People consistently underestimate how often things go wrong across society
People systematically underestimate how often things go wrong in the world—a bias researchers call the “failure gap.” This mega-project was published in the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology. We rely on perceptions of how common events are when forming opinions, making decisions, and supporting policies. Prior research shows that these perceptions are often biased. Much of the literature has focused on optimism; for example, people tend to believe good outcomes are more likely and bad outcomes less likely, especially when those outcomes affect them. However, does this tendency extend beyond personal life to broader societal issues, such as crime, health, or economic failures? Lauren Eskreis-Winkler and colleagues examined this broader question, asking whether people misjudge how often failures occur across many domains of life. They proposed that the issue may not just be optimism, but the way information is shared: failures are less frequently discussed than successes because they are uncomfortable, embarrassing, or socially costly to communicate. As a result, people may develop systematically skewed impressions of reality because they are exposed to incomplete …
