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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to do Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 2: By name is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with

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Speaker 3: the fourth and final part in our series on cynicism.

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Speaker 3: There has been a light at the end of the tunnel,

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Speaker 3: and we finally reached it. So in Part one, we

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Speaker 3: defined cynicism as the tendency to believe that people are bad, selfish,

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Speaker 3: and untrustworthy, and we distinguished this modern definition from other

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Speaker 3: concepts like the cynic philosophy of ancient Greece, which is

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Speaker 3: a whole different thing, and from similar but distinct concepts

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Speaker 3: like pessimism. We also looked at research on the correlates

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Speaker 3: of cynicism across a bunch of domains of life, from

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Speaker 3: health to career and all kinds of things, and discovered

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Speaker 3: that being highly cynical tends to have overwhelmingly negative effect

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Speaker 3: on a person's life. In Part two, we focused primarily

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Speaker 3: on the so called cynical genius illusion. The short version

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Speaker 3: of this is that while people might not necessarily like

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Speaker 3: highly cynical people for whatever reason, we tend to assume

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Speaker 3: that they are smart and competent in cognitive domains, conforming

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Speaker 3: to the Sherlock Holmes archetype. However, experiments showed that this

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Speaker 3: is not actually the case. On average, highly cynical people

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Speaker 3: are not smarter than everybody else, and if anything, the

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Speaker 3: correlation usually goes the other way, And so we talked

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Speaker 3: about possible reasons for this effect, and also talked about

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Speaker 3: the question of what, if anything, is the actual benefit

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Speaker 3: of generalized cynicism. It seems like one answer is that

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Speaker 3: if you are not very skilled at telling the difference

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Speaker 3: between a trustworthy situation and an untrustworthy one, generalized cynicism

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Speaker 3: may protect you from catastrophic misplacements of trust, but again

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Speaker 3: great cost to your well being and at the price

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Speaker 3: of many lost opportunities to benefit from trust and cooperation.

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Speaker 3: In Part three, we talked about the role of cynicism

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Speaker 3: in politics, including the idea that cynicism has been on

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Speaker 3: the rise in many democracies around the world for a

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Speaker 3: possible number of reasons, one influence maybe being the use

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Speaker 3: of social media. We also talked about research on the

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Speaker 3: phenomenon of political cynicism, in particular as distinct from just

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Speaker 3: general social cynicism or from simple distrust or skepticism of politicians,

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Speaker 3: and we got into some observed characteristics of how cynicism

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Speaker 3: manifests in political participation. We also talked about how people

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Speaker 3: may use a mask of cynical rhetoric about politics in

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Speaker 3: order to influence how they're perceived by others, maybe to

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Speaker 3: sort of cover up the fact that you maybe don't

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Speaker 3: know a lot about what you're talking about, and we

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Speaker 3: discussed the link between cynicism and a preference for conspiracy

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Speaker 3: based explanation.

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Speaker 2: Another thing we discussed that ties into this episode a

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Speaker 2: little bit is the idea that escape from cynicism in

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Speaker 2: the modern sense, one way to escape from it would

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Speaker 2: be to push through to a point of true disenchantment

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Speaker 2: and essentially become an ancient cynic, a capital C cynic

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Speaker 2: in the philosophical sense. Now, we'll see how well that

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Speaker 2: idea pans out with what we have to talk about today.

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Speaker 2: But to be clear, we're not recommending this is a

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Speaker 2: standard solution to any cynicism you're wrestling with in your life.

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Speaker 2: It's more interesting from the standpoint of understanding what lowercase

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Speaker 2: cynicism and capital C cynicism is. So I think it's

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Speaker 2: an interesting take in that regard, but not necessarily something

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Speaker 2: you want to try for yourself. Like, the answer is

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Speaker 2: not to I think we can state pretty clearly here.

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Speaker 2: Don't try to become more cynical about life in order

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Speaker 2: to reach some point of equilibrium.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think maybe I see what the author you

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Speaker 3: were citing when you brought this up is getting at

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Speaker 3: with the idea of a sort of total disenchantment leading

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Speaker 3: to a freedom to once again embrace virtue. I mean

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Speaker 3: that almost seems a kind of Buddhist in a way, like,

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Speaker 3: you know, like losing your love for the things of

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Speaker 3: the world, allowing you to find like different higher levels

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Speaker 3: of appreciation. But I question to what extent that kind

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Speaker 3: of enlightened disenchantment capital C cynicism can actually be reached

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Speaker 3: just by increasing your lowercase C cynicism along the standard dimension,

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Speaker 3: you know, like becoming even less and less trustful. I

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Speaker 3: don't know if that eventually gets you to capital C cynicism.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think its primary purpose is to help us understand

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Speaker 2: the connections between ancient cynicism and modern cynicism, rather than

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Speaker 2: give us an approach for fixing our own lives.

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Speaker 3: Now, given everything that we've talked about so far. One

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Speaker 3: of the things, the main things we wanted to talk

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Speaker 3: about today was the question of where cynicism comes from.

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Speaker 3: What can we understand about its origins within a culture

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Speaker 3: and within a person, how it grows and spreads, and

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Speaker 3: thus how can it be counteracted. Is there anything we

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Speaker 3: really know about how to stop the growth of cynicism.

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Speaker 3: I think this is a field where, you know, we

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Speaker 3: don't have really strong conclusions yet, but there are some

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Speaker 3: good starting points based on research. And one paper that

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Speaker 3: I came across that addresses this question pretty directly was

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Speaker 3: published in twenty twenty three in the journal Trends in

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Speaker 3: Cognitive Sciences by a pair of researchers from the Stanford

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Speaker 3: Psychology Department named Eric Neuman and Jamil Zaki. And this

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Speaker 3: paper is called Toward a Social Psychology of Cynicism. So

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Speaker 3: the authors begin this paper by addressing what they called

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Speaker 3: the cynicism paradox. Cynicism quote tracks numerous negative outcomes, and

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Speaker 3: yet many people are cynical. And so this is really

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Speaker 3: something we've already been talking about this series, but kind

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Speaker 3: of with a different framing. We've been asking the question

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Speaker 3: if cynicism is clearly so bad for our lives? Is

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Speaker 3: there any compensating benefit? Because if it's harmful and lots

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Speaker 3: of people are highly cynical anyway, shouldn't you think there's

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Speaker 3: probably some kind of trade off that makes it worth

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Speaker 3: the cost. We've already mentioned several specific ways or scenarios

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Speaker 3: in which it might be adaptive, but then again, it

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Speaker 3: might just be one of those things that is just

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Speaker 3: plain bad for us but happens anyway, like, for example, depression.

