Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey there, it's Maya. If you listen to the show,
Speaker 1: you know that I'm fascinated by how people respond when
Speaker 1: life doesn't go according to plan. My new book with
Speaker 1: Penguin Random House, The Other Side of Change, comes out
Speaker 1: January thirteenth, and it grew out of the same questions
Speaker 1: we explore on this podcast. What do we hold on
Speaker 1: to when life shifts, what do we let go of?
Speaker 1: And how do we find meaning on the other side.
Speaker 1: The Other Side of Change blends all new stories you
Speaker 1: haven't heard on the podcast with new scientific insights on resilience.
Speaker 1: My hope is that it gives you the tools you
Speaker 1: need to navigate your own moments of disruption with a
Speaker 1: greater sense of possibility about who you can become on
Speaker 1: the Other Side of Change. You can learn more and
Speaker 1: pre order now at the link in the show notes
Speaker 1: or at Changewmaya dot com slash book. That's changed with
Speaker 1: Maya dot com slash book, And if you'd like to
Speaker 1: get more involved, I just launch an Ambassador's program, which
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Speaker 1: I can't wait to share this book with you. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now about today's episode. I was at an event
Speaker 1: the other night when I heard someone say, if you're
Speaker 1: not feeling cynical right now, you're probably not paying attention.
Speaker 1: It was hard to disagree with him. It feels like
Speaker 1: we're living through a particularly dark moment in time, and
Speaker 1: each news cycle seems to only affirm this. I'm certainly
Speaker 1: feeling less hopeful about the fate of humanity these days.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. I also know that my cynicism
Speaker 1: doesn't benefit me or any of the causes I care about.
Speaker 1: My friend Jamil Zaki, a psychology professor at Stanford, is
Speaker 1: the person who helped me understand this. So I re
Speaker 1: listened to the conversation we had had on a slight
Speaker 1: Change of Plans, in which Jamil makes the case against cynicism. Today,
Speaker 1: I want to reshare that episode with all of you.
Speaker 1: Jamil explains why hopeful people tend to be more resilient
Speaker 1: during adversity, more successful in accomplishing their goals, and more
Speaker 1: willing to tackle societal problems head on. For me, this
Speaker 1: episode is the antidote to the despair that creeps in
Speaker 1: so easily these days. I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Cynics might see injustice just like the rest of us do,
Speaker 2: but cynicism suggests that there's nothing really to be done
Speaker 2: about it, because if a broken system reflects our broken nature,
Speaker 2: if the worst of us is who we really are,
Speaker 2: then any change, any attempt to improve the world or
Speaker 2: the systems that we live in, is doomed from the outset.
Speaker 1: Psychologist jimil Zaki studies the science of human connection, and
Speaker 1: he believes that cynicism is holding us back. It's not
Speaker 1: just harmful for health, it's also misguided. The alternative, he says,
Speaker 1: is a mindset called hopeful skepticism.
Speaker 2: And the reason that I call it hopeful skepticism is
Speaker 2: because our default tends to be negative. When you adopt
Speaker 2: a skeptical perspective, you do tend to move towards a
Speaker 2: slightly more hopeful and positive place because you're correcting for
Speaker 2: the biases that we already have. People always say, what
Speaker 2: you want me to put on a pair of rose
Speaker 2: colored glasses, and I say, no, you're probably already wearing
Speaker 2: a pair of glasses. That's like mud colored, so just
Speaker 2: take those off right, so that I'm actually not asking
Speaker 2: people to pay less attention, but to pay more attention
Speaker 2: to the folk around them.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, The Life Changing Benefits of being a
Speaker 1: Hopeful Skeptic, I'm maya Shunker and this is a slight
Speaker 1: change of plans, a show about who we are and
Speaker 1: who we'd become in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University
Speaker 1: and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. You
Speaker 1: might remember him from his first appearance on this show,
Speaker 1: when he talked about the power of empathy. Jamil has
Speaker 1: spent the last twenty years studying the sunny side of
Speaker 1: human nature, things like compassion, kindness, and togetherness. He says
Speaker 1: he's widely known as a kind of ambassador for humanity's
Speaker 1: better angels. But in his new book Hope for CENX,
Speaker 1: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, Jamille talks about struggling
Speaker 1: with this image. He begins the book with a confession.
