We all know someone – maybe it’s a friend, a colleague, a family member – who always manages to be the voice of doom. A person who always knows that something is pointless or will not succeed.
If no one immediately comes to mind, I am sorry to inform you that it is possible that you are this person in someone else’s life. If so, I’d love to tell you to stop being such a cynical cynic, but the reality is it’s not that simple. Cynicism is everywhere. In fact, you could make the case that cynicism is becoming a default setting for people in our society.
But why did this happen? And what is the point of being so cruel?
Jamil Zaki is a Stanford psychologist and author of a new book called Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Well-Being. Zaki explores the consequences of cynicism, both for the cynical individual and the cynical society, and he also tears apart the conventional wisdom that says cynicism is a rational response to the world.
I invited Zaki gray area To file a case against the slanderer. As always, there is a lot More in the full podcast, so listen and follow along gray area on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, pandoraOr wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Sean Ealing
Everyone has a vague idea of what it means to be a cynic, but what is a more concrete way to think about cynicism?
Jamil Zaki
I think it is important to distinguish ancient cynicism from modern cynicism. So when I speak of cynicism, I am not referring to the philosophical school led by Antisthenes and Diogenes, but to a general theory that people have about humanity. The idea that the whole and our core people are selfish, greedy and dishonest.
Now, that’s not to say that a crazy person would be shocked if they saw someone giving to charity or helping a stranger, but they might question the person’s motives. They might say, “Ah, they’re probably in it for the tax break or maybe they’re just trying to look good.” Cynicism is not a theory about human action, it is a theory about human motives, that we are ultimately self-interested creatures, and because of this we cannot be trusted to have each other’s best interests in mind.
Sean Ealing
So how do you know you’re a cynic and not what we might call an old-fashioned realist?
Jamil Zaki
Many people will write to me, “You call us cynics, but we are realists. Cynicism is to understand what people really are like.” I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said, “The characteristic of correct observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not received it.”
There is the stereotype that cynicism is the same as realism. Even non-cynics believe this. If you survey people and describe to them a cynic and a non-cynic and say, “Who’s smarter?” 70 percent of people think that cynics are more intelligent, and 85 percent of them think that cynics are socially smart, that they will choose who is lying as opposed to telling the truth.
Actually we are wrong on both counts. Cynics actually appear to do less well on cognitive tests than non-cynics and have a harder time distinguishing liars from truth-tellers. This, I think, points to a difference between what we think realism is and what it really is.
Sean Ealing
If you asked me to tell the difference between skepticism and cynicism, I’m not sure I could do it. What is the difference?
Jamil Zaki
It is extremely important. Not only are they different from each other, but one can be used to combat the other.
If cynicism is a theory, then what theories do is that they shape our understanding of the world and often bias our understanding of the world. If you think things are a certain way, you’ll pay a lot of attention to any information that fits that view and ignore or discount evidence, so you’ll find confirmation for it through your worldview and double, triple, quadruple down.
Skepticism doesn’t really allow for that. A true skeptic is open to evidence, whether or not that evidence matches their preconceived notions, and they are willing to update even relatively basic assumptions if the evidence comes in the other direction.
Sean Ealing
Do we know what makes people cruel? Is it a personality thing? Is it a genetic thing? Is it a neurochemical thing? Do any of us choose to be cruel in any meaningful sense?
Jamil Zaki
Well, cynicism is relatively stable in human life in the absence of any intervention. So if you’re cruel now, you’ll probably stay that way if you don’t do something about it. Cynicism has some genetic component. For example, identical twins are somewhat closer in their cynicism than fraternal twins, but the genetic and heritable component appears to be quite small.
Then the other interesting thing you ask is: do we choose cynicism? I don’t know if we choose it or if it chooses us based on our experiences. I guess I would describe those experiences on a few different levels. The first is our personal experience, especially our negative personal experience. But there is also a second layer, which is the structure around us. Environments that are truly competitive, for example, are more likely to increase people’s cynicism, and environments that are cooperative reduce cynicism. It’s a level of flexibility that I think is faster.
Our childhood influences us over the years, but your situational cynicism can change very quickly. If you’re at a high-stakes poker table, there’s no reason to trust the people around you. But if you’re among neighbors with whom you’ve long had a warm relationship, there’s plenty of reason to believe.
Sean Ealing
Do you think our culture engineers are cynical?
Jamil Zaki
i do And I think it’s doing that now more than ever. Cynicism is on the rise. In 1972, about half of Americans believed that most people could be trusted, and by 2018 that had dropped to a third of Americans. We are experiencing a massive decline in trust in each other and in our institutions, and with it comes an increase in cynicism. I think we’re not just engineering cynics, we’re doing it much more efficiently now than in the past.
Sean Ealing
Disease is a strong word, but is it helpful to think of cynicism as a psychological disease?
Jamil Zaki
It certainly has some quality that we would associate with disease. It harms our physical health. Cynics suffer more from heart disease. They are more likely to die earlier than non-cynics. To the extent that disease is life-negative, that fits the bill. And it comes to us inevitably, just like a virus. We pick it up from our environment and we often experience it unintentionally. We long to get rid of it, which is another thing many sick people want.
I don’t want to stretch the metaphor too far, but I think those aspects of illness are significant and shared with a cynical worldview.
Sean Ealing
Why do cruel people live short lives? Why do they have more heart problems? Is it that happier, more optimistic people are simpler, healthier, less stressed and therefore live longer?
Jamil Zaki
Decades of science now proves that one of the most nourishing things for us psychologically is connecting with other people. People who feel connected, who feel like they have a community, like they can depend on others, feel much less stress physiologically. They sleep better. Their cellular aging is slower than those who feel lonely.
Cynical people who can’t trust others or feel they can’t, who don’t want to be vulnerable and open up, are almost like they can’t metabolize the calories of social life, and so they’re mentally malnourished, which Toxic at different levels.
So again, if social communication is beneficial, if it helps us maintain our health in all these ways, then we have to allow ourselves to be accessible for it to work, and the cynics don’t. And it’s a really sad thing. Because I think, like you and me, a lot of cynics don’t want to feel that way, but we feel like life is more dangerous if you think people are untrustworthy and think, “Wow, I need to be safe. I need to take chances on people.” Won’t.” By not taking chances on people, we are taking long-term risks with our well-being and missing many opportunities.
The problem is that those missed opportunities are invisible, whereas the betrayals we have suffered in the past are highly visible and palpable. So we learn very well from disappointments and not well enough from missed opportunities.
Sean Ealing
What is your practical advice for people who have ugly tendencies and want to overcome them?
Jamil Zaki
It’s a shift in our mindset, to be skeptical of our cynicism, to fact-check our cynical conclusions. Also, I would add, to be more aware of our strengths.
In our lab, we’ve taught people something called reciprocity. In the same way that cruel self-fulfilling prophecies bring out the worst in people, when you believe in people, they know and they move on. This is actually true. This is something economists call earned trust. But we found that when we taught people about earned trust, they were willing to trust others. And when they believed, other people became more faithful.
But another thing I would recommend is to try to trust people more. I think we are very risk-averse in our social lives. We focus too much on what could go wrong and not enough on the relationships we can build. I think that taking small and calculated chances on other people is a powerful way to rebalance our risk portfolio, open ourselves up to other people, and give us a chance to show who we really are.
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