Speaker 1: You know, cynicism infects our minds, but it also characterizes
Speaker 1: our language. You know, we tend to gossip more and
Speaker 1: talk a lot about negative things and people, and I've
Speaker 1: been trying to temper that a lot. I try to
Speaker 1: catch people in the act of doing morally beautiful things
Speaker 1: and call them out, talk about what they're doing.
Speaker 2: And share it with other peauty. Yeah, call out beauty.
Speaker 3: To say we have Doctor Jamille Zaki on the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 3: Doctor Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University
Speaker 3: and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. Using
Speaker 3: tools from psychology and neuroscience, he and his colleagues examine
Speaker 3: how empathy works and how people can learn to empathize
Speaker 3: more effectively. In this episode, we take a deep dive
Speaker 3: into the content of his new book, Hope for Cynics,
Speaker 3: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness. We discuss his idea
Speaker 3: of hopeful skepticism and how it's different from naive optimism.
Speaker 3: According to doctor Zaki, hopeful skepticism honors humanity's strengths while
Speaker 3: confronting our weaknesses head on. We also discuss social shark attacks,
Speaker 3: tribal cynicism, and social savoring. This is an important episode,
Speaker 3: especially in light of the rise of cynicism we are
Speaker 3: seeing all around the world right now. So without further ado,
Speaker 3: I bring you doctor Jamille Zaki, doctor Zachi, welcome to
Speaker 3: the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's great. It's great for you to be here.
Speaker 3: On my end as well, I have been a follower
Speaker 3: of your work, really excellent research which have Traditionally what
Speaker 3: I associate with you is work on empathy and compassion,
Speaker 3: kindness and social connection. But you've now written this new book,
Speaker 3: Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness. So
Speaker 3: obviously there are still themes about goodness and kindness. But
Speaker 3: tell me about the cynicism part. Have you been noticing
Speaker 3: an increase in cynicism around the world?
Speaker 1: Happy to talk about it around the world if it's okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll start a little bit more personally. Even than that, Oh,
Speaker 1: I started working on this project because, as you said, Scott,
Speaker 1: I've been studying in essence, human goodness for twenty years.
Speaker 1: You know, how people act kindly, are empathic and compassionate
Speaker 1: connections to one another, the ways that those connections lift
Speaker 1: us up as individuals and allow us to flourish. And
Speaker 1: I've become this sort of inadvertent ambassador for humanity's better angels.
Speaker 1: You know, people often, yes, turn to my writing to
Speaker 1: feel good about our species, and I love that role.
Speaker 1: And of course I am such a staunch believer in
Speaker 1: the science. But you know, Scott, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you experienced this with your research and writing as well.
Speaker 1: Sometimes just because something is in our heads doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it always leaks down into our hearts as well. And
Speaker 1: the entire time that I've been studying this, I've harbored
Speaker 1: this kind of dark secret, which is that even though
Speaker 1: I study and believe in human goodness, I sometimes have
Speaker 1: trouble accessing that belief myself. I sort of tend to
Speaker 1: be a pretty cynical person in my private life, and
Speaker 1: that got a lot worse during the early pandemic. So
Speaker 1: this project began as me exploring what was going on
Speaker 1: with me. If I can't have hope in people given
Speaker 1: what I do, how could others? And I realized that,
Speaker 1: as you're alluding to cynicism, this loss of faith in
Speaker 1: humanity has been a huge trend, not just in my life,
Speaker 1: but around the country and around the world.
Speaker 3: Well, I definitely see it too. I definitely see it too.
Speaker 3: I won't say that I am a cynical person, but
Speaker 3: I will say, even with my already extreme optimism, it
Speaker 3: has decreased statistically significantly. It hasn't gone over to the
Speaker 3: cynicism red line of the spectrum, but it's decreased in
Speaker 3: the past couple of years. I think for real reasons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think cynicism absolutely can be warranted. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I want folks to understand
Speaker 1: is that in writing about how cynicism harms us and
Speaker 1: how we can overcome it, I in no way mean
Speaker 1: to blame people if they're feeling down and gloomy and
Speaker 1: generally not so positive about human nature. It is completely
Speaker 1: understandable given so many trends that we see in our culture.
Speaker 1: So one thing that we see, for instance, in the
Speaker 1: data is that cynicism tends to track inequality. So in
Speaker 1: places in the world that are more unequal and in
Speaker 1: times that are more unequal, people have a harder time
Speaker 1: trusting one another as well. So that's a macro force
Speaker 1: that absolutely has accelerated. We are living in breathtakingly unequal times,
Speaker 1: and it makes sense for people to feel untrust untrusting
Speaker 1: corruption from elites like politicians can drive up cynicism. And
Speaker 1: so there, of course are lots of forces that make
Speaker 1: it normal and sensible that we would lose faith. But
Speaker 1: it's also true that cynicism doesn't help those problems. It
Speaker 1: actually can make them worse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it often does. And the opposite of cynicism is
Speaker 3: not optimism, right, or is not blind optimism or you know,
Speaker 3: on optimism not grounded in truth? Right? So what is
Speaker 3: the opposite of cynicism? Let me just ask you that question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question, and it depends who you ask. Right,
Speaker 1: If you ask a cynic what the opposite of cynicism is,
Speaker 1: they will very confidently tell you it's being naive and gullible.
