The Perils of Perception

Over the past ten years Bobby Duffy studied public misperceptions with hundreds of surveys carried out in dozens of countries. These studies touched upon private topics, such as health and sexuality, as well as hot topics such as crime and immigration. What came to light is the fact that regardless of the country, the level of education or income, we almost always have a perception that is far from reality. These wrong perceptions can sometimes be harmless, but in many cases they hide a much deeper problem: distancing ourselves from reality, which can lead us to not only making bad decisions due to misinformation, but also make us victims of manipulation from politicians, companies and mass media.

There are five points we must keep in mind about our misperceptions:

1. Many of us have an incorrect understanding of social and political facts;
2. We depend on what we are being told just as much as on how we think;
3. On many occasions our misperceptions are biased by our emotional responses, which influence our perception of reality;
4. Understanding the reasons behind our misperceptions can help us make changes, individually and collectively;
5. Not all hope is lost: the world is not getting worse, it actually keeps getting better, and we are not enslaved by the mechanisms behind our wrongful perception of reality.