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Speaker 3: You might be able to explain how depression grows out

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Speaker 3: of biological mechanisms that are evolved in order to be

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Speaker 3: adaptive for us, but you don't have to assume that

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Speaker 3: depression itself has benefits overall. It's just like something's gone

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Speaker 3: wrong and it's bad for us. It's possible. Cynicism is

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Speaker 3: usually the same way. But the authors here sort of

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Speaker 3: take the same idea and they frame it as this

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Speaker 3: paradox cynicism hurts the cynic and yet cynicism seems to

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Speaker 3: spread and bloom a new year after year. And so

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Speaker 3: the authors say, given the observation of the cynicism paradox,

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Speaker 3: research within social psychology should focus on a couple of

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Speaker 3: questions where cynicism comes from, and how it spreads, and

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Speaker 3: how can it be countered, diminished or alleviated. So first

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Speaker 3: the question what explains cynicism? Where does it come from?

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Speaker 3: First they address the possibility, what if the cynic is right.

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Speaker 3: We've talked about this from a number of angles. Maybe

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Speaker 3: cynicism is just an accurate assessment based on observations of

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Speaker 3: the world. In the words of the author's quote, perhaps

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Speaker 3: it reflects a realistic perception of the suffering caused by

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Speaker 3: human self interest. But we've already explored research casting serious

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Speaker 3: doubt on this, For example, the various experiments showing that

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Speaker 3: people tend to grossly overestimate the selfishness and treachery of strangers.

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Speaker 3: Most people in most types of situations are actually pretty trustworthy.

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Speaker 3: And the authors seem to agree with this conclusion, and

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Speaker 3: so instead they identify three ways that they think cynicism arises.

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Speaker 3: It's not necessarily that it is an accurate model of

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Speaker 3: the world. But instead quote, we will argue that people

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Speaker 3: often overestimate self interest, create it through their expectations, or

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Speaker 3: overstate their own to not appear naive. Now, the authors

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Speaker 3: here acknowledged that, of course cynicism can be and often

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Speaker 3: is responsive to observations.

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Speaker 4: Of the real world.

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Speaker 3: For example, this is an experimental finding. We become more

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Speaker 3: cynical when we witness people behaving selfishly. If you do

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Speaker 3: an experiment where you stage people catching somebody doing something

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Speaker 3: selfish and untrustworthy, that actually makes us less likely to trust.

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Speaker 3: So we've witnessed an example that trust, you know, did

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Speaker 3: not turn out well, and it affects our baseline in

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Speaker 3: a way, at least within the situation, we've become less trusting.

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Speaker 3: But jumping off of this, they say that we can easily,

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Speaker 3: because of various psychological phenomena, biases, and so forth, become

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Speaker 3: kind of trapped in an unrealistically cynical mindset that is

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Speaker 3: not a good model of how the world usually works

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Speaker 3: and brings with it all the harms we've talked about.

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Speaker 3: And you know, you can think about this in a

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Speaker 3: number of different psychological domains. Your initial tendency is based

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Speaker 3: on an observation, like you do see a betrayal or

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Speaker 3: an example of somebody acting selfishly, but then you form

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Speaker 3: an inaccurate, totalizing worldview based on that one salient example.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's this really insightful table that they cite here

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Speaker 2: that I've found very interesting with these different categories of cynicism,

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Speaker 2: group cynicism, institutional cynicism, in general cynicism, and this kind

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Speaker 2: of model for how things might intensify. So, like one

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Speaker 2: example they include is a young colleague betrays an older

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Speaker 2: one in a team project. What does the older colleague conclude?

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Speaker 2: And so the initial cynicism is, well, young people are

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Speaker 2: self interested, and then that's the group's cynicism. Then the

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Speaker 2: institutional cynicism is people in the workplace are self interested,

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Speaker 2: and then the general cynicism is people are self interested.

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Speaker 2: And so you can imagine like a blossoming of cynicism

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Speaker 2: more or less along these these routes, you know, from

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Speaker 2: being highly specific to you know, a particular encounter, to

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Speaker 2: being increasing generalities about the way the world works.

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Speaker 3: That's an interesting point. Yeah, And in fact, though, the

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Speaker 3: cynicism may be inaccurate at every single stage in this progression.

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Speaker 3: So like let's say I observe Johnny doing something selfish

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Speaker 3: in one instance, and I start by saying Johnny is

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Speaker 3: an untrustworthy person. That may not actually be true about Johnny.

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Speaker 3: Maybe I just caught him at his worst moment, But

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Speaker 3: it might be true about Johnny. Then I abstract it

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Speaker 3: to some group Johnny belongs to. For some reason, his

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Speaker 3: membership in a particular group is meaningful to me, and

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Speaker 3: so I see him as representative of that group and

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Speaker 3: apply the untrustworthiness to the whole group. And then I

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Speaker 3: could branch out even further to some institution in which

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Speaker 3: Johnny exists, and then possibly to all of humankind. But

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Speaker 3: at every single level, it's possible you are actually not

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Speaker 3: drawing a good generalization from observing one instance of behavior.

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Speaker 2: This made me think about cynicism on The Simpsons, particularly

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Speaker 2: as it relates to Homer Simpson. There's a famous episode

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Speaker 2: from the Golden Age of Simpson's episodes in which we

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Speaker 2: kind of get an origin story for homer cynicism. It's

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Speaker 2: the City of New York Versus Homer, in which a

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Speaker 2: young and optimistic Homer Simpson experiences a number of betrayals

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Speaker 2: and hostilities upon visiting the Big Apple.

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Speaker 3: We talked about this episode in our Weird House Cinema

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Speaker 3: on the Face Behind the Mask, because Peter Lourie has

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Speaker 3: the exact same experience.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the exact same experience, and in this episode we

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Speaker 2: see how it leads to an extremely cynical view of

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Speaker 2: New York and New Yorkers. But you could also argue

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Speaker 2: that it perhaps underlines the general anger in cynicism that

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Speaker 2: comes to define Homer, at least in these early classic

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Speaker 2: seasons of the show.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, though it is interesting how malleable Homer's character is,

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Speaker 3: and yet he still feels like a cohesive character, Like

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Speaker 3: sometimes Homer is very, very trusting and other times he's

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Speaker 3: very cynical.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he's changed a lot over the years. I mean

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Speaker 2: not in a character development way, but just in the

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Speaker 2: realities of the show being on television this long, with

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Speaker 2: this many different writers over the years. Various commentators have

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Speaker 2: discussed how, in the early sense, so certainly the golden

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Speaker 2: age of the Simpsons, you have this mix of cynicism

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Speaker 2: and heart that kind of balances everything out. But the

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Speaker 2: cynicism and melancholy have been observed to be particularly strong

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Speaker 2: during that first season, and then they move away from that,

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Speaker 2: and then eventually they kind of move away from homer

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Speaker 2: cynicism and anger in general and double down on his

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Speaker 2: frankness and his stupidity, so he becomes you know, it's

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Speaker 2: more about like the dumb jokes in the Gullible Homer

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Speaker 2: as we proceed. But if you look at the New

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Speaker 2: York episode, and you look at some of these episodes

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Speaker 2: from the from like the nineteen nineties, you can easily

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Speaker 2: fill out a chart watching how we have a situation

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Speaker 2: where Homer encounters selfish people in New York, and then

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Speaker 2: this fosters into a worldview that, well, all New Yorkers

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Speaker 2: are selfish, and then maybe all people are selfish as well.

