> many things seem to be improving, yet the perception most people have of reality is the complete opposite

Online news (as well as cable news) in particular has taken to farming any kinds of changes to society as moral decay. Airing or printing only outrage is a business model unto its own. See: Huffpost, Breitbart for examples.

Most people don't read online news. Online news is a subculture at this point and they're not interested in happy stories so happy stories are not produced.

Not a psychologist but I feel like appreciating things are more of a learned trait but jealousy and wanting are natural.

Politicians are also pushing the notion that things are getting worse for support and those politicians are supported by news networks who may skew coverage.

>across many objective measures, many things seem to be improving

Are they the things that matter to the people who have the perception, though?

I don't think it's all about the news.

I'd argue that people's impression of the world is going to be driven largely by their own perspective, not media. Borrowing a quote [1] from Stephen Pinker, probably the most visible advocate for 'things are getting better' : "... the United States is an outlier among rich Western democracies, with a stagnation in happiness and higher rates of homicide, incarceration, abortion, sexually transmitted disease, child mortality, obesity, educational mediocrity and premature death.... "

And that was written back in 2018 which absolutely feels like the "good ole days" compared to now a days!

[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/02...

> Do you think this is just how we're wired?

I think the way the news is reported says more about us than it does about the organizations that do the reporting. If we didn't want all the negativity, we would reject it, and they'd stop reporting it. But that doesn't happen. So, essentially, we want all the negativity - yes, it's how we're wired. We just don't want to accept it.