1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:04,640
Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:07,760
Speaker 2: Man, Welcome back to Coast to Coast. George Nori with you.

3
00:00:07,840 --> 00:00:10,720
Speaker 2: Doctor Jamil Zaki with us for the first time. Professor

4
00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:14,000
Speaker 2: of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the

5
00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:18,520
Speaker 2: Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. He trained at Columbia and Harvard,

6
00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:21,680
Speaker 2: studying empathy and kindness in the human brain. He is

7
00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:24,520
Speaker 2: interested in how we can learn to connect better. His

8
00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:28,000
Speaker 2: book is called Hope for Cynics. Hey, doctor Jamiel, welcome

9
00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:29,160
Speaker 2: to the program.

10
00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:31,240
Speaker 3: Thanks George, it's a pleasure to be with you.

11
00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:34,080
Speaker 2: How did you get involved in this kind of psychology.

12
00:00:34,120 --> 00:00:37,000
Speaker 2: It's fascinating, you know.

13
00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:40,559
Speaker 3: It's a long story. In psychology, they say that research

14
00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:44,000
Speaker 3: is research. That is, we start studying stuff that is

15
00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:47,680
Speaker 3: personally relevant to us, and for me, that comes from

16
00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:51,080
Speaker 3: my family. My parents are immigrants, my father from Pakistan

17
00:00:51,159 --> 00:00:54,640
Speaker 3: and my mother from Peru, and as far as I

18
00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:57,600
Speaker 3: can remember, I don't think they ever got along that way.

19
00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:03,400
Speaker 3: So a lot of my childhood was navigating the very

20
00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:06,960
Speaker 3: different realities of two people totally different parts of the

21
00:01:06,959 --> 00:01:10,480
Speaker 3: world who saw life in really different ways, which a

22
00:01:10,959 --> 00:01:14,160
Speaker 3: made me super interested in how we connect and especially

23
00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:16,560
Speaker 3: how we can connect with people who are different from us,

24
00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:19,840
Speaker 3: and B made it a little hard for me to

25
00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:22,920
Speaker 3: trust people because of the chaos in the home where

26
00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:26,440
Speaker 3: I grew up. So both my interests in empathy and

27
00:01:26,520 --> 00:01:30,920
Speaker 3: kindness and then my secret interest in cynicism and mistrust,

28
00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:33,800
Speaker 3: I think came from that early life experience.

29
00:01:34,760 --> 00:01:39,080
Speaker 2: I was watching the debates last week with former President

30
00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:42,080
Speaker 2: Trump and Kamala Harris a couple of weeks ago, and

31
00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:46,000
Speaker 2: a argument broke out with two people who were watching

32
00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:49,480
Speaker 2: the debate there too, And I watched this while they

33
00:01:49,520 --> 00:01:53,000
Speaker 2: were shouting at each other, not talking, not discussing, but

34
00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:56,560
Speaker 2: shouting at each other because of the different views of

35
00:01:56,600 --> 00:01:59,720
Speaker 2: the candidates. What's happening to people.

36
00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:03,920
Speaker 3: Doctor Well, I think that we are shouting a lot

37
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:08,840
Speaker 3: more where in part because we're more threatened. One of

38
00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:13,120
Speaker 3: the things that can raise our internal alarm systems and

39
00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:15,680
Speaker 3: put us in fight or flight mode is just the

40
00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:19,880
Speaker 3: sense that other people are endangering us. And that sense,

41
00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:24,079
Speaker 3: to me, seems to be more pervasive in our everyday experience.

42
00:02:24,639 --> 00:02:28,760
Speaker 3: You know, forty fifty years ago, Americans disagreed with one another,

43
00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:32,799
Speaker 3: but we didn't let those disagreements become as personal as

44
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:36,679
Speaker 3: they've become now. So In nineteen eighty, for instance, Republicans

45
00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:39,720
Speaker 3: and Democrats said that they liked members of their own

46
00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:43,240
Speaker 3: party and they felt neutral about members of the of

47
00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:47,080
Speaker 3: the other party. By twenty twenty, that pattern had shifted completely.