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Speaker 2: Like you can imagine it being like the thing, it

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Speaker 2: blossoms out into Homer's general cynicism.

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Speaker 3: Right, this is a great comparison. So, yeah, it begins

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Speaker 3: as the observation of an individual action or behavior, and

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Speaker 3: then generalizing to the person who did that, then the

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Speaker 3: group to whom that person belongs, and then to the

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Speaker 3: society at large, and then to all of humankind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and tell you you're the type of person who's like,

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Speaker 2: of course I'm going to steal roadside sugar because anyone

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Speaker 2: else would do the same thing.

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Speaker 3: Yes, So anyway, in this paper, the authors try to

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Speaker 3: formulate a model of how cynicism can spread at three

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Speaker 3: different levels of social interaction. So one is through interactions

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Speaker 3: at the interpersonal level between two people. The next is

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Speaker 3: at the intra group level within groups, and then finally

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Speaker 3: at the inter group level between in groups. So regarding

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Speaker 3: the interpersonal level of cynicism of formation, the authors raise

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Speaker 3: the question, what if at the interpersonal level, cynicism is

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Speaker 3: a self fulfilling prophecy, In other words, an initially false belief,

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Speaker 3: or at least a belief not based on evidence, whether

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Speaker 3: whether true or false, an initially false belief that influences

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Speaker 3: the behavior of the believer in such a way that

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Speaker 3: they make the world conform to the way they believe

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Speaker 3: it is. And psychological research has identified a bunch of

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Speaker 3: dynamics like this. Self fulfilling prophecies show up in all kinds.

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Speaker 4: Of ways in our behavior.

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Speaker 3: For example, some experiments have found that if you treat

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Speaker 3: somebody in a way that indicates you have high expectations

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Speaker 3: of their competence, it can actually make them more competent.

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Speaker 3: And obviously there would be limits to effects like this.

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Speaker 3: You know, you can't just, you know, like hand, somebody

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Speaker 3: who knows no thing about medicine a scalpel and say

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Speaker 3: I believe in you go do the surgery. You know,

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Speaker 3: they're probably not going to know what to do. But

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Speaker 3: within certain limits, of a plausible knowledge and behavior. You

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Speaker 3: can imagine how having somebody else show confidence in you

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Speaker 3: can make you more confident in yourself, maybe make you

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Speaker 3: less nervous, increase your performance certain types of jobs, or

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Speaker 3: maybe having somebody treat you as competent makes you more conscientious,

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Speaker 3: more careful to do a good job so as not

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Speaker 3: to disappoint them, and so forth, and so then the

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Speaker 3: author say quote, just like expectations about competence, cynical expectations

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Speaker 3: of moral character can become self fulfilling. So examples of

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Speaker 3: this remember the trust based investing game that we talked

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Speaker 3: about in previous episodes in the series, where I am

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Speaker 3: given some money and then I have the option to

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Speaker 3: either keep the money or hand it over to a stranger,

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Speaker 3: at which point the money gets quadrupled. So maybe I

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Speaker 3: initially get five dollars, if I hand it to the stranger,

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Speaker 3: it becomes twenty dollars. And then the stranger has the

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Speaker 3: option to either keep all of the money for themselves

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Speaker 3: or split the money and give me back ten dollars,

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Speaker 3: so we both get ten and I double my initial investment.

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Speaker 3: This was one of the experiments that found strangers almost

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Speaker 3: always honor the investors trust and give half the money back.

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Speaker 3: But people greatly underestimated how often that would happen. We

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Speaker 3: overestimate the selfishness and treachery of strangers.

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Speaker 4: Anyway.

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Speaker 3: The authors mentioned that in trust based games of this sort,

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Speaker 3: maybe not exactly this game, but something like it, if

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Speaker 3: one player treats the other with cynicism, the other player

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Speaker 3: actually becomes measurably less trustworthy in how they play the game.

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Speaker 3: In other words, if you treat me like you expect

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Speaker 3: me to be selfish, I actually become more selfish than

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Speaker 3: I would have been otherwise. And this dynamic has been

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Speaker 3: found in laboratory experiments, of course, but also found the

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Speaker 3: wild in real life scenarios. For example, studies of workplaces

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Speaker 3: that find when management treats workers with suspicion, like they

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Speaker 3: expect them to break the rules, and they're trying to,

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Speaker 3: you know, make sure to really crack down and make

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Speaker 3: sure you don't break the rules, it actually makes workers.

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Speaker 4: More likely to break the rules. Quote.

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Speaker 3: When cynical supervisors expect low compliance and tighten supervision, they

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Speaker 3: actually lower compliance.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 3: This of course might not be the case in every

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Speaker 3: workplace all the time, but it has been observed, and

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Speaker 3: it intuitively makes sense to me. You know, when a

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Speaker 3: person is treated with trust, they may feel incentivized to

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Speaker 3: rise to meet that trust, and when they're treated with

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Speaker 3: cynical suspicion, the mind rebels and says, no, go to hell.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like, if you actually put a sign up no

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Speaker 2: stealing pins or no you know, printing out of dungeons

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Speaker 2: and dragon supplements on the on the work printer, you

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Speaker 2: know we're gonna we're gonna be like, well, why not,

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Speaker 2: Why shouldn't I have pins? Well, I shouldn't I have

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Speaker 2: color printouts of my DND manuals come on?

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Speaker 3: Or just more generally, I mean, I think a lot

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Speaker 3: of people will know the feeling of it does not

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Speaker 3: inspire you to be the best kind of worker. If

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Speaker 3: you have the boss constantly looking over your shoulder, that

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Speaker 3: just kind of makes you you feel like, well, okay, well,

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Speaker 3: why do I give a damn about this?