Speaker 2: This entire time that I've been advocating for and talking
Speaker 2: about human goodness, I myself have been pretty cynical. I
Speaker 2: tend to suspect people and look at the worst sides
Speaker 2: of lots of situations, becoming anxious, neurotic, pessimistic. And I
Speaker 2: feel like that split between my outer persona on the
Speaker 2: one hand and my deepest experiences on the other has
Speaker 2: been a problem for me and did something that I
Speaker 2: wanted to bring out into the light and address.
Speaker 1: I'm curious if you can tell me a bit more
Speaker 1: about that disconnect. Do you remember a story in which
Speaker 1: you met with someone who were giving a group council
Speaker 1: and then you went home and you were kind of like, oh, darn,
Speaker 1: I don't actually think I'm buying what I'm saying. I'm
Speaker 1: not internalizing this, oh.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent.
Speaker 2: One of the most intense moments came after TED, the
Speaker 2: global conference that has a lot of great speakers, asked
Speaker 2: me to come and give a talk on optimism as
Speaker 2: a path to positive social change.
Speaker 3: I pulled out my notebook and.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm going to start drafting this talk on
Speaker 2: the first I think Wednesday of the year in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, which happened to be January sixth, And I
Speaker 2: remember I started drafting this talk about how you know
Speaker 2: optimism is so important, and my friend texted me and said,
Speaker 2: you have to turn on the television right now. And
Speaker 2: I saw what the rest of the nation and world
Speaker 2: saw with the insurrection at the Capitol Building, and I
Speaker 2: thought to myself, am I full of shit? Is everything
Speaker 2: that I talk about a lie? I know it's not
Speaker 2: because I do the research, I see the data, but
Speaker 2: there's sometimes such a huge distance between your head and
Speaker 2: your heart, you know, And like I just couldn't believe
Speaker 2: deeper inside myself that people were good as I watched
Speaker 2: this tragedy unfold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what were the personal costs to being cynical for you?
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear how that played out.
Speaker 2: During that lockdown period late twenty twenty early twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: I really probably had the rock bottom of my own
Speaker 2: personal cynicism, and it was extremely apparent to me that
Speaker 2: entire time that it was not helping me, that it
Speaker 2: was hurting me emotionally, it was diminishing my relationships. It
Speaker 2: was it felt like a form of social depression, right.
Speaker 2: Depression kind of casts this gray light over everything, and
Speaker 2: especially over your sense of self and the world at large.
Speaker 2: I felt like cynicism was doing that for my vision
Speaker 2: of other people.
Speaker 3: You know, sort of.
Speaker 2: It made it extremely difficult for me to see people
Speaker 2: in a positive light, and I started exploring the science
Speaker 2: of cynicism because I wanted to figure out what was
Speaker 2: happening inside me and whether there was anything that I
Speaker 2: could do for myself to dig out of this trap
Speaker 2: that I felt my mind was in. And it's only
Speaker 2: then that I discovered how common this sense of hopelessness, exhaustion,
Speaker 2: and cynicism really is, which first of all made me
Speaker 2: feel better because I was like, well, at least I'm
Speaker 2: not alone, but then made me feel as I learned
Speaker 2: more and more about how harmful cynicism is, and not
Speaker 2: only how harmful, but how unnecessary it is, I thought, Wow,
Speaker 2: this could actually help a lot of people who feel
Speaker 2: like I.
Speaker 3: Do.
Speaker 1: You know when you say the word cynicism, Jimille, so
Speaker 1: many images come to mind. What is your definition of cynicism?
Speaker 2: Cynicism can be defined as a theory about the world
Speaker 2: and about people in particular. It's the theory that humanity
Speaker 2: in general is selfish, greedy, and dishonest. That is not
Speaker 2: to say that a cynic will doubt that anybody will
Speaker 2: ever do a kind thing in their lives. They just
Speaker 2: think that at our core, who we are is defined
Speaker 2: by self interest. Now, if you have that theory, you
Speaker 2: might notice a bunch of things happening inside you and
Speaker 2: a bunch of things in your behavior. Right first, you
Speaker 2: might find yourself suspecting other people's motives, even when they
Speaker 2: do things that appear positive. You might find yourself very
Speaker 2: quick to judge others based on the harms that they produce,
Speaker 2: not on the best things that they do.
Speaker 3: It might also change what you do and what you
Speaker 3: don't do.