48
00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:50,880
Speaker 3: We now disliked people we disagreed with more than we

49
00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:53,760
Speaker 3: liked the people on our own side. I think a

50
00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:56,799
Speaker 3: lot of this also comes from the way that we

51
00:02:56,840 --> 00:03:00,000
Speaker 3: interact or don't interact with one another. We have fallen

52
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:03,720
Speaker 3: there are fewer conversations with people we disagree with in

53
00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:06,880
Speaker 3: the course of our everyday lives. We've sorted such that

54
00:03:06,919 --> 00:03:10,320
Speaker 3: we don't get to talk about another weather or sports,

55
00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:13,079
Speaker 3: or our dreams and hopes with people who are different

56
00:03:13,120 --> 00:03:16,560
Speaker 3: from us. Where we do see those people is through

57
00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:19,800
Speaker 3: social media and the news, where we are given a

58
00:03:19,880 --> 00:03:24,840
Speaker 3: representation of the other side that is way more extreme, hateful,

59
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:28,440
Speaker 3: anti democratic, and even violent than people on the other

60
00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:32,160
Speaker 3: side truly are. So we end up fighting phantoms. We

61
00:03:32,280 --> 00:03:34,840
Speaker 3: end up fearing that other people on the other side

62
00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:38,000
Speaker 3: don't just disagree with us, but want to kill us.

63
00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:41,000
Speaker 3: And if you feel that way, then it makes perfect

64
00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:44,720
Speaker 3: sense to yell and scream instead of having a conversation.

65
00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:48,560
Speaker 2: I'm in Saint Louis right now, doctor, and they arrested

66
00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:53,480
Speaker 2: a young youngster today with a gun who was threatening

67
00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:56,520
Speaker 2: to go into a school to do some harm. He

68
00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:00,760
Speaker 2: was arrested because his friends picked up on social media

69
00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:04,920
Speaker 2: that this kid was about to do something bad. How

70
00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:09,040
Speaker 2: important has social media been plus or minus to what

71
00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:10,120
Speaker 2: you've just talked about.

72
00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:15,400
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that there's the obvious benefit of

73
00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:20,120
Speaker 3: having information travel quickly is that we can do things

74
00:04:20,160 --> 00:04:24,680
Speaker 3: like stop people who are about to commit violence the right.

75
00:04:24,720 --> 00:04:29,279
Speaker 3: So in that case, social media was a was a

76
00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:33,600
Speaker 3: force that saved likely saved lives, and that's that's wonderful. Now,

77
00:04:33,640 --> 00:04:37,800
Speaker 3: it's also true that many people are radicalized and induced

78
00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:42,279
Speaker 3: to commit violence through communication that occurs on social media.

79
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:45,360
Speaker 3: So I think that there's more information, which in a

80
00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:47,760
Speaker 3: vacuum sounds like a good thing, but we have to

81
00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:50,799
Speaker 3: ask ourselves how good is the information that we're getting,

82
00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:53,520
Speaker 3: What is it doing to us? And the way I

83
00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:57,680
Speaker 3: see it, online platforms are not built to make people

84
00:04:57,720 --> 00:05:01,240
Speaker 3: happy or healthy or in formed, and this is I

85
00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:05,320
Speaker 3: think really important. They're created to keep us online by

86
00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:09,720
Speaker 3: feeding us whatever will keep us engaged, and oftentimes that's

87
00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:13,560
Speaker 3: feeding us the things that make us frightened and outraged.

88
00:05:14,480 --> 00:05:17,280
Speaker 3: And so there's a lot of evidence that people who spend,

89
00:05:17,640 --> 00:05:20,520
Speaker 3: for instance, a lot of time on social media more

90
00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:24,800
Speaker 3: than usual, they think that in general, people are worse

91
00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:27,080
Speaker 3: than people who than if you spend less time on

92
00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:30,680
Speaker 3: social media. In other words, when we are online, we

93
00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:36,159
Speaker 3: receive this systematically negative information about other people, and that

94
00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:39,839
Speaker 3: can induce us again to feel more fear, more, hatred,

95
00:05:39,920 --> 00:05:42,760
Speaker 3: and even induce us to behaviors like violence.

96
00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:46,200
Speaker 2: The title of your book is called Hope for Cynics.

97
00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:49,240
Speaker 2: Tell us about the title and tell us what exactly

98
00:05:49,279 --> 00:05:50,440
Speaker 2: a cynic might be.

99
00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:55,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, as you mentioned, George, I've been studying empathy

100
00:05:55,480 --> 00:05:58,840
Speaker 3: and kindness my entire career for twenty years now, and

101
00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:03,200
Speaker 3: this has made me a sort of ambassador for humanity

102
00:06:03,279 --> 00:06:06,520
Speaker 3: is better Angels. People like to ask me to speak

103
00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:08,440
Speaker 3: or write for them when they want to feel better

104
00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:13,200
Speaker 3: about our species. But this whole time I've had a secret,

105
00:06:13,400 --> 00:06:16,839
Speaker 3: which is that in private, I'm a pretty cynical person.