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Speaker 2: You know, I wasn't gonna mention too much about diagenies

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Speaker 2: in this episode because I don't want to confuse things

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Speaker 2: too much, But there are some stories of diagenies where

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Speaker 2: people expect him to act like a dog in the

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Speaker 2: street and then they would like throw food to him

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Speaker 2: to feed him like a dog, but then he kind

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Speaker 2: of ups the ante and out dogs them by then

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Speaker 2: peeing on them like a dog, which we could maybe

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Speaker 2: apply to this scenario. It's like like, yeah, if you

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Speaker 2: think I'm a dog, watch how much of a dog

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Speaker 2: I can be.

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Speaker 3: Okay, Another self fulfilling prophecy dynamic at the interpersonal level.

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Speaker 3: This one's actually even simpler person to person respect quote.

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Speaker 3: More generally, cynics assume the worst in others and accordingly

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Speaker 3: treat them with less respect. A recent paper uses lab

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Speaker 3: experiments and daily diary methods to show that cynics often

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Speaker 3: disrespect others. Since people dislike being disrespected, they often return

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Speaker 3: the disrespect. That's pretty straightforward. That makes sense to me.

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Speaker 3: So these self fulfilling prophecy dynamics both trap the cynic

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Speaker 3: in their cynical worldview by making those around them less

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Speaker 3: trustworthy and more unpleasant, thus increasing evidence for the cynic's

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Speaker 3: view of humankind. It's like, if you're acting, if you're

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Speaker 3: already cynical, you make your environment better evidence for cynical worldview.

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Speaker 3: And then also they spread cynicism like an infectious disease,

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Speaker 3: causing those who have dealings with the cynic to themselves

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Speaker 3: become more cynical.

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Speaker 4: All right.

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Speaker 3: So that's the interpersonal level. But the next level of

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Speaker 3: analysis is the InTru group level within groups, and here

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Speaker 3: the authors bring up an idea that I thought was

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Speaker 3: really interesting. That is the idea of pluralistic ignorance. Pluralistic

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Speaker 3: ignorance is a group psychology effect that emerges when people

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Speaker 3: mistakenly believe that everybody else thinks differently than they do.

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Speaker 3: A classic illustration of pluralistic ignorance is the story The

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Speaker 3: Emperor's New Clothes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, most people are probably familiar with the Hans Christian

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Speaker 2: Anderson telling of this from eighteen thirty seven, though I'm

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Speaker 2: to understand this was based in part on older tales,

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Speaker 2: and you can also connect it to related stories in

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Speaker 2: various cultures.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but the simplified version is, some con artists go

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Speaker 3: to the emperor and they say, we've got some beautiful

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Speaker 3: new garments for you, in fact, a magical outfit that

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Speaker 3: can only be seen by people who are intelligent. It's

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Speaker 3: invisible to the dim witted, and the con artists provide

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Speaker 3: the Emperor in fact with no clothes at all. But nobody,

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Speaker 3: including the emperor wants to admit that they can't see

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Speaker 3: the clothes and thus be thought a fool, so everybody

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Speaker 3: pretends the king has clothes on while he's actually just

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Speaker 3: walking around naked, and nobody is able to speak up

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Speaker 3: about this until finally a child points out the nudity,

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Speaker 3: and finally everybody realizes they've been tricked. This story illustrates

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Speaker 3: pluralistic ignorance because actually everybody privately thinks the Emperor is naked,

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Speaker 3: but they are afraid to say so because they think

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Speaker 3: they're the only one and nobody else is saying it.

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Speaker 3: This story does slightly complicate it by adding the detail

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Speaker 3: that they're afraid of being thought unintelligent, and that's not

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Speaker 3: necessarily part of pluralistic ignorance, but it is pluralistic ignorance

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Speaker 3: because everybody in the story just goes along pretending to

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Speaker 3: believe something that none of them actually privately believes.

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Speaker 2: There's a great treatment of this on the television series

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Speaker 2: Arrested Development with the film The Ocean Walker, where all

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Speaker 2: the studio people surrounding it just continue to talk about

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Speaker 2: how great it was, but no one actually understood it.

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Speaker 2: But nobody wanted to be seen as the dummy who

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Speaker 2: doesn't get this amazing project.

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Speaker 3: Great example, and you can think of examples like this

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Speaker 3: all throughout you know, it happens all the time. So

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Speaker 3: how could this actually be a factor in the propagation

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Speaker 3: of cynicism The author's right quote. A group can succumb

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Speaker 3: to the norm of self interest, which specifies that people

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Speaker 3: are and should be self interested. Members in such groups

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Speaker 3: present themselves as more self interested than they really are.

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Speaker 3: So what if most people in a group actually just

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Speaker 3: want to be trustworthy and cooperative, but there is a

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Speaker 3: let's say, a prominent voice within the group saying it's

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Speaker 3: a dog eat dog world. Everybody's just looking out for

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Speaker 3: number one. The speaker could manage to convince the group

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Speaker 3: that everyone else in the group thinks that way too.

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Speaker 3: And the person who is not very selfish and would

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Speaker 3: prefer mutual trust and cooperation, that person feels like they

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Speaker 3: can't really admit how they feel publicly because they would

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Speaker 3: be the only one and they would seem naive or silly,

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Speaker 3: or they would fear that people might think they were

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Speaker 3: misrepresenting themselves, you know, like your virtue signaling. We've heard

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Speaker 3: that kind of thing. And the authors point to a

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Speaker 3: study that looks into this I was published in two

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Speaker 3: thousand and one by Ratner and Miller, which this paper

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Speaker 3: did several experiments looking into this phenomenon. I looked it

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Speaker 3: up and one of the more persuasive experiments went like this, Okay,

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Speaker 3: if you anonymously privately ask people about whether they would

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Speaker 3: like to take money away from a research project funded

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Speaker 3: through the National Institutes of Health. Most people did not

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Speaker 3: want to take the money away from medical research when

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Speaker 3: asked in private. However, when it was made clear that

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Speaker 3: the research in question could not directly benefit certain participants personally.