Speaker 1: It's being a chump or a rube.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: A cynic might say, yeah, it doesn't feel good to
Speaker 1: not have faith in people, but I'm a realist. It's
Speaker 1: the you know, if you're not cynical, you're not paying attention.
Speaker 1: And you know, even non synics have that stereotype. When
Speaker 1: presented with the story of a cynic and a non
Speaker 1: synic seventy percent of people in surveys believe that the
Speaker 1: cynic is more intelligent than the non cynic, and eighty
Speaker 1: five percent of people think that cynics are socially smarter,
Speaker 1: that they'll be better at spotting liars, for instance, than
Speaker 1: non the non synics. But it turns out that basically
Speaker 1: the opposite is true. You know, cynicism is stereotyped as
Speaker 1: really smart and wise, but it's really not. Cynics actually
Speaker 1: do less well in cognitive tests than nonsynics. They have
Speaker 1: a harder time spotting liars than the non cynics do
Speaker 1: as well. And I think part of that is because
Speaker 1: cynicism is a blanket assumption about people. And what's the
Speaker 1: opposite of a blanket assumption. It's not being naive. You know,
Speaker 1: blindly trusting people and blindly mistrusting people actually have a
Speaker 1: lot in common in that you're not responding to the data,
Speaker 1: You're not responding to what's in front of you. I
Speaker 1: think the opposite of both cynicism and naive trust is
Speaker 1: what I would call skepticism, right. Skepticism is not thinking
Speaker 1: like a lawyer, not having a conclusion about people that
Speaker 1: you're trying to defend, but thinking like a scientist, being
Speaker 1: open to what people have to show you. And in
Speaker 1: that way, skeptics are able to learn.
Speaker 2: More quickly and they're able to be more accurate about
Speaker 2: the world around them.
Speaker 3: I love that. In your new book, you call it
Speaker 3: hopefull skepticism. What you define is the realization that people
Speaker 3: are often better than we expect. Boy, do we need
Speaker 3: that more in our lives right now? Imagine if everyone
Speaker 3: you know just went around not being driven so much
Speaker 3: by their prior expectations based on someone's what they know
Speaker 3: about their local status, or they know about whatever demographic
Speaker 3: you know about them. I mean, in some of in
Speaker 3: some ways, is it related to just looking at things
Speaker 3: with fresh eyes?
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right. And you know, it's looking
Speaker 1: at things with fresh eyes also knowing that a lot
Speaker 1: of the information that we have gotten so far, although compelling,
Speaker 1: is just not accurate. You know, you talked about people
Speaker 1: connecting across identity differences, you know, which is a huge
Speaker 1: source of cynicism in our culture.
Speaker 2: It turns out that a lot of.
Speaker 1: The intel that we are fed about people who are
Speaker 1: different from us is just plain wrong. If you go
Speaker 1: on social media or look at the news, you will
Speaker 1: receive a very strong picture of what the average person
Speaker 1: that you disagree with is like. You'll be taught that
Speaker 1: that person is extreme and anti democratic, even violent. And
Speaker 1: of course there are truly extreme and anti democratic and
Speaker 1: violent people out there, of course there are. But the
Speaker 1: question is, is the average person that you disagree with like
Speaker 1: that and the evidence is clear that they're not.
Speaker 2: So I think it's on the one hand, hopeful.
Speaker 1: Skepticism requires, as you rightly say, looking at the world
Speaker 1: with fresh eyes, but it also requires interrogating and understanding,
Speaker 1: to use a sort of statistical term that our priors,
Speaker 1: our assumptions are based usually on bad intel. Not bad
Speaker 1: in that it's negative, bad in that it's inaccurate.
Speaker 3: Your evidence might suggest something, But what if you're in
Speaker 3: an environment where people really are assholes all around you
Speaker 3: and that's your evidence. Your evidence base can't be like
Speaker 3: everyone in the world and then use It has to
Speaker 3: be what you're in, your environment that you interact with
Speaker 3: on a daily basis, right.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course, And you know, I think that
Speaker 1: we each of us lives in a different version of
Speaker 1: the world. Our environments each unique to us. And of course,
Speaker 1: if you live in a place which is highly competitive
Speaker 1: and people are assholes to each other, as you say,
Speaker 1: then that's going.
Speaker 2: To bring out that side of you.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, though, Scott, the time that people are at least
Speaker 1: cynical is when they focus on their local environments. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, if you ask people, can most people be trusted,
Speaker 1: people are pretty negative. You know, only about a third
Speaker 1: of Americans think most people can be trusted. In some countries,
Speaker 1: it's like six percent of people believe most people can
Speaker 1: be trusted. But then if you ask, can the people
Speaker 1: in your neighborhood and your local community be trusted? In
Speaker 1: the US, more than twice as many people trust their neighbors,
Speaker 1: trust the people that they actually see in real life
Speaker 1: compared to people in the abstract. Yeah, and the same
Speaker 1: goes around the world. So I agree with you. If
Speaker 1: you're surrounded by assholes by all means, don't trust them.
Speaker 1: But most of us actually are not surrounded by ass
Speaker 1: We just infer that assholes are everywhere else because of
Speaker 1: what we see in the media.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's really interesting. That's really interesting. I'm warning a
Speaker 3: lot from your book, and so let's just go through
Speaker 3: some stuff because I'm sure our audience will worn't as well.
Speaker 3: So I recently had Castlely Kilm on my podcast and
Speaker 3: she talked about this loneliness sort of epidemic we're having
Speaker 3: and the importance of social health. Do you think hopeful
Speaker 3: skepticism can help us connect more with others?
