Perception Gaps
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Perception Gaps
What happens when what you think is true doesn’t line up with reality? We call that a perception gap, and it can lead to damaging misconceptions about society’s most pressing issues. In this podcast, we explore the spaces where our perceptions don’t reflect the truth of the world around us – and in...
Recent Episodes
18 episodes
Incarceration, Reimagined
Our justice system faces a lot of challenges – not least of which are the public’s misperceptions about the system and how it affects communities. How...
The Purpose of Prison
Why do we lock people up? Is it to punish offenders or to rehabilitate them? A majority of Americans say they want… both. But those goals often compet...
When Corrections Goes Corporate
Private prisons receive a lot of flak from politicians, reform advocates, and the public. And yet data shows they make up a relatively small fraction...
Justice at the Borders
For decades, research has shown that more immigration doesn’t mean more crime. But the myth of “the dangerous immigrant” remains a powerful force in A...
The Color of Imprisonment
Is the criminal justice system fair? It turns out white and Black Americans often have very different answers for that question. In Episode 2, we look...
America Behind Bars
The American criminal justice system is based on the idea that a person is innocent until proven guilty. But did you know that most people in jail hav...
Introducing Perception Gaps Season 2: Locked Up
Join the Monitor's Samantha Laine Perfas, Henry Gass, and Jessica Mendoza as they discuss the next season of "Perception Gaps," which focuses on mispe...
Episode 10: Solving Perception Gaps
During the last episode of our 10-part series, we have to ask… how do you solve perception gaps? Is it even possible? We look at the science of percep...
Episode 9: The Role of War
War… what is it good for? Turns out, perhaps peace. While we continue to fight long and expensive wars around the world, they are much less fatal than...
Episode 8: The Drug Epidemic
The opioid epidemic is a frequent headline contender, and was recently declared a national public health emergency. But did you know that there’s anot...
Episode 7: The Generosity Game
Everything feels like a competition these days. Who is more generous: conservatives or liberals? There’s no easy answer, but data does show that both...
Episode 6: Poverty Progress
After surveying a global segment of the population, the Gapminder organization in Sweden found that only 10 percent of people knew the state of extrem...
Episode 5: A Closer Look at the Gender Pay Gap
Women take low paying jobs. Women don’t advocate for themselves. The gender pay gap isn’t real. These are some of the myths that persist about gender...
Episode 4: The Real Gun Tragedy
Due to multiple high profile mass shootings, many parents and students fear that a school shooting will happen at their school. But school shootings -...
Episode 3: Revenge of the Robots
Who, or what, is stealing American jobs? Contrary to popular belief, it’s not immigrants. In fact, robots are projected to steal even more jobs in the...
Episode 2: The Other Side
If you talk to anyone in the US, they’ll tell you that politics are more polarized than ever before. Which is true… technically. But millions of Ameri...
Episode 1: High Crime and Misperceptions
Have you ever wondered about crime in the US, and how bad it is? A lot of people feel like the world is really unsafe - but would you believe me if I...
Introducing: Perception Gaps by The Christian Science Monitor
Have you ever thought about how sometimes our perceptions don’t always match reality? These perception gaps happen frequently, and the big question is...