Speaker 2: One place that we see cynicism play out very strongly
Speaker 2: is in trust. Trust is our willingness to be vulnerable
Speaker 2: to other people on the belief that they have our
Speaker 2: best interest in mind. Loaning somebody money, letting somebody babysit
Speaker 2: your kid, giving somebody more responsibility at work, on your team.
Speaker 2: All of these are types of trust. And trust is
Speaker 2: a social gamble. We can't know what the outcome will be.
Speaker 2: We need to count on other people. And if you're cynical,
Speaker 2: that gamble feels like it's for suckers. It feels like
Speaker 2: a losing bet. So cynics tend to trust a lot
Speaker 2: less often than non cynics.
Speaker 1: You have a very people focused definition, So is that
Speaker 1: intentional and does it exclude those who just think irrespective
Speaker 1: of human involvement, you know, an asteroid might hit us, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you bucket those folks?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think that what you're describing is pessimism, the idea
Speaker 2: that the future will unfold in ways that we don't want.
Speaker 2: And I think that pessimism and cynicism are quite related
Speaker 2: because a lot of what we expect about the future
Speaker 2: has to do with who's around us right now. But
Speaker 2: I do think of cynicism as generally a social theory.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, that's very helpful. Would you call cynicism the
Speaker 1: default state of the human or like, is that what
Speaker 1: you see in the data or do you think that
Speaker 1: it's somewhat acquired. I'm just curious to know what we're
Speaker 1: running up against.
Speaker 2: So there are some defaults in the human brain and
Speaker 2: mind that tip us towards cynicism. Psychologists talk about negativity bias,
Speaker 2: the idea that it's often much easier to pay attention to,
Speaker 2: to remember, and much more tempting to talk about negative
Speaker 2: events and people than positive events in people. And you
Speaker 2: can see why that would be evolutionarily adaptive, right, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're thinking back one hundred thousand years, the people
Speaker 2: who paid lots of attention to threats in their environment
Speaker 2: might be more likely to survive. And so that's I
Speaker 2: think one thing that makes fighting cynicism an uphill battle.
Speaker 1: You've already alluded to some of the negative impacts of
Speaker 1: cynicism on our well being in relationships. Are there any
Speaker 1: other studies or research that you would want to share?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean so one is that.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately live far less healthy lives, even at a physical level,
Speaker 2: so they tend to show greater signs of cellular aging
Speaker 2: and inflammation, they tend to develop heart disease more than
Speaker 2: non synics, and even die younger than non cynics. And
Speaker 2: I think this comes from the fact that cynics have
Speaker 2: a harder time tapping into one of the things that
Speaker 2: destresses and nourishes us, the most connection to other people.
Speaker 2: There's one really fascinating study where researchers brought people in
Speaker 2: the lab and asked them to give an extemporaneous speech
Speaker 2: on a topic they didn't know very well, which of
Speaker 2: course is not pleasant for anybody. And in some cases
Speaker 2: people had a cheerleader, a friendly stranger who was with
Speaker 2: them while they prepared and said, you've got this. I
Speaker 2: believe in you. And in other cases they were alone. Now,
Speaker 2: for non cnics, their blood pressure went up when they
Speaker 2: were preparing this speech, that would happen for any of us.
Speaker 2: But when they had a supportive stranger there, their blood
Speaker 2: pressure went up a lot less. For cynics, having a
Speaker 2: supportive person there didn't make a difference at all. So
Speaker 2: their blood pressure increased just as much if they were
Speaker 2: alone or if somebody was there to help them. That
Speaker 2: is so telling to me. It almost strikes me that
Speaker 2: if you're cynical, if you don't believe in people, then
Speaker 2: you kind of can't digest or metabolize the social nourishment
Speaker 2: of connection. And I think that that's just such a
Speaker 2: tragic way to live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much of your book I see as mythbusting cynicism.
Speaker 1: And so what are some common misconceptions that people have
Speaker 1: about cynicism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was one of the things that was most
Speaker 2: surprising for me when I started doing this research, because
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, Wow, cynicism feels terrible. It's awful
Speaker 2: for our health and relationships, it's not very good for
Speaker 2: our communities. Why are so many people adopting this as
Speaker 2: a view of life and as a view of humanity.