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Speaker 3: For example, it's like to cure a disease that only

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Speaker 3: affects a group you do not belong to, people became

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Speaker 3: hesitant to speak up publicly in the group about their

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Speaker 3: opposition to cutting the grant, even though they privately still

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Speaker 3: supported the grant. So, to paraphrase, lots of people wanted

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Speaker 3: to protect medical research that could not benefit them personally,

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Speaker 3: but they were hesitant to publicly speak up about protecting

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Speaker 3: the research unless it could benefit them personally. Like this

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Speaker 3: hurts me, gives me confidence to speak in public, but

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Speaker 3: want to I just want to help other people that

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Speaker 3: might be a genuine private motivation, but people were afraid

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Speaker 3: to say that in public. And there could be a

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Speaker 3: number of explanations for this, but based on a few

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Speaker 3: characteristics of the findings, it was interpreted by the researchers

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Speaker 3: as the participants assuming a group norm of cynicism and

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Speaker 3: fearing being judged by cynical third parties. So if you

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Speaker 3: fear that the people watching you are cynical, you become

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Speaker 3: sheepish about publicly supporting something that doesn't benefit you personally,

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Speaker 3: even if you secretly believe it is good. And I

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Speaker 3: thought this was so interesting because it's sort of counterintuitive.

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Speaker 3: You know, we often think in public we want to

436
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 3: come off as good people, and so you know, you

437
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:34,720
Speaker 3: would want to be seen doing something that would help

438
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 3: other people. But I absolutely think this phenomenon. It checks

439
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 3: out for me. I've observed this kind of dynamic before,

440
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 3: and assuming it is real, it's obviously not the only

441
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 3: psychological pressure on us in this kind of domain, like

442
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 3: there will be counter pressures pushing in the opposite direction

443
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 3: as well, because obviously sometimes people do speak up publicly

444
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 3: in supportive causes they have no personal stake in whether

445
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 3: that's simply because of strength of their desire to support

446
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 3: that cause. Maybe it's just strong enough to overcome this fear,

447
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 3: the fear of social pressure, of pluralistic ignorance, or maybe

448
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:12,919
Speaker 3: there's just some other social psychological pressure sometimes pushing in

449
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:16,119
Speaker 3: the opposite direction, maybe again, like the desire to appear

450
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:20,400
Speaker 3: selfless and moral. But I can absolutely identify the feeling

451
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 3: of the fear of social disapproval based on the assumption

452
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:29,640
Speaker 3: of cynical group norms. Sometimes something is happening that feels

453
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 3: really wrong, and I have an urge to point that out,

454
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 3: to say something about it, but nobody else around me

455
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 3: is saying anything, and I have the feeling like, well,

456
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 3: this is none of my business, and maybe I just

457
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 3: don't understand it well enough, and I'll look naive if

458
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:49,120
Speaker 3: I say something. But actually, maybe lots of people are

459
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 3: secretly feeling this way because they falsely believe everybody else

460
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,199
Speaker 3: endorses a cynical mind your own business mentality.

461
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:01,199
Speaker 2: I mean, it's very akin to the bystander phenomena in

462
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 2: some respects, the idea that oh, well, I'm not the

463
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 2: one to jump in and help. There's someone else who's

464
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 2: either more closely aligned with the situation or has the

465
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 2: expertise that I don't, and then therefore nobody does.

466
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 3: Anything exactly right. But in the case of cynicism, pluralistic ignorance,

467
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 3: creating a false belief in group cynicism has the pernicious

468
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:28,879
Speaker 3: effect of actually creating real, genuine cynicism over time. The

469
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,239
Speaker 3: author's write quote, as cynicism rises in a group, it

470
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 3: can make non cnics act in more self interested ways,

471
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 3: which further reinforces group members level of cynicism. It's a

472
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 3: feedback loop.

473
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 4: Wow.

474
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, as folks just essentially become more and more cynical

475
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 2: just to fit in with the group, and this has

476
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 2: a potentially transformative effect over time.

477
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, But trying to fit in with the group, even

478
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 3: if they are mistaken about how cynical the group is,

479
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 3: we're like overestimating the cynicism of the group and trying

480
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 3: to fit in with that false perception.

481
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 4: Yeah.

482
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 3: And then finally, the authors look at the inter group

483
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 3: level cynicism between different groups, and this section involves meta perceptions,

484
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 3: essentially what you believe about how other people perceive you.

485
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 3: Some research has found that across many different cultures, groups

486
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 3: within each culture that maybe have antagonistic orientations, like opposite

487
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 3: political parties or just different groups that have some antagonism

488
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 3: tend to have false, overly negative intergroup meta perceptions. People

489
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,959
Speaker 3: believe that the outgroup is more hostile to their in

490
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 3: group than the out group actually is, and this perception

491
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 3: gap can lead to actual intergroup cynicism and hostility via

492
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 3: the familiar mechanisms.

493
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 4: If you think.

494
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 3: People hate you, you treat them with distrust, and treating

495
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 3: people with distrust actually makes them like you less and

496
00:29:57,600 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 3: trust you less.

497
00:29:58,960 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 4: Quote.

498
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 3: False meta perceptions illustrate how people can become more cynical,

499
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 3: in part because they overestimate how polarized their fellow citizens are.

500
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 3: All right, So those are the mechanisms the authors identify

501
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 3: for how cynicism grows and spreads. But they say, from

502
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 3: these observations, we can actually offer some tentative suggestions for

503
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 3: how cynicism can be beaten back. I don't think they're

504
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 3: presenting this as like the ultimate remedy, like we know

505
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 3: everything about how to defeat cynicism, but there's some good

506
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 3: starting places here. So at the interpersonal level, they say,

507
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 3: studies show that people appreciate being trusted and seem to

508
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 3: actually become less self interested and less cynical. On average

509
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 3: when simply granted trust. So we have an interaction in

510
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 3: which you trust me with something. If you do that,

511
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 3: ion average will actually become a little bit less cynical

512
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 3: and a little bit less selfish. And the cool thing

513
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 3: about this is that it's transferable. So somebody trusts me,

514
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 3: I actually tend to become not only more likely to

515
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 3: trust that person back, but to trust an unrelated third person. Therefore,

516
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 3: the same way that acts and displays of cynicism can

517
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 3: create this toxic negative feedback loop that increases cynicism for

518
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 3: all parties involved, acts and displays of trust can probably

519
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 3: create a positive feedback loop that contagiously undermines cynicism within

520
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 3: the culture at large.

521
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 2: So this is the real purpose of the uh leave

522
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 2: a penny, take a penny tray, right, I mean, it's

523
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 2: it's building a better world.

524
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 4: You joke.

525
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 3: But I think little things like that may indeed make

526
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 3: a difference. You know, I don't have evidence of that

527
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 3: in particular, but I think the little moments of trust

528
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 3: probably do not have to be huge, Like you don't

529
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 3: have to go out so far on a limb, just

530
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 3: going out a little bit to grant people trust. I

531
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 3: think actually surprises them often and has this effect of

532
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 3: undermining cynesism.

