"Most laypeople do not organize information in ways that provide reliable monitoring of social change over time, which makes their views on progress susceptible to memory distortions and high-profile current events and political rhetoric."
I remember an older person warning me to not go to NYC because she thought it was still riddled with crime (as it presumably was decades ago). I am confident that watching the news actively distorts one's perception of the state of the world (unless one explicitly discounts what they see in favor of many other pieces of information).
"Most laypeople do not organize information in ways that provide reliable monitoring of social change over time, which makes their views on progress susceptible to memory distortions and high-profile current events and political rhetoric."
I remember an older person warning me to not go to NYC because she thought it was still riddled with crime (as it presumably was decades ago). I am confident that watching the news actively distorts one's perception of the state of the world (unless one explicitly discounts what they see in favor of many other pieces of information).