106
00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:20,919
Speaker 3: So Hope for Cynics is actually began as a journey

107
00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:25,120
Speaker 3: to see if I could understand and maybe try to

108
00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:29,920
Speaker 3: treat my own cynical worldview, and through that I gained

109
00:06:29,960 --> 00:06:33,040
Speaker 3: a deep understanding of what cynicism is. So you asked

110
00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:35,960
Speaker 3: for a definition, and I think that we need to separate.

111
00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:38,760
Speaker 3: When I talk about cynicism. I'm not talking about the

112
00:06:38,800 --> 00:06:43,120
Speaker 3: ancient Greek school of philosophy headed by Antistines and Diogenes,

113
00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:45,320
Speaker 3: although I'm happy to chat about that just as a

114
00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:50,960
Speaker 3: philosophy nerd. But I mean the modern psychological definition of cynicism,

115
00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:56,279
Speaker 3: which is the belief that in general, people are selfish, greedy,

116
00:06:56,320 --> 00:06:58,880
Speaker 3: and dishonest. Now this is not to say that a

117
00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:02,320
Speaker 3: cynic would be shocked if somebody donated to charity or

118
00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:05,719
Speaker 3: helped the stranger, but they would wonder about that person's motive.

119
00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:08,119
Speaker 3: They would say, well, maybe they're looking for a tax break,

120
00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:10,559
Speaker 3: where they're trying to look good in front of others.

121
00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:13,840
Speaker 3: Icism is not a theory about what we do. It's

122
00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:15,040
Speaker 3: a theory about who we are.

123
00:07:15,520 --> 00:07:16,560
Speaker 2: Is it negativity?

124
00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:23,120
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it certainly trades in negativity. You

125
00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:26,960
Speaker 3: might be cynical and not feel that negative. You might say, hey,

126
00:07:26,960 --> 00:07:29,160
Speaker 3: we're just a selfish species and that's fine with me.

127
00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:34,640
Speaker 3: But in general, cynicism is accompanied by a great deal

128
00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:37,040
Speaker 3: of contempt and hostility towards other people.

129
00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:40,720
Speaker 2: Does the cynics say it's partly cloudy as opposed to

130
00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:41,880
Speaker 2: partly sunny.

131
00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:47,400
Speaker 3: It's partly cloudy, the glasses half empty. In general, they

132
00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:53,440
Speaker 3: reinterpret things more negatively, but it's not things not everything right.

133
00:07:53,480 --> 00:07:57,080
Speaker 3: So we should separate cynicism from pessimism. Pessimism is the

134
00:07:57,120 --> 00:07:59,120
Speaker 3: idea of the future is going to turn out poorly.

135
00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:04,520
Speaker 3: Is not a view about the future or the natural world.

136
00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:08,200
Speaker 3: It's really a view about other people. Now, it stands

137
00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:11,120
Speaker 3: to reason if you don't have any faith in other people,

138
00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:13,720
Speaker 3: you probably don't think the future is going to turn

139
00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:16,600
Speaker 3: out very well either, because the future, of course, is

140
00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:18,600
Speaker 3: what we collectively decide to make it.

141
00:08:19,160 --> 00:08:22,560
Speaker 2: Now, the subtitle of your book, Hope FORENX is the

142
00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:27,360
Speaker 2: surprising science of human goodness that fascinates me. Tell me

143
00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:27,960
Speaker 2: about that.

144
00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:32,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, it fascinates me too, And I think that so.

145
00:08:32,760 --> 00:08:35,600
Speaker 3: As I said, I started this book as a journey

146
00:08:35,679 --> 00:08:39,400
Speaker 3: to see if I could understand my own cynicism. And

147
00:08:39,480 --> 00:08:44,960
Speaker 3: I spent years marinating myself in the science of mistrust, suspicion,

148
00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:48,080
Speaker 3: and hopelessness. And you might think that would have made

149
00:08:48,080 --> 00:08:52,080
Speaker 3: for a gloomy twenty twenties. The fact was it was

150
00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:56,120
Speaker 3: incredibly uplifting. I've learned over the course of these years

151
00:08:56,600 --> 00:09:03,160
Speaker 3: that in general, people don't realize how trustworthy, generous, open minded,

152
00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:06,640
Speaker 3: and warm other people are. Now, this is not to

153
00:09:06,679 --> 00:09:09,440
Speaker 3: say that there aren't jerks out there or people who

154
00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:15,240
Speaker 3: do terrible things every day, but the average person underestimates

155
00:09:15,320 --> 00:09:18,640
Speaker 3: the average person. And what that means is that when

156
00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:21,520
Speaker 3: you pay closer attention, when you look at the data

157
00:09:21,559 --> 00:09:24,640
Speaker 3: instead of relying on our negative assumptions about other people,

158
00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:29,040
Speaker 3: pleasant surprises are everywhere. And so what I try to

159
00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:33,280
Speaker 3: argue for in the book is a data driven, skeptical

160
00:09:33,440 --> 00:09:39,120
Speaker 3: type of hope, not being a Pollyanna, not trusting people unthinkingly,

161
00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:45,520
Speaker 3: but also not mistrusting people unthinkingly, instead trying to treat

162
00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:48,560
Speaker 3: our lives more like a scientific experiment. And when we

163
00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:51,040
Speaker 3: do that, there's a lot of hope to be found.

