OPTIMISM GAP

 “optimism gap” from the journalist David Whitman. It describes a phenomenon familiar to public-opinion researchers and pollsters: people typically give a far more pessimistic view of their society than of their own personal circumstances. People perceive the nation’s schools as failing, but consider their own kids’ school pretty good. They like their congressional representative, but consider Congress corrupt and incompetent. They represent their neighborhoods as safe, but their broader city as dangerous, and so on.