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: First, I'm a huge fan of Cassley's work, and it's
Speaker 1: this idea of social health is so important, and I
Speaker 1: think that a lot of what Cassley and people like
Speaker 1: Vivic Murthy the Surgeon General focus on is here there's
Speaker 1: this loneliness epidemic. We're just disconnected and we need to
Speaker 1: focus on strategies for connecting more effectively. And I completely agree,
Speaker 1: but I think that there's a missing piece to the
Speaker 1: loneliness epidemic, which is that we have dim expectations of
Speaker 1: other people, and because we do, we have dim expectations
Speaker 1: of how our interactions with.
Speaker 2: Them will go.
Speaker 1: So you can give people all sorts of opportunities to connect,
Speaker 1: to have conversations with strangers, to deepen their connections with friends,
Speaker 1: but they're not going to take those connections if they
Speaker 1: don't think that they'll produce what they want. And research
Speaker 1: from all sorts of people. Nick Eppie Juliana Schroeder and
Speaker 1: so forth. The whole community of scientists at this point
Speaker 1: talk about what we call undersociality. That is, if you
Speaker 1: ask people what will a conversation with a stranger feel like,
Speaker 1: they say, oh, my god, it's going to be so
Speaker 1: cringe and awkward and terrible. If you ask people what
Speaker 1: would it be like if you expressed gratitude to your friend,
Speaker 1: they say, oh, that'd be awkward too. There's all these
Speaker 1: forecasts that we have where we think conversations will go poorly,
Speaker 1: and I think that's because we underestimate how friendly and
Speaker 1: warm and open other people are. We think that they
Speaker 1: don't want contact with us. So when we overcome that cynicism,
Speaker 1: we open new doors to improving our social health in
Speaker 1: ways that Cassley and others write about.
Speaker 3: How does this relate to the idea that you talk
Speaker 3: about in your book You call it social savoring.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The idea of savoring in general is that it's very
Speaker 1: easy to pay attention to threatening and armful experiences that
Speaker 1: we have and to remember them, but oftentimes we pay
Speaker 1: a lot less attention to the good stuff. And that's
Speaker 1: you know, it makes sense from a survival perspective. It's
Speaker 1: safe to ignore a sunset, but not a tsunami. Right,
Speaker 1: we have to focus on threats, but it's tragic for
Speaker 1: our lives psychologically, and so savoring is just it's related
Speaker 1: to gratitude, but different. It's enjoying the good things while
Speaker 1: they happen, not reflecting on the good things after they've happened.
Speaker 1: And one thing that I tried to do with my
Speaker 1: kids a lot is social savoring. That is focusing on
Speaker 1: the beautiful things that people do every day. You know,
Speaker 1: my friend Dakar Keltner studies awe, this sense of vastness
Speaker 1: and connection with a greater whole. And when you think
Speaker 1: of awe, I don't know, I think of the pale
Speaker 1: blue dot from Carl Sagan, or you know, standing in
Speaker 1: a grove of redwood trees. But Daker finds that the
Speaker 1: most common elicitor of awe, the most common experience that
Speaker 1: makes people feel awe, is what he calls moral beauty.
Speaker 1: It's the everyday wonder of human goodness. And I think,
Speaker 1: to me, that type of awe and that type of
Speaker 1: social savoring is great because you don't have to drive
Speaker 1: to a redwood forest or hike Mount Everest.
Speaker 2: You know, you can just look.
Speaker 1: At your community and there's such beauty in what people
Speaker 1: do every day that is often missed.
Speaker 3: I love that. And Docer has worked with Jonathan Height,
Speaker 3: who studies moral elevation. I think of the associations between
Speaker 3: moral beauty and moral elevation, they must be quite close
Speaker 3: in concept. But you know, we can find the moral
Speaker 3: beauty in the most unlikely of things. Maybe this is
Speaker 3: what your point is. Maybe hopeful skepticism can allow us
Speaker 3: to see more moral beauty where we would least expect it.
Speaker 2: I think that's right.
Speaker 1: And you know, oftentimes the beauty of human kindness is
Speaker 1: most profound, not in beautiful times or places, but in
Speaker 1: dark and difficult times, in places, in moments of adversity,
Speaker 1: in communities that are struggling. I write a lot about
Speaker 1: this group called the Solutions Journalism Network. They're a group
Speaker 1: of reporters who write stories about problems, real problems, but
Speaker 1: also people trying to pursue solutions. So these are positive
Speaker 1: news stories. But it's not like you know, a squirrel
Speaker 1: you know, jumped through hoops, or you know, someone donated
Speaker 1: a card to somebody else's it's groups of people helping
Speaker 1: one another address problems like women prisoners, for instance, creating
Speaker 1: job and education programs inside prisons. And oftentimes these are
Speaker 1: acts of as you put it, moral beauty and moral
Speaker 1: elevation that occur again in places that are stereotypically very
Speaker 1: ugly in our culture and in our world.
Speaker 3: I really love that my brain is going off in
Speaker 3: lots of different directions because I study something called pathological altruism. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I'm realizing that's a very cynical research that I
Speaker 3: do on sound pathological culture. It's like cynical in itself
Speaker 3: to study that. And I also study something I call
Speaker 3: healthy selfishness, which I say is the opposite of pathological altruism,
Speaker 3: And these are both paradoxical forms of selfishness.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I'd actually love to hear more
Speaker 1: about that, because I think that sometimes, well, tell tell
Speaker 1: me more about pathological altruism, because I bet that it
Speaker 1: might be related in some ways to.
