Islam. Each are rather uncomfortable with the other’s religion.

A lot of the questions give people a sliding scale to record their answers, from one extreme (agree very strongly) to the other (disagree strongly). On a great many issues – from globalisation to ethical shopping, and from fashion to small business regulation – the majority cluster towards the centre ground in a classic bell curve.

This is true even in places where we may have expected to find a yawning chasm – such as between Britain’s leavers and remainers, who have a surprising amount in common.

The conclusion is that we are more similar than we think. It is only when forced into binary-choice boxes that it looks like we are all extremists, ranged against each other.

Last year, the German newspaper Die Zeit ran a little experiment. The paper posted a rather simplistic questionnaire on its website, asking readers yes/no questions: should German borders be freely opened? Should cars be banned from cities? Is Trump bad for America?

When thousands had answered, they then paired up hundreds of people who had answered yes to all the questions with people who had answered no. They challenged the pairings to find things they had in common. The upshot was remarkable.

“You would expect a lot of clashes in their debates but when I heard from them, it really gave me goosebumps because it was the polar opposite,” said Bastian Berbner, a reporter on the project. “They all said after a couple of minutes that we realised we are not that far apart.

“When you go into nuance and talk about what we really mean we found that we are not that far apart at all,” added Berbner, who is now writing a book called 180 Degrees: Stories Against Hate. “People have their stereotypes and as soon as they meet they fall apart and get replaced by the things we have in common.”