Speaker 2: And there are three myths that I realized our culture
Speaker 2: propagates about cynicism. The first is that it's wise. Now,
Speaker 2: over the last three years since starting this project, I've
Speaker 2: talked to so many self proclaimed cynics, and one thing
Speaker 2: that they have in common, besides hostility and a little
Speaker 2: bit of contempt, is a sort of bitter pride. A
Speaker 2: lot of cynics will say, I'm actually a realist. You
Speaker 2: know that if you don't think in cynical terms, you're
Speaker 2: a naive roube or a chump. That if you pay
Speaker 2: close enough attention and become wise enough, then you will
Speaker 2: realize that people are really terrible. And in fact, it's
Speaker 2: not just cynics who think this. Surveys find that seventy
Speaker 2: percent of people think that cynics are smarter than non cynics,
Speaker 2: and eighty five percent of people think that cynics are
Speaker 2: more socially smart, for instance, that they'll be better at
Speaker 2: picking out liars than nonsnics. It turns out that that's
Speaker 2: not true. So there's from hundreds of thousands of people,
Speaker 2: lots of national surveys that finds that cynics actually perform
Speaker 2: less well on cognitive tests than non cynics, And there
Speaker 2: is other research that finds that cynics are worse at
Speaker 2: spotting liars than non cynics. So it's important to know
Speaker 2: that that perception of cynicism as a type of intelligence
Speaker 2: is clearly at odds with the data.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a bit more about some of the other
Speaker 1: misconceptions we have about cynicism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that another misconception that I think people
Speaker 2: have about cynicism is that it's safe.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of us who feel cynical about
Speaker 2: others feel that way because we've been hurt, betrayed, disappointed,
Speaker 2: you know. I know for me, my cynicism comes from
Speaker 2: a lot of early parts of my life where I
Speaker 2: didn't feel like I could really count on people. And
Speaker 2: so it's not something that I feel because I think
Speaker 2: I'm superior to others, or because I want to have
Speaker 2: a negative attitude of a response to pain, and one
Speaker 2: response that we might have to pain is to put
Speaker 2: our guard up to feel like well, I never want
Speaker 2: to experience that again. I don't want to be betrayed
Speaker 2: or heard again. And the only way I can guarantee
Speaker 2: my own safety moving forward is to shut off any
Speaker 2: type of social risk. And that's why I think you
Speaker 2: often see cynics not willing to trust people because they
Speaker 2: don't want to risk betrayal, They don't want to risk
Speaker 2: being taken advantage of.
Speaker 1: No. I totally appreciate that. Why don't we cover jmial
Speaker 1: the third misconception that people have when it comes to cynicism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the third misconception around cynicism is the idea that
Speaker 2: cynicism is moral, that that really it's so important to
Speaker 2: be aware of injustice, corruption and harm, and that cynics
Speaker 2: are the only ones who are adequately responsive to all
Speaker 2: the terrible things that happen in the world, and as
Speaker 2: a result, that being hopeful or positive is kind of
Speaker 2: an abandonment of our species and our problems, that it's
Speaker 2: a pair of rose colored glasses. You know, when I
Speaker 2: talk about hope and overcoming cynicism, a lot of people say, well,
Speaker 2: that's rich coming from you, an ultra privileged professor at
Speaker 2: an elite university. You know, a lot of us don't
Speaker 2: have the luxury of feeling good about humanity. We have
Speaker 2: to speak truth to power and challenge injustice. And first
Speaker 2: of all, I think cynics might see injustice just like
Speaker 2: the rest of us do. But cynicism suggests that there's
Speaker 2: nothing really to be done about it. Because if a
Speaker 2: broken system reflects our broken nature, if the worst of
Speaker 2: us is who we really are, than any change, any
Speaker 2: attempt to improve the world or the systems that we
Speaker 2: live in is doomed from the outset. And so you
Speaker 2: actually see more cynical people are less likely to take
Speaker 2: part in social moved, they're less likely to vote, They're
Speaker 2: more willing to do things like spread conspiracy theories. And
Speaker 2: in fact, I think that autocrats and authoritarians often benefit
Speaker 2: from cynicism and use it as a way of promoting
Speaker 2: the status quo. I mean, a population that doesn't trust
Speaker 2: itself is an easy one to manipulate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, do you think there's an element of guilt?
Speaker 1: Like do people feel guilty when they express optimism? Because
Speaker 1: it just feels jarring when you see all the pain
Speaker 1: and suffering around you.