533
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that might be the case.

534
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 3: So if you can undermine cynicism by creating these little

535
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 3: moments of you know, just lots of pervasive, little moments

536
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 3: of granting trust, you that's a good thing to know.

537
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 3: But I guess the question is like, how do you

538
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 3: actually implement this? Because you want to affect you want

539
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 3: to primarily affect people who are high in cynicism, or

540
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 3: at least moderate in cynicism. If you are a person

541
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 3: who realizes that you are more cynical than you would

542
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 3: like to be, and you have like the level of

543
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 3: self consciousness and willpower to go out on a limb

544
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 3: and engage in little exercises of trading trust to seed

545
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 3: the ground for a better life, obviously that's great if

546
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 3: you have that self awareness, go for it. But a

547
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 3: lot of highly cynical people are probably not going to

548
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 3: do this on their own. So it probably helps for

549
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 3: less cynical people to kind of deliberately contrive situations of

550
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 3: friendly cooperation to infect people suffering from cynicism with opportunities

551
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 3: to be trusted and to see exams samples of trust

552
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 3: rewarded I don't know exactly the best way to do this. Obviously,

553
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 3: you can't like for cynical strangers to do trust falls

554
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 3: with you in the grocery store parking lot. But surely

555
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 3: there are ways to stage parts of your life so

556
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 3: as to create little points of trading off of trust

557
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 3: and positive social contagion.

558
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. We're going to get into some possible examples of

559
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 2: this in a bit, but I'll go ahead and mention

560
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 2: some of it here. These are from some of the

561
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 2: ideas of an author we've already mentioned, Jamil Zaki, who

562
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 2: wrote a book about overcoming cynicism Hope for Cynics, The

563
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 2: Surprising Science of Human Goodness that came out in twenty

564
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 2: twenty four. But one of the things that he discusses

565
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 2: is essentially the idea of conducting your own behavioral experiments

566
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 2: to produce on the whole positive evidence of human goodness.

567
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 2: So sort of in a way like leaving the door

568
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 2: open for little examples of trust and allowing that trust

569
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 2: to wander in again, not leaving the whole door open,

570
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 2: you know, not you know not like you know, writing

571
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 2: your social Security number on your arm and just seeing

572
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 2: if anything anybody does anything bad with it, but little

573
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,839
Speaker 2: smaller acts things just sprinkle throughout your daily life, like, Oh,

574
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 2: here's a possibility to sprinkle a little trust out there

575
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 2: and see that trust returned and in doing so, giving

576
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 2: us more real life evidence of human goodness to counteract

577
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 2: this welling up of cynicism inside us.

578
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, and to place emphasis again on what you just

579
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 3: said and what we were just talking about it. It

580
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 3: doesn't have to be huge risks when you make little

581
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:41,200
Speaker 3: bids for trust. It can be little things. Now, coming

582
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 3: back to the next level of analysis, it was the

583
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 3: intra group level. Remember this was the idea that pluralistic

584
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 3: ignorance can create within a group a false impression that

585
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:55,760
Speaker 3: there is a norm of cynical self interest, that people

586
00:34:56,239 --> 00:35:00,320
Speaker 3: are and should be selfish, when really most people in

587
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 3: the group don't actually feel that way. They're just afraid

588
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 3: to speak up because they think maybe they're the only one.

589
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 3: We might be able to overcome this and other situations

590
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 3: of pluralistic ignorance if we create a culture we try

591
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 3: to personally demonstrate act out a culture in which people

592
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 3: have more courage to disagree with what they assume to

593
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 3: be the opinions of the larger group. It might turn

594
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 3: out that it actually is pluralistic ignorance. Maybe a lot

595
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:29,479
Speaker 3: of people already agree with you, and they just didn't

596
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 3: want to be the only one to say something. And

597
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 3: this is especially important if the assumed group norm is

598
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 3: something poisonous, something that maybe is coming top down, like

599
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,720
Speaker 3: it's a dog eat dog world. There's like a really

600
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:46,760
Speaker 3: influential person over the group shouting this message. It's important

601
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 3: that somebody else is saying the opposite. Otherwise the message

602
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 3: shouted from the top can easily become assumed to be

603
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,799
Speaker 3: the group norm even if it's not. But also the

604
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 3: authors point out that normative group pressure can work in

605
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 3: the opposite directtion. This maybe sounds a little bit grubbier

606
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 3: than some of the other ideas because this involves the

607
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 3: idea of, well, maybe you should employ peer pressure to

608
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:11,919
Speaker 3: positive ends. But the author's write quote, just as non

609
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 3: cynics can behave cynically under a norm of self interest,

610
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,240
Speaker 3: so can sinics become more trusting when they feel normative

611
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 3: pressure to do so. There are experiments showing this. Somebody

612
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:25,399
Speaker 3: might have a kind of cynical baseline, but when there's

613
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 3: peer pressure around them to be more trusting, it kind

614
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 3: of works. It makes them a little bit more trusting.

615
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 2: I mean, this is what the trust falls are all about.

616
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly the trust fall. I don't know, as

617
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:41,240
Speaker 3: a particular act might be overly tainted with the aroma

618
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 3: of corporate seminars, but do things like that, I mean,

619
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 3: there is a kind of kernel of wisdom at the

620
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 3: inception of the trust fall. So I don't know, do

621
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:54,359
Speaker 3: we feel good about trying to intentionally use group peer

622
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 3: pressure to influence people? I don't know, Like, using it

623
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 3: to reduce cynicism seems like one of the better uses

624
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 3: of peer pressure than I can imagine.

625
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, plus, just given how nefarious and how just infectious

626
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 2: cynicism is in our lives, Like, yes, we should pull

627
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 2: every level we have against it.

628
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,239
Speaker 3: And then finally at the inter group level. Remember this

629
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:20,399
Speaker 3: was the example where groups in society become increasingly distrustful

630
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 3: of one another, in part because you imagine that the

631
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 3: other group is more hostile to your group than they

632
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:31,400
Speaker 3: actually are. And the solution here, the authors propose, is

633
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 3: just give people accurate information, because studies in these situations

634
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 3: have shown that interventions of just like showing people real

635
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 3: examples of members of the out group as opposed to

636
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 3: leaving it up to their imagination or using cherry picked

637
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,399
Speaker 3: examples from hostile in group media.

638
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:56,240
Speaker 2: Or outright conspiracy theories exact oftentimes, Like that's the mode

639
00:37:56,280 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 2: of thinking that is involved in characterizing theosing viewpoint.