164
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,280
Speaker 2: Is the cynic internally unhappy?

165
00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:56,360
Speaker 1: Oh?

166
00:09:56,440 --> 00:10:01,080
Speaker 3: Yes, there is decades of evidence that point out and

167
00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:06,600
Speaker 3: find that cynics and to live really diminished lives compared

168
00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:11,040
Speaker 3: to less cynical people, so they are more prone to depression, loneliness,

169
00:10:11,280 --> 00:10:15,800
Speaker 3: but also things like substance abuse, heart disease and even

170
00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:19,960
Speaker 3: early mortality. So it turns out that cynics die younger

171
00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:23,480
Speaker 3: than non cynics, and it's to me really sad and ironic.

172
00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:24,240
Speaker 1: You know.

173
00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:27,160
Speaker 3: One of the most famous descriptions of cynicism comes from

174
00:10:27,240 --> 00:10:31,240
Speaker 3: Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher who said, we need government to

175
00:10:31,280 --> 00:10:34,520
Speaker 3: restrict us because, left to our own defight devices, human

176
00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:38,480
Speaker 3: life is nasty, brutish, and short. But ironically that might

177
00:10:38,679 --> 00:10:42,320
Speaker 3: best describe the lives of cynics themselves, right, And I

178
00:10:42,360 --> 00:10:44,400
Speaker 3: say this not in a judgmental way. I want to

179
00:10:44,400 --> 00:10:47,800
Speaker 3: remind you that I myself identified as a cynic for

180
00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:50,760
Speaker 3: a long time, so these are experiences that I am

181
00:10:50,840 --> 00:10:54,160
Speaker 3: deeply familiar with. But the evidence is pretty clear that

182
00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:58,720
Speaker 3: cynical thinking hurts us at almost every level that scientists

183
00:10:58,720 --> 00:10:59,200
Speaker 3: can measure.

184
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:01,560
Speaker 2: We turn around the cynic.

185
00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:07,800
Speaker 3: I sure, hope, though for my own sake, But no,

186
00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:12,280
Speaker 3: it turns out that you can. Cynicism is not a

187
00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:16,120
Speaker 3: It's partially genetic, but really that's a minority share. Most

188
00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:20,920
Speaker 3: of our cynicism comes from our experiences, and by changing

189
00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:24,160
Speaker 3: our experiences and the way that we interact with the world,

190
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:29,280
Speaker 3: we can systematically try to overturn our cynicism again, not

191
00:11:29,360 --> 00:11:33,240
Speaker 3: by being a Pollyanna, not by becoming naive, but rather

192
00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:35,880
Speaker 3: by trying to pay closer attention to the evidence.

193
00:11:36,520 --> 00:11:39,960
Speaker 2: Well, Doctor jamil Zaki's book is called Hope for Cynics,

194
00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:43,920
Speaker 2: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness. After the break, we'll

195
00:11:43,920 --> 00:11:46,520
Speaker 2: come back and talk about skepticism and how you can

196
00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:49,480
Speaker 2: change that. But there is hope, you believe for these

197
00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:51,080
Speaker 2: kinds of folks, Doctor.

198
00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:54,280
Speaker 3: Of course, I think there is, Otherwise I would not

199
00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:57,720
Speaker 3: have written this book. I think that a lot of

200
00:11:57,720 --> 00:12:00,920
Speaker 3: the hope here comes from the idea that we can

201
00:12:01,400 --> 00:12:04,160
Speaker 3: change our minds. We have a lot of control over

202
00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:07,880
Speaker 3: who we become, much more than most people realize. And

203
00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:10,600
Speaker 3: I'm really thrilled to talk more about that as well.

204
00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:15,320
Speaker 3: But were when you look at the psychology of the

205
00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:18,840
Speaker 3: human mind, you've realized that we can be empowered because

206
00:12:19,160 --> 00:12:20,840
Speaker 3: a lot of who we are and who we become

207
00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:21,920
Speaker 3: is actually up to us.

208
00:12:22,440 --> 00:12:25,720
Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

209
00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:28,679
Speaker 1: one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam

210
00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:29,800
Speaker 1: dot com for more