Speaker 3: What I fear what I yes, it is related, because
Speaker 3: I fear it is. It's a cynical take on some
Speaker 3: people's helping behaviors. Research has shown that some people have
Speaker 3: are a little too excessive in their helping, where I
Speaker 3: call it intrusive helping for the everyday public, and then
Speaker 3: I don't want to pathologize it. Barbara Oakley called it
Speaker 3: pathological altruism, but I like calling it intrusive helping, where
Speaker 3: you're really just you're helping to feed your own ego
Speaker 3: and you're not really you're not really dealing with the
Speaker 3: real felt needs of another person, and sometimes you're actually
Speaker 3: causing harm to someone else. But you know, I think
Speaker 3: that taking a lens of hopeful cynicism, I I must
Speaker 3: remind myself to not oversee it, not see it where
Speaker 3: it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: Well, that's absolutely fair.
Speaker 1: But I think that this idea of intrusive you know,
Speaker 1: I would say maybe self centered altruism as well, is
Speaker 1: actually really related in some ways to cynicism, if I may.
Speaker 1: You know, I struggled a lot with cynicism. Well I've
Speaker 1: struggled with it my whole life. But one way that
Speaker 1: it came out for me was as a form of insecurity.
Speaker 1: You know, I really believed that in order for people
Speaker 1: to like me, in order for them to be there
Speaker 1: for me, I needed to be providing value. I kind
Speaker 1: of had this, you know, as a kid, and then
Speaker 1: as a young adult, this sort of sadly transactional view
Speaker 1: of relationships. And what that induced me to do was
Speaker 1: to try to be of service in this kind of reflexive,
Speaker 1: almost itch like. I always wanted to make sure I
Speaker 1: was providing value to people because I was sure that
Speaker 1: the minute that I stopped, they would disappear from my life.
Speaker 1: And that was a form of cynicism, right. Not believing
Speaker 1: that people will be there if you're not nice or
Speaker 1: entertaining every second of every day is a cynical perspective that,
Speaker 1: in my case probably produced a fair amount of intrusive, unwanted,
Speaker 1: unhelpful attempts at altruism.
Speaker 3: I really liked that you made that connection. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I'm glad, I continued. Then Okay, well, how does that
Speaker 3: relate to this reciprocity mindset? Right? Because there seems to
Speaker 3: be something that may be self transcendent about Well, I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't know. You tell me what is
Speaker 3: a reciprocity mindset? How does that relate to this?
Speaker 1: A reciprocity mindset is an attempt to understand and own
Speaker 1: our influence on other people one feature of cynicism. But really,
Speaker 1: as you know Scott of social psychology, more generally is
Speaker 1: that we tend to stereotype other people. We tend to
Speaker 1: imagine that when they act a certain way, it's just
Speaker 1: because of who they are, not because of the situation
Speaker 1: that they're in. Even those situations exert vast power over
Speaker 1: how people behave And of course, when you're interacting with somebody,
Speaker 1: a key part of their situation is you and the
Speaker 1: way that you treat them. And research shows over and
Speaker 1: over again that we think of people as either trustworthy
Speaker 1: or untrustworthy. But the fact is that when we act cynically,
Speaker 1: when we mistrust people, we actually bring out their least
Speaker 1: trustworthy side. So true, and when instead we put faith
Speaker 1: in people, they're more likely to step up. This is
Speaker 1: what economists call earned trust. So with my graduate student
Speaker 1: Eric Neumann, we examine, well, what happens if you explain
Speaker 1: that to people? What happens if you tell people, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, your decision to trust is not just about
Speaker 1: the risk that you take on in a social situation.
Speaker 1: Your trust is a gift that you give to somebody
Speaker 1: else and one that they are likely to repay. And
Speaker 1: we found that simply learning that simply being aware of
Speaker 1: our influence on other people induced folks to be more trusting,
Speaker 1: more open, and more vulnerable, and that in turn caused
Speaker 1: other people to be more trustworthy. Right, so if cynicism
Speaker 1: creates all of these toxic, self fulfilling prophecies in our
Speaker 1: social lives, then hopeful skepticism through this reciprocity mindset can
Speaker 1: produce I suppose more virtuous cycles.
Speaker 3: It's so good. It reminds me of the Barbara Frederickson
Speaker 3: Upwards Spirals of the heart research.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, it's.
Speaker 3: Got to be related somehow, even even within the similar
Speaker 3: systems in the body. Yeacause they have found, you know,
Speaker 3: like the Vegas nerve So cool. And also big shout
Speaker 3: out to Eric Newman, who I didn't was not aware
Speaker 3: was a student of yours. But he is at Stanford
Speaker 3: and now it all makes sense. It makes sense now,
Speaker 3: and he has a I believe, an excellent podcast. Right
Speaker 3: doesn't have a podcast.
Speaker 1: That's right, He hosts, along with some other trainees at Stanford,
Speaker 1: the Stanford Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 3: I've been on his podcast before.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean you, Scott are the original psychology podcaster
Speaker 1: and they draw a lot of inspiration from you.
Speaker 3: That's kind of you to say that I was I
Speaker 3: was excited to be on his show, and I think
Speaker 3: he's doing great work, and it makes complete sense that
Speaker 3: he's working with you, So the world makes sense. What
Speaker 3: are social shark attacks?