640
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, just seeing like real accurate representations of who the

641
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 3: out group is, like interacting with each other and seeing

642
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 3: what they're actually like. These types of interventions have been

643
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:15,839
Speaker 3: found to reduce this kind of between group hostility and

644
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 3: perceptions of metaperceptions of hostility within the out group. Oh

645
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 3: are they actually as selfish and hostile as I imagined?

646
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 3: Now that I see them, it seems maybe not.

647
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:27,759
Speaker 4: Yeah.

648
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 3: So that's all I've got on this paper by Norman

649
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 3: and Zaki. But I think that is a very interesting

650
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 3: place to start. It's got there's a lot to work

651
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 3: with there.

652
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:38,319
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I would say in general, for folks

653
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 2: who want more information about ways to become less cynical

654
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 2: and combat cynical cynical thought and cynicism in your lives,

655
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 2: Zaki's work is definitely worth following. And he's out there

656
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 2: in a lot of places talking about this stuff, writing

657
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 2: about it. Back in twenty twenty two, he did a

658
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 2: Ted talk on the topic, and you can look that

659
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 2: up wherever you get your Ted talks. There's a great

660
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 2: quote in that talk where he says, you might think

661
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:06,600
Speaker 2: that cynicism is a system upgrade that allows you to

662
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 2: see who we really are. It's not. It traps us

663
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 2: in a version of the world we don't want to

664
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 2: live in and one we don't have to.

665
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 3: That's put very well, and I think that's an important

666
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:21,320
Speaker 3: thing to emphasize. It's like a lot of the literature

667
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 3: that we talked about, I think in part two of

668
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 3: this series, you know, with the cynical genius illusion that

669
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 3: like it's just framed as wisdom that seeing the world

670
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 3: cynically as being realistic. I mean maybe in certain scenarios

671
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 3: there are like very corrupt situations where cynicism is a

672
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 3: more accurate diagnosis of them. But most of the time

673
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 3: the world isn't like that. Cynicism actually makes you worse

674
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 3: at predicting other people's behavior. It's just like it's not

675
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 3: a good model of the world. It's not being real.

676
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 3: It's actually living an illusion, living within an illusion that

677
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 3: hurts you exactly.

678
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now, this this talk was interesting because I believe

679
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 2: it was accord in twenty twenty one, and so you know,

680
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 2: he definitely ties some of it into the global pandemic

681
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 2: and talking about the connection between cynicism and disasters, where

682
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 2: something disastrous can occur some sort of widespread scenario like

683
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:18,759
Speaker 2: global pandemic, and it can lead to increased cynicism. And

684
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 2: he also talks a little bit about the danger of

685
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 2: slipping into what he calls a cynicism perma frost. I

686
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 2: suppose on the individual level, we're even on like a

687
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 2: larger societal level where if, like baseline, cynicism grows to

688
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 2: a certain level, it's just harder and harder for.

689
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 4: Us to shake it.

690
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 3: Yes, cynicism is self reinforcing and self perpetuating. To come

691
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,879
Speaker 3: back to something from that paper, it is a self

692
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 3: fulfilling prophecy. It makes the world in its image.

693
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:01,280
Speaker 2: Now, Zaki's twenty twenty four book again his hope for cynics,

694
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:04,240
Speaker 2: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, and he of course,

695
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 2: in this book covers the topic at length, goes through

696
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 2: a lot of what we've been discussing here, but then

697
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:14,359
Speaker 2: there's added information and insight as well. I recommend picking

698
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 2: it up if you want to learn more about how

699
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 2: to combat cynicism. But I want to go through some

700
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,600
Speaker 2: of the ideas that he brings forth that essentially gives

701
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:24,799
Speaker 2: you sort of a plan of attack. One of the

702
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 2: first things that he points out is that you have

703
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 2: to recognize the harm of cynicism. And we've been talking

704
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 2: about this, after all, if you don't understand all the

705
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 2: mental and physical health as well as social ramifications of

706
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 2: a cynical mindset, you might continue to think of it

707
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 2: as a path of cool and safe detachment, like this

708
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:44,239
Speaker 2: is what we are, this is the world we live in.

709
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 2: Realizing first of all that it's harming you to think

710
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:51,320
Speaker 2: this way, that's a good first step.

711
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 4: Yeah.

712
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, Cynicism is not the safe bet. It's not I

713
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 3: don't know, putting your money in CDs or something. It's like,

714
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 3: it's more kind of like letting it get oily and

715
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 3: leaving it next to the fire.

716
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 4: Yes.

717
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 2: The next thing he brings up is embracing hopeful skepticism

718
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 2: and questioning your assumptions. I really like this one, because

719
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 2: cynicism can I think, come to feel like it's a

720
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 2: comfortable sweater that you wear, and then if someone comes

721
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:19,959
Speaker 2: around and says, get rid of that sweater, you're gonna

722
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 2: be like, well, this is this is what I wear.

723
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 2: This is basically my skin at this point. And so

724
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 2: the idea here is that hopeful skepticism is kind of

725
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:29,800
Speaker 2: something that's going to fit you the same as that sweater,

726
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 2: but it's not going to constrain your soul, you know,

727
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:37,320
Speaker 2: so you know, assume better of people in general, but

728
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 2: also you know, self analyze your cynical ideas, engage in

729
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 2: rational skepticism, which is to say, seek actual real world

730
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 2: evidence for your negative opinions and beliefs, and pay closer

731
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 2: attention to what you actually observe in the world.

732
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So this is coming back to the distinction

733
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 3: we made in the last episode between cynicism and skepticism.

734
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 3: Whereas cynicism is just a bias towards negativity and distrust,

735
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 3: skepticism is trying to award your trust to things on

736
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 3: the basis of whether there's good reason to trust them

737
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 3: or not paying attention to evidence and trying as best

738
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 3: you can to ignore your biases, whereas cynicism is itself

739
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:14,719
Speaker 3: a bias.