Speaker 2: This is such a deep question, and I do want
Speaker 2: to separate optimism from hope here. Yeah, optimism is the
Speaker 2: idea that things will turn out well. Hope is the
Speaker 2: idea that they could turn out well. And I think
Speaker 2: that's a huge distinction, because optimism can lead a little
Speaker 2: bit to complacency. You know, if things are going to
Speaker 2: go great, then I don't really have to do anything
Speaker 2: to make a difference. And in fact, I think that
Speaker 2: what you could call toxic optimism is not that different
Speaker 2: from cynicism. If cynics think, well, things are going to
Speaker 2: go terribly no matter what I do, they can also
Speaker 2: be complacent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, an optimists are like, things are going to go
Speaker 1: great no matter what I do, so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do anything.
Speaker 2: So you've got two groups of people who have fundamentally
Speaker 2: different beliefs, but neither one of them might be inspired
Speaker 2: to do much. Hope takes the deep uncertainty that we
Speaker 2: have about the future as the place where our actions matter,
Speaker 2: and so hopeful people tend to focus on their agency
Speaker 2: and they think, well, there's a vision of the world
Speaker 2: where things could be better. I'm not saying that's what
Speaker 2: will happen, but it's a possibility, and in order for
Speaker 2: that possibility to become more likely, I need to take action.
Speaker 2: Hopeful individuals, for instance, tend to be more resilient during adversity.
Speaker 2: Lower socio economic and underrepresented minority students who have hope
Speaker 2: are more like likely to pursue their academic goals and
Speaker 2: socially as well. Hopeful people are more willing to engage
Speaker 2: in protests. Right, A protest is not a complacent, rose
Speaker 2: colored glasses type of thing to do. It's taking major
Speaker 2: problems head on. But why do we take those problems
Speaker 2: head on? Because we think that there's a difference to
Speaker 2: be made.
Speaker 1: You advocate in your book for quote Unlearning cynicism, and
Speaker 1: you introduce this concept of hopeful skepticism. You've already explained
Speaker 1: how hope is different from optimism. Can you explain what
Speaker 1: you mean by hopeful skepticism.
Speaker 2: One of the most important things that I learned in
Speaker 2: doing research for this project was the difference between cynicism
Speaker 2: and skepticism. As we've talked about, cynicism is a theory
Speaker 2: about the world.
Speaker 3: Well, as you know.
Speaker 2: As a scientist, once you have a theory, you start
Speaker 2: to kind of see it everywhere and even want to
Speaker 2: support it, and so there can be some confirmation bias
Speaker 2: around theories often have a biased way of looking at
Speaker 2: the world. They almost look at it like lawyers right
Speaker 2: and the prosecution against humanity. They really pay lots of
Speaker 2: attention to the terrible things that people do, or they
Speaker 2: might explain away the others' kindness and trustworthiness. Skepticism is
Speaker 2: not thinking like a lawyer, but thinking like a scientist.
Speaker 2: Skeptics don't necessarily have some huge assumption or theory about
Speaker 2: what people are like. Instead, they look for evidence. They're
Speaker 2: unwilling to rest on early and easy judgments. And because
Speaker 2: of that, skepticism is really different from cynicism, and skeptics,
Speaker 2: unlike cinics, can learn really quickly, can adapt to new situations,
Speaker 2: and become much more accurate about people than cynics do.
Speaker 1: One of the quotes that I really enjoyed from your book,
Speaker 1: and I thought articulated the point well, is that hope
Speaker 1: is not a naive way of approaching the world. It's
Speaker 1: an act, your response to the best data available.
Speaker 2: It's really a point I want to drive home because
Speaker 2: a lot of people when they hear hope, they think
Speaker 2: of somebody with their head in the sand. They think
Speaker 2: of somebody ignoring data as opposed to approaching data. One
Speaker 2: of the important points though, and the reason that I
Speaker 2: call it hopeful skepticism is because our default tends to
Speaker 2: be negative. When you adopt a skeptical perspective, you do
Speaker 2: tend to move towards a slightly more hopeful and positive
Speaker 2: place because you're correcting for the biases that we already have.
Speaker 2: People always say, what you want me to put on
Speaker 2: a pair of rose colored glasses, and I say, no,
Speaker 2: you're probably already wearing a pair of glasses that's like
Speaker 2: mud colored, So just take those off right, so that
Speaker 2: I'm actually not asking people to pay less attention, but
Speaker 2: to pay more attention to the folks around them.