Speaker 1: Social shark attacks are again this idea that we focus
Speaker 1: more on the negative than the positive, and so we
Speaker 1: overestimate the likelihood of negative events. So you might know
Speaker 1: that we would call this, in jargon y terms, the
Speaker 1: availability heuristic, right, that vivid but rare events are judged
Speaker 1: as more common than they truly are. And one great
Speaker 1: example of this is shark attacks. So shark attacks are
Speaker 1: vanishingly rare. You are fifty times more likely to be
Speaker 1: struck by lightning than eaten by a shark. And yet
Speaker 1: you know, movies like Jaws and Open Water make us
Speaker 1: feel like, wow, this is really alive in my mind
Speaker 1: as a possible way that my life could end.
Speaker 2: That's certainly true for me, I'm terrified of sharks.
Speaker 1: But social shark attacks are the idea that, again, when
Speaker 1: we consider things like conversation with others or connections with others,
Speaker 1: there are really bad things that could happen. Right, every
Speaker 1: time you decide to trust somebody, you're placing a gamble
Speaker 1: on them. And of course we've all lost a bet
Speaker 1: or two in our lives, right, We've all been betrayed
Speaker 1: or disappointed by.
Speaker 2: People, and that's inevitable.
Speaker 1: But I think that for cynics, the idea is, well,
Speaker 1: this is so likely to happen that it's not worth
Speaker 1: placing that bet in the first place. And that's how
Speaker 1: social shark attacks. This sort of availability or vividness of
Speaker 1: betrayal and awkward encounters and all the things that we
Speaker 1: don't want to happen in the social world drive us
Speaker 1: away from opportunities to actually have great interactions with other people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really clear to me all the ways that
Speaker 3: people really can get in their own way through these
Speaker 3: narratives are telling themselves about people in their environment, people
Speaker 3: in general. And it has just struck me now in
Speaker 3: a way that it didn't strike me when I was
Speaker 3: reading your book, although I don't know why I didn't
Speaker 3: the linkage between the research program we initiated on the
Speaker 3: light triad your research. Maybe you might want to include
Speaker 3: or scale in one of your studies and we could collaborate.
Speaker 3: It's only a twelve item scale, so if you can
Speaker 3: sneak it in to one of your you can just
Speaker 3: sneak it into one of your studies. But one of
Speaker 3: the facets of the White triad is have you heard
Speaker 3: of the White triad? By the way, have you heard
Speaker 3: of this?
Speaker 1: I have, yeah, but but the details escape me right now.
Speaker 1: I'd love to have a refresher on it.
Speaker 3: Of course, it's not the opposite of the dark triad,
Speaker 3: which you know, the dark triads narcissism, psychopathy, and macavalism,
Speaker 3: but it's it's it's orthogonal to it.
Speaker 2: The light.
Speaker 3: One of the fastest of the light tribe is what
Speaker 3: we call Kantianism, which is not trning people as a
Speaker 3: means to an end, drinking people as onto themselves, as
Speaker 3: as as just whatever. You're not trying to get something
Speaker 3: out of them. You admire their You admire them. So
Speaker 3: that one thing seems to map on nicely to what
Speaker 3: you're talking about with seeing moral beauty and moral goodness
Speaker 3: and others. Well, actually another facet relates more to that.
Speaker 3: We have humanism seeing the dignity, seeing the dignity and
Speaker 3: worth of each individual. Wow, which maybe that maps onto
Speaker 3: the more the moral beauty. But then the third one
Speaker 3: is the one I really want to get you here,
Speaker 3: and that's a faith in humanity. Oh and the whole
Speaker 3: facet there of the of the white tried that that
Speaker 3: member out of the three is all about recognize the
Speaker 3: imperfections of humans, but still having faith in humanity, in
Speaker 3: the goodness of humans. And so this is a personality trait.
Speaker 3: We've been studying, and I've found all sorts of things
Speaker 3: that we I'd like to believe we wouldn't have found
Speaker 3: if we didn't create this construct.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's a that's an amazing scale. And
Speaker 1: I mean, all three facets are so interesting.
Speaker 2: In their own ways.
Speaker 1: But I completely agree with you that this faith in
Speaker 1: humanity almost seems like an anti cynicism score you know
Speaker 1: it's Yes, I like.
Speaker 3: The way you put that. I like the way you
Speaker 3: put that. I'm just realizing that now as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and anti cynicism, I mean, cynicism hurts people so much.
Speaker 1: I mean, as we've talked about, it diminishes our opportunities
Speaker 1: for connection, and it leaves us less healthy. You know,
Speaker 1: So cynics, for instance, are you know, they're more likely
Speaker 1: to suffer from heart disease, diabetes, they die younger than
Speaker 1: non cynics, And I've always thought that that's because they
Speaker 1: have trouble accessing the nourishment of social connection. Right that
Speaker 1: if social connection is the psychological calories that we need
Speaker 1: to flourish, it's almost like cynical people because they have
Speaker 1: no they don't have faith in humanity, can't metabolize those calories.
Speaker 1: Have you found that the faith in humanity subscale of
Speaker 1: the light triad does that track people's well being their health?
Speaker 1: Have you broken it out from the rest of the
Speaker 1: scale to examine.
Speaker 3: That great question. We have only looked at the correlation
Speaker 3: between the total score and health and well being. But
Speaker 3: I haven't like done a regression where I like controlled
Speaker 3: for the other two and and singled that out. But
Speaker 3: I think that would be a fun analysis for sure.