740
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 2: And if you want to think about this as trust

741
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 2: but confirm fair enough however you want to think about it,

742
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 2: it also reminds me a lot of some of the

743
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 2: anti anxiety techniques I've learned about in recent years, such

744
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 2: as putting your thoughts on trial and asking yourself questions

745
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 2: like A. What am I afraid will happen? And b

746
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:38,320
Speaker 2: what is likely to happen? Because we can often allow

747
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 2: our negative thought patterns to just run around unchecked in

748
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 2: our minds, like it's not at the forefront of our

749
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 2: thought We're trying to do other things, and it's just

750
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 2: in the background like a yapping dog. But if we stop,

751
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 2: if we identify our thoughts and then we apply reasoning

752
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 2: to those thoughts, we put those thoughts on trial and

753
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 2: say like, hey, you stop barking. Now, let's talk about

754
00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 2: why you're barking and what you're barking about. Then you

755
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 2: can actually begin to make serious headway towards dismissing these

756
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:08,800
Speaker 2: thoughts or at least diminishing their power. Saki also recommends

757
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 2: we conduct again our own behavioral experiments to open the

758
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 2: door for examples of trust to wander into our lives,

759
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 2: to practice trust. And this is this is a this

760
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,320
Speaker 2: is one that's so big that it's going to sound

761
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 2: like overly naive just to say it, but focusing on

762
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 2: the positive. I mean, how many times have you heard

763
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 2: that it can it can almost sound like you should

764
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 2: smile more. He recommends engaging in positive gossip as opposed

765
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 2: to just negative gossip, to making an effort to finding

766
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 2: examples in your life and in the world of people

767
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 2: doing good to counteract the other stories. They're going to

768
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 2: maybe catch your attention more and certainly drift up towards

769
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:50,839
Speaker 2: the top of the news feed more.

770
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 4: Uh.

771
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 2: In a way, this reminds me of that famous mister

772
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 2: Rogers quote about looking for the helpers. You know, I

773
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:00,400
Speaker 2: believe he said quote. When I was a boy and

774
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 2: I would see scary things in the news, my mother

775
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 2: would say to me, look for the helpers, who will

776
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:05,760
Speaker 2: always find people who are helping.

777
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 3: Now, to answer the cynical thought arising in some people's heads,

778
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:13,600
Speaker 3: you might think in reaction to that, like, oh, but

779
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 3: isn't that just sort of like turning away from reality,

780
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 3: Like isn't that not being realistic and wanting to live

781
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:21,240
Speaker 3: in a happy, happy fantasyland.

782
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 4: No.

783
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 3: I think a lot of the research we've looked at

784
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 3: is like, this is a strategy for having a more

785
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 3: realistic view of the world. What we have a tendency

786
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 3: toward is an unrealistic view of the world based on

787
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 3: the high salience of negative events. So like you know,

788
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 3: nineteen positive events and one negative event event, the one

789
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 3: negative event defines our memory of what happened. And so

790
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:49,400
Speaker 3: this is like trying to have a more realistic view

791
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 3: based on the actual real world prevalence of trust and positivity.

792
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I mean it really comes down to,

793
00:45:56,360 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 2: like make sure that you have a balanced diet of

794
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 2: information about people the world, and that can include a

795
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:05,240
Speaker 2: media diet, it can also certainly include a real life

796
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 2: diet and how you're interacting with people. Like one example

797
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:11,320
Speaker 2: from my own family, over the past year, we've started

798
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 2: watching the YouTube videos of Sam Bentley, who you can

799
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:19,800
Speaker 2: find on wherever you get your videos. But this is

800
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 2: a guy who highlights positive social and environmental news from

801
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 2: around the world. And these are the kind of stories

802
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 2: that are generally never the headline. And it's not to

803
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 2: say that they should be, and it's not to say

804
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 2: that you should be only watching this sort of new

805
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 2: stream and not the other news streams, but you know,

806
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:40,440
Speaker 2: their general positivity and hopefulness can provide a very necessary

807
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 2: counterbalance to the more cynical darkness that is just going

808
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 2: to well out of you in response to the coverage

809
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:49,799
Speaker 2: the rest of the coverage out there. And again, even

810
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 2: if the coverage is fair and you know on the level,

811
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 2: I mean, still that's it's going to feed that cynicism

812
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:59,279
Speaker 2: that is in all of us. That is, you know,

813
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 2: gon gonna potentially rise up if we don't keep it

814
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 2: in check.

815
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 3: Yes, it is very important to be aware of and

816
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 3: informed about and have a realistic view of threats and

817
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:12,959
Speaker 3: bad things happening. But if you want to be able

818
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 3: to respond to those in the best way possible, it's

819
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:18,840
Speaker 3: actually important not to let a cynical mindset set in

820
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 3: which it just disempowers you. So it is important to

821
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 3: be aware of threats and dangers and not ignore them,

822
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 3: to have them front of mind in a way, but

823
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 3: be able to respond to them realistically and productively, rather

824
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 3: than just submitting to cynical surrender.

825
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 2: Absolutely, now, we should be clear that none of this

826
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 2: is like a one and done solution. There's not like

827
00:47:41,560 --> 00:47:43,440
Speaker 2: a check sheet you can go through and at the

828
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:44,799
Speaker 2: end of it be like, ah, well, there we go.

829
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 2: Cynicism defeated. In fact, Zaki here of the author in

830
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 2: his ted talk drives home that he still struggles with

831
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 2: cynicism himself all the time, and it is a struggle.

832
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 2: You can't completely squash the infection of modern cynicism, and

833
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:02,280
Speaker 2: that's one of the cruel realities of the whole scenario.

834
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:05,240
Speaker 2: Cynicism is just going to well up again and again,

835
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:09,360
Speaker 2: potentially gaining foothold each time subconsciously, like it's just in

836
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 2: the background growing, and it requires deliberate effort generally to

837
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 2: counter its growth. So, you know, like any kind of maintenance,

838
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 2: except its maintenance on your outlook on the world, on

839
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:25,279
Speaker 2: your psyche and your soul. And once again, none of

840
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 2: this is a proposed transition from cynicism into naivety, or

841
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,319
Speaker 2: from cynicism into some sort of unhealthy optimism. It's a

842
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 2: transition from an unhealthy and ultimately unrealistically bleak outlook on

843
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 2: people in the world into something that is more balanced,

844
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:44,319
Speaker 2: more reasonably optimistic, and healthier for you in multiple regards.

845
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:47,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, see the world as it really is. Trust when

846
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 3: you can and use those relationships of mutual trust to

847
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:52,040
Speaker 3: make life better.

848
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and wrap up

849
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:58,840
Speaker 2: these episodes on cynicism right here. On an upnote, on

850
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 2: a hopeful note, optim mistic note, and then maybe give

851
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 2: you a little homework for ways that you can bring

852
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 2: less cynicism into your manifested life. We want to remind

853
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:11,320
Speaker 2: everyone out there that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

854
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on

855
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,880
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays.

856
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 2: We set aside most serious concerns just talk about a

857
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:21,960
Speaker 2: weird film on Weird House Cinema.

858
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

859
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

860
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:29,880
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

861
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:31,839
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

862
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact stuff to Blow your

863
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

864
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

865
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:49,520
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866
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,360
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867
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:04,800
Speaker 2: Predation Ratatatator