Again, we observe a similar pattern for most countries. No matter where you ask people are much more negative about places that are far away – places which they know less from their own experience and more through the media. This chart shows how many individuals rate the environment in their local area as fairly or very bad, compared with the environment nationally and globally. We are local optimists and national pessimists – in environmental aspects , how much of a problem do you think each of the following are in your local area and in the whole of the UK?" Individuals tend to believe problems are more pronounced nationally than in their local area. This chart shows how individuals in the UK respond to the question: "Thinking about. This pattern is also observed on a larger scale. Does the response to the question about national economic well being better correspond to an individual's true job prospects? EU survey responses on individual and economic optimism - Eurobarometer surveys 2 We are local optimists and national pessimists – in politics The expectation that things are going to worsen nationally is correlated with recessions, yet there is remarkable stability in the results for individual expectations. Although far less stable, the results show that most people expect the economic situation in their home country to get worse or stay the same. Compare that with the response of the same group of individuals considering the future of the economic situation in their home country. From the end of 1995 to the middle of 2015, around 60% of people predict that their job situation will remain the same, while 20% expect their situation to improve. This optimism persists even when people are presented with the relevant statistics.Ĭonsider the following graphs from the European Union's Eurobarometer surveys they report people's expectations about their own personal job situation and of the economic situation in their home country. Another example is asking smokers to estimate their chances of getting cancer and again, most would underestimate their risk. Yet today roughly 40% of marriages in the UK end in divorce. If you were to ask newlywed couples to estimate the probability they will divorce in the future, they would likely reject the possibility outright. That is, we tend to be optimistic rather than realistic when considering our individual future. Tali Sharot, associate professor of psychology at UCL, has popularised the idea of an innate optimism bias built into the human brain. It is a peculiar empirical phenomenon that while people tend to be optimistic about their own future, they can at the same time be deeply pessimistic about the future of their nation or the world. On this page we look at data and research on optimism and pessimism, and how this is influenced by context and social circumstances. Understanding optimism and pessimism is important: to tackle the big problems that the world faces, we need founded optimism that things can improve. Why are we so pessimistic about our collective past, and our future? Yet many of us are unaware of this progress, and – especially this in richer countries – often have a negative view on how the world has changed. Child mortality is a fraction of what it was fewer people die from disease, conflict and famine we live longer and healthier lives and most children get the opportunity to go to school and receive an education. One of the most important points that emerges from the historical data that we cover is that the world is much better than it was in the past. At Our World in Data we focus on the world’s biggest problems: to understand what they are and how we tackle them.
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