Speaker 3: I'll send you the paper or some papers and we can.
Speaker 3: I'd love to keep up the conversation with you that
Speaker 3: that that could be really interesting for sure. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: more related to physical health and uh and mental health
Speaker 3: than maybe the other two. Yeah, you know the thing
Speaker 3: is it's it's it's twelve items total, so that's what
Speaker 3: four items per sub scale. So the reliability is so
Speaker 3: much better with the total score. So that's why we
Speaker 3: focus on you.
Speaker 2: Of course, that's some shop talk love shop talk.
Speaker 3: That's shop talk cool. This is great. I would love
Speaker 3: to talk about this concept, tribal cynicism. I love that
Speaker 3: you bring that into your book, because that, for sure
Speaker 3: I'm seeing everywhere. So tell our audience about tribal cynicism.
Speaker 1: Tribal cynicism is the idea that although humanity has lost
Speaker 1: faith in itself over the last fifty years, we have
Speaker 1: focused a lot of that loss of faith and a
Speaker 1: lot of active contempt on anybody who we disagree with.
Speaker 1: And I just want to be really upfront here when
Speaker 1: I say that disagreement in our country.
Speaker 2: And beyond is real.
Speaker 1: When I say that we are cynical in our politics,
Speaker 1: I do not mean that everything is great and you
Speaker 1: should just put a smile on your face. There is
Speaker 1: enormous division and real danger in our political and cultural moment,
Speaker 1: as there are in so many moments in our culture.
Speaker 1: So to say that cynicism is hurting is not to
Speaker 1: say that everything is great. I just want to make
Speaker 1: that clear upfront. That said, it's also very clear that
Speaker 1: when asked about the when asked to imagine the average
Speaker 1: person that we disagree with, we actually imagine somebody who
Speaker 1: is totally different than the average person we disagree with.
Speaker 1: So research from my friend here at Stanford, Rob Willer,
Speaker 1: and many others finds that when asked, well, you know,
Speaker 1: a Democrat asked about the average Republican or a Republican
Speaker 1: asked about the average Democrat, they'll answer that that person
Speaker 1: is more extreme than eighty percent of people who are
Speaker 1: really on the other side. They will believe that that
Speaker 1: person hates them twice as much as the average person
Speaker 1: really does. They think that the average person they disagree
Speaker 1: with twice as anti democratic, four times as violent as
Speaker 1: they really are. So again, this is not to say
Speaker 1: that there are not real extreme and dangerous and violent
Speaker 1: people out there. But when we confuse those people with
Speaker 1: the majority, two things happen. One, we give those people
Speaker 1: way more power than they deserve. Right there's a tiny
Speaker 1: minority of our culture that are what I would call
Speaker 1: conflict entrepreneurs who thrive on a really broken, extremely toxic
Speaker 1: public sphere.
Speaker 2: Those people are really in the.
Speaker 1: Driver's seat right now, and they don't need to be.
Speaker 1: There's a silent super majority of people who want the opposite,
Speaker 1: who want peace and greater compromise. And if you look
Speaker 1: at the actual data, there's so much room for that
Speaker 1: compromise because we imagine that the other side is super
Speaker 1: extreme and we're wrong about most of them. And again
Speaker 1: that's a tragedy because it turns into a self fulfilling
Speaker 1: prophecy of people thinking that they need to be hateful too,
Speaker 1: that they need to escalate conflict. But there's good news
Speaker 1: underneath the bad news, which is that if we can,
Speaker 1: as you put it beautifully earlier, see the world with
Speaker 1: fresh eyes and actually open ourselves to the data about
Speaker 1: what people are really like, open ourselves even to those
Speaker 1: conversations that we might not want to have across disagreement,
Speaker 1: then there's a lot of middle ground. So as difficult
Speaker 1: as cynicism has made our politics, overcoming it can I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say it's going to fix our problems, but
Speaker 1: it can at least open a door to.
Speaker 2: A political world that maybe most of us want.
Speaker 3: It is so profound what you just said. I mean,
Speaker 3: obviously Trump's a conflict entrepreneur, like you can't deny it.
Speaker 3: But what I think is deeper and more interesting is
Speaker 3: that we can be fooled into thinking that that therefore
Speaker 3: means all his followers are conflict entrepreneurs. This is what
Speaker 3: I'm getting from what you're saying. And I think maybe
Speaker 3: a real hopeful skepticism would be to see the reality
Speaker 3: of the matter, which is in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: You know, they are He's bringing out certain instincts in people,
Speaker 3: but that's not maybe what they really want. Yes, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: is that fair?
Speaker 1: It's more than fair. I think it's it's it's precise, Scott,
Speaker 1: you nailed it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I think that there are people who thrive on conflict.
Speaker 1: There are people who want us to mistrust each other.
Speaker 1: And you know, this reminds me of another point. Oftentimes
Speaker 1: when I talk about hope. Trust me, I get a
Speaker 1: lot of criticism about this stuff. I get told, you know,
Speaker 1: this is so naive. But I also get told, sure.
Speaker 3: Yes, tell them, just tell them they're too cynical.
Speaker 1: I get told all the time. Yeah, Hope easy for
Speaker 1: you to talk about. You're a professor at some fancy university.
Speaker 1: You know you're things are going well for you, so
Speaker 1: you can talk about hope. But it's harder for the
Speaker 1: rest of us. Hope is complacent. Hope is is sort
Speaker 1: of part of the status quo. Cynicism is radical, cinics
Speaker 1: call people out there, they're the ones who who create change.
Speaker 2: The opposite is true, Scott.
Speaker 1: It turns out that cinics actually bow down to the
Speaker 1: status quo because they don't think that anything else is possible.
Speaker 1: There are so many systems and structures in our culture
Speaker 1: that are deeply broken, but if you think that they
Speaker 1: represent who we really are, then there's no turning away
Speaker 1: from them. There's no alternative. And people who are conflict
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs love for us to think that right. People in power,
Speaker 1: people who stir the pot, who have extreme views. They
Speaker 1: thrive when we mistrust one another. There's an exhausted majority
Speaker 1: under the surface that doesn't realize it's a majority, and
Speaker 1: our cynicism stops us from realizing all we have in common.
Speaker 1: And that's great for people who want to keep I
Speaker 1: mean I sound conspiratorial here, but for people who want
Speaker 1: to control, for people want to control us. Cynicism has
Speaker 1: long been a tool of the status quo.
Speaker 3: Wow, that is you're dropping some truth bombs. Yes, yes
Speaker 3: you are. There is a underlining and plicit assumption that
Speaker 3: there's cynicism for people who want to make a change.
Speaker 3: That's how I would kind of put it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's incredible, this sense of you know, oh,
Speaker 1: it's cringe to want something new, it's cringe to believe
Speaker 1: in something. I think that young people are rejecting that perspective.
Speaker 2: Now, you know.
Speaker 1: I write in the book a lot about climate change,
Speaker 1: which is one of the issues that makes me most
Speaker 1: hopeless and most cynical. And it turns out that the
Speaker 1: more I got into the data, the more I thought, well,
Speaker 1: my hopelessness is not helping this.
Speaker 2: Cause at all. It's actually hurting. You know.
Speaker 1: It turns out that if you ask a you know,
Speaker 1: representative sample of Americans, how many of your fellow citizens
Speaker 1: support aggressive policy to protect the climate, people say, ah,
Speaker 1: thirty five forty percent. The actual number is sixty five percent. Right,
Speaker 1: So we are part of a super majority that we
Speaker 1: don't realize is all around us. And having faith in
Speaker 1: each other now is intimately related to having hope for
Speaker 1: the future, because what is the future if not something
Speaker 1: that we construct together?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I there's this hashtag that young climate activists use that
Speaker 1: I think is a sort of it's a it's a
Speaker 1: clap back to cynicism, right, It's okay, doomer, you know,
Speaker 1: of course there yeah, Okay, Boomer is what you tell
Speaker 1: your uncle when they say something that you find to
Speaker 1: be to be silly. Okay, Doomer, is this idea that fine,
Speaker 1: you want to give up on fixing or at least
Speaker 1: mitigating the climate crisis, you go ahead and give up.
Speaker 1: We can't afford to, you know, we have to keep
Speaker 1: on fighting. And I think that the young people I
Speaker 1: interact with, at least and the ones that I that
Speaker 1: that that I that I read about and and and
Speaker 1: learned about in researching this book, are full of hope,
Speaker 1: not as a complacent feeling, but as a fierce desire
Speaker 1: for something better.
Speaker 3: You sound like Obama.
Speaker 2: Let me be clear. I believe that they can make change.
Speaker 3: That hope is possible. Okay. So I another part of
Speaker 3: your book I really like is linking it to to resiliency.
Speaker 3: You have a whole section on that. So can you
Speaker 3: talk a little bit about how how and if we
Speaker 3: talk the opposite end, maybe how cynics are not as
Speaker 3: resilient to stress as hopeful skeptics.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think this is really related Scott, to your
Speaker 1: work as well, uh, you know, on on sort of
Speaker 1: how we can access our values and sort of what
Speaker 1: is important to us and what allows us to transcend.
Speaker 1: And so as we were talking about I would say
Speaker 1: that cynics, basically they can't access the joy and the
Speaker 1: meaning of social connection because they just can't trust other people,
Speaker 1: or at least they don't want. They choose not to
Speaker 1: trust other people. And one of the biggest things that
Speaker 1: helps us through stressful times is each other. Right, there's
Speaker 1: this saying that trouble shared is trouble haved, and that's true.
Speaker 1: There's this whole literature that you know very well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure on stress buffering that when I go through a
Speaker 1: difficult time, if there's somebody there supporting me physiologically and psychologically,
Speaker 1: that stressor doesn't feel bad as bad, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel bad for as long. It turns out that cynical
Speaker 1: people don't show that effect. So there's one classic, and
Speaker 1: to me, a really sad study where people were asked
Speaker 1: to give an extemporaneous speech on a topic they didn't
Speaker 1: know very much about, which of course is enormously stressful,
Speaker 1: and half of these folks had, in essence a cheerleader.
Speaker 1: A stranger was with them as they prepared, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you got this, you can do it. I'm in your corner,
Speaker 1: and half of them didn't. And for non cinics, having
Speaker 1: that person by your side was immensely helpful. Those people
Speaker 1: their blood pressure, for instance, rose only half as much
Speaker 1: than people who were alone during this stressful task. But
Speaker 1: for cinics there was no effect. They were not buffered
Speaker 1: in their stress by the presence of a supportive other person.
Speaker 3: So interesting, Yeah, that's so interesting. Do you think that
Speaker 3: cynics are going to listen to this episode and change
Speaker 3: I don't know, or are they going to be cynical
Speaker 3: about what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel I've been struggling with this or
Speaker 1: I guess interacting with this type of idea around empathy
Speaker 1: for twenty years. You know, empathic folks who like empathy
Speaker 1: like empathy, and folks who don't think it's stupid and
Speaker 1: warm and fuzzy. And a big perspective of mine has been, Hey,
Speaker 1: you don't have to like me or think that I'm right,
Speaker 1: but let's look at the data. You know, if you
Speaker 1: think that empathy is a weakness, here are twenty five
Speaker 1: studies that suggest that it might be a strength. So
Speaker 1: it's up to you whether you want to internalize the
Speaker 1: science or not. I think the same is true for
Speaker 1: cynicism and hopeful skepticism. You know, I don't expect people
Speaker 1: to believe me, but I hope that they can focus.
Speaker 2: On the research.
Speaker 1: And you know, one other thing that I'll say is that,
Speaker 1: as a recovering cynic myself, I don't think that cynics
Speaker 1: are the way they are all the time because that's
Speaker 1: just what they believe. I think a lot of cynics
Speaker 1: have been hurt in the past, and so it's a
Speaker 1: much more emotional choice. It's not a rational choice to
Speaker 1: say I'm deciding that I think people are terrible. It's
Speaker 1: more a response that hey, I'm trying to stay safe here.
Speaker 1: I've been hurt and I don't want to be hurt again.
Speaker 1: So to cynics who are coming from that place, I
Speaker 1: would say, I feel you.
Speaker 2: I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1: But sometimes our cynicism can hurt us yet again in
Speaker 1: ways that are hard to detect, by cutting us off
Speaker 1: from really beautiful parts of life.
Speaker 3: I love that. So I'm trying to wrap my hand
Speaker 3: around your recommendation for societal change. Then you're not appealing
Speaker 3: to the cynics specifically, you are, as I see it
Speaker 3: doing two things. One, you are trying to extol the
Speaker 3: merits of cultivating more hopeful skepticism in your life and
Speaker 3: showing how it can contribute to social progress and inspire change.
Speaker 3: And you're giving people steps to implement more hopeful skepticism
Speaker 3: in their lives wherever they are on the spectrum. Is
Speaker 3: that a fair accurate assessment of what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1: I literally could not have put that better myself, Scott,
Speaker 1: that's says, Yeah, No.
Speaker 3: It seems like that's the case. So then that in
Speaker 3: that case, can you just kind of end our interview
Speaker 3: today telling people what small steps they can take today
Speaker 3: to cultivate more hopeful skepticism to inspire social change absolutely
Speaker 3: then themselves and others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a great that's a great place
Speaker 1: to go. So I try to work on my own
Speaker 1: cynicism in three steps. The first is cognitive, and here
Speaker 1: I draw tools from CBT cognitive behavioral therapy. I try
Speaker 1: to fact check my cynicism. I try to be skeptical about.
Speaker 2: My own cynicism.
Speaker 1: So if I meet somebody and I immediately feel myself
Speaker 1: becoming suspicious or mistrustful, I'll interrogate that feeling I'll say,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, Zachi, where is this coming from. What
Speaker 1: data do you have to back up this internal case
Speaker 1: that you're building against this person? And oftentimes the answer
Speaker 1: is none, I have no data. It's just an instinct.
Speaker 1: But guess what, Not all of our instincts are perfect.
Speaker 1: Our instincts include liking and trusting people who look like
Speaker 1: us more than people who don't look like us. Is
Speaker 1: that a gut feeling that we want to follow, of
Speaker 1: course not.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: I try to again be really skeptical and be clear
Speaker 1: on what.
Speaker 2: I know and what I don't know.
Speaker 1: Nice I then try to take different actions. One thing
Speaker 1: that I've tried to do a lot more since starting
Speaker 1: this project that has helped me a lot is taking
Speaker 1: little leaps of faith on people. Now this is not
Speaker 1: to say that I'm like sharing my bank information with
Speaker 1: the prince who's going to wire me fourteen.
Speaker 2: Million dollars or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's more that I realize that our default is to
Speaker 1: be really risk averse in the social world, and sometimes
Speaker 1: taking chances on people does a bunch of different things.
Speaker 2: It opens you to new.
Speaker 1: Opportunities, and it also gives other people a chance to
Speaker 1: earn your trust. To step up and be a better
Speaker 1: version of themselves. And then the last thing I'll say
Speaker 1: is that I try to share differently. You know, cynicism
Speaker 1: infects our minds, but it also characterizes our language. You know.
Speaker 1: We tend to gossip more and talk a lot about
Speaker 1: negative things and people, and I've been trying to temper
Speaker 1: that a lot. I try to catch people in the
Speaker 1: act of doing morally beautiful things and call them out,
Speaker 1: talk about what they're doing, and share it with other people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, call out, that's right, Yes, Yuah.
Speaker 3: Oh Man, Jamil Jamil. It is so lovely to connect
Speaker 3: with you again. I have remained all this time a
Speaker 3: great fan of your work, but I am also a
Speaker 3: minor of you as a human. So thank you for
Speaker 3: coming on the Psychology podcast.
Speaker 2: That's very kind, Scott.
Speaker 1: It's great to see you always and I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you having me on.
Speaker 2: This has been delightful.
Speaker 3: One What's what? What's what? One what what? One mus
Speaker 3: membr