Speaker 1: After the break, Jamille teaches us how to practice hopeful skepticism.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans, Jimille. The hopeful part of all this is
Speaker 1: that hopeful skepticism is in fact a skill that we
Speaker 1: can build. So why don't we talk a bit about
Speaker 1: how it is that we can build that muscle. In
Speaker 1: your book, you have this, you know, wonderful practical guide,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping that we can share with listeners a
Speaker 1: few examples of some of these overarching strategies. The first
Speaker 1: you say is to connect with your core values. Tell
Speaker 1: me what that looks.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, you know, it's interesting. It turns out that
Speaker 2: although cynics have a lot of judgment and contempt for
Speaker 2: other people, they also tend to say that they rely
Speaker 2: on other people more for their sense of self worth
Speaker 2: than the non cynics. So there's a sense that when
Speaker 2: we can't trust ourselves very deeply, it's hard to trust others.
Speaker 2: It turns out that one of the best ways to
Speaker 2: start overcoming cynicism is to connect in new ways to ourselves.
Speaker 2: My colleague at Stanford, Jeff Cohen, has a lot of
Speaker 2: work on this through what he calls values affirmation. So
Speaker 2: values affirmation is where you consider what matters most to
Speaker 2: you in life. You'll see a list of, for instance,
Speaker 2: twenty things that people often say they care a lot about,
Speaker 2: and you'll be asked, well, what are your top three
Speaker 2: or what's your top one, And then you're asked to
Speaker 2: write about, well, why does it matter to you and
Speaker 2: what are some ways that you express that value in
Speaker 2: your life.
Speaker 3: And it turns out that.
Speaker 2: This simple exercise, just ten fifteen minutes of writing about
Speaker 2: what really matters to you and how you live your values,
Speaker 2: instills a kind of deep confidence in people.
Speaker 3: I'm not talking.
Speaker 2: About braggadocious arrogance, but rather a sense of sturdiness, a
Speaker 2: sense of solid foundation. And when we have that sense
Speaker 2: of stirtiness internally, we're more willing to be open to others.
Speaker 2: Jeff finds that when people affirm their own values, they
Speaker 2: feel less threatened by information that conflicts with their beliefs
Speaker 2: and more open minded. And that's why I think it
Speaker 2: might tap us in also to a sense of skepticism
Speaker 2: and hopeful skepticism about other people.
Speaker 1: You talk about this in terms of, you know, better
Speaker 1: connecting to ourselves, and I wonder I'm just thinking out loud.
Speaker 1: I mean, here's one way in which I think increasing
Speaker 1: self compassion could be a vehicle through which we have
Speaker 1: more hope. So when we do fail or we make
Speaker 1: some sort of mistake, we can overconclude from that incident. Right,
Speaker 1: So rather than saying I made a mistake, it's I'm
Speaker 1: a mistake. There's no redemption.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if I have more self compassion and I believe, okay,
Speaker 1: well I made a mistake, I myself not a mistake,
Speaker 1: I might be more willing to assume that posture with
Speaker 1: other people in my life, like, oh, that person hurt me,
Speaker 1: But they might not be like a hurtful person, like
Speaker 1: someone who loves hurting others. They might just have aired
Speaker 1: in a particular way.
Speaker 3: That's beautifully put.
Speaker 2: I love that, And I think there's a lot of
Speaker 2: evidence that when we judge people in a trait based way,
Speaker 2: we see an action that they take and we decide
Speaker 2: that action defines them. That closes us off not just
Speaker 2: to compassion for that person, but it makes it very
Speaker 2: easy for us to think cynically about that individual. In fact,
Speaker 2: cynicism is a sort of fixed view of humanity.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. That's what I'm trying to get at. It's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there is actually hope for this person to change because
Speaker 1: I think I can change.
Speaker 3: I love that. Yeah, No, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the second strategy for building hopeful skepticism,
Speaker 1: and you say that is to be skeptical of your cynicism.
Speaker 1: So tell me a bit more about what that process
Speaker 1: can look like.
Speaker 2: This is something that I drew in trying to overcome
Speaker 2: my own cynicism from tools in cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT.
Speaker 2: So when I started CBT in my twenties, my therapist
Speaker 2: told me, Okay, what are your beliefs about yourself and
Speaker 2: about the world. Write them down and then try to
Speaker 2: think about them scientifically. What evidence do you have to
Speaker 2: support them? And I wrote down some of my very
Speaker 2: negative beliefs at the time. At the time, I really
Speaker 2: felt like if I am not positive all the time,
Speaker 2: people won't like me. That I need to entertain or
Speaker 2: provide people with good vibes in order for them to
Speaker 2: stay in my life. I felt like expressing that true
Speaker 2: self when my true self was unattractive or gloomy, would
Speaker 2: lead people to flee. But I had no evidence for
Speaker 2: it because I had never really tried. I had never
Speaker 2: been open with other people about what I was going
Speaker 2: through or feeling. And so my therapist then said, Okay,
Speaker 2: you've got this belief, you don't have any other for it.
Speaker 2: Why don't you collect some data, Why don't you try
Speaker 2: to test your hypotheses? And both of these steps understanding
Speaker 2: what our beliefs are and whether we have evidence for
Speaker 2: them and then testing them could be tools for being
Speaker 2: skeptical of our own cynicism.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder how that played out for you, because
Speaker 1: I know in your book you said people used to
Speaker 1: call you Guy Smiley, so you were definitely battling a
Speaker 1: pretty strong reputation. So what steps did you take to
Speaker 1: test out this theory that you had to be a
Speaker 1: certain way in order to be liked.
Speaker 2: One example from more recently, a few years ago now,
Speaker 2: a couple of new faculty members joined my department and
Speaker 2: we went out for drinks and they said, well, what's
Speaker 2: it like to be a professor here at Stanford? And
Speaker 2: you know, I had my guy smiley response already, you know,
Speaker 2: it's the best job in the world.
Speaker 3: I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: But instead I decided to answer honestly, and I said,
Speaker 2: it's terrifying. You know, you never feel like you deserve
Speaker 2: this job, because nobody really deserves it. You have to
Speaker 2: be so lucky to get here, and it's incredibly easy
Speaker 2: to feel like an impostor and to feel like any
Speaker 2: mistake you make is just proof that the university made
Speaker 2: a mistake in hiring you. And I still remember the
Speaker 2: seconds of silence that followed this, you know, rant that
Speaker 2: these people had not asked for at our first time
Speaker 2: hanging out, and they felt like ours to me. And
Speaker 2: I also remember the relief that poured out of these.
Speaker 3: New faculty members.
Speaker 2: They said, Wow, it means so much to hear somebody
Speaker 2: who we see as succeeding open up about this. And
Speaker 2: we ended up becoming really fast friends. And even now
Speaker 2: years later, we get together about once a quarter and
Speaker 2: we have something called beer and wine where we drink
Speaker 2: beer and wine but with an h you know, we
Speaker 2: complain and vent and open up. And but again, so
Speaker 2: for me, being positive was inauthentic. Sometimes it was a
Speaker 2: defense mechanism, and being honest about my struggles showed that
Speaker 2: I believed in the people around me. I believed that
Speaker 2: they would have my back, and more often than not
Speaker 2: they did. So the experiments that I did in my life,
Speaker 2: the data came back shockingly positive.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the final strategy is to practice what you
Speaker 1: call social saving. Tell me more.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Savoring is generally the practice of appreciating good things as
Speaker 2: they happen, and it's related to, but distinct from gratitude,
Speaker 2: which is generally appreciating the good things.
Speaker 3: That have happened.
Speaker 2: So I practice savoring a lot with my kids. We
Speaker 2: will do things like ice cream eating class or sunset
Speaker 2: watching class, where we will enjoy something, but we'll enjoy
Speaker 2: it very carefully. You know, I'll say, well, what do
Speaker 2: you like about how this tastes or the texture of
Speaker 2: the ice cream? What do you want to remember about
Speaker 2: this moment? Just pointing our awareness towards the good things
Speaker 2: in our lives, and social savoring is in essence, taking
Speaker 2: that same general strategy, but pointing it towards other people.
Speaker 2: And so for me, social savoring has two parts. One
Speaker 2: is paying attention to and looking for examples of people
Speaker 2: doing good in the world. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 2: heroics that you see in the news. I'm talking about
Speaker 2: walking around a city and seeing people pick up litter
Speaker 2: or helping somebody who's in need, for instance. The second
Speaker 2: part of social savoring is not just to notice the
Speaker 2: goodness that's all around us all the time, but to
Speaker 2: share it. When you socially savor with others, you help
Speaker 2: fight their cynicism. But you also in changing what you say,
Speaker 2: change the way that you think, your habits of speech
Speaker 2: become habits of mind, and help kind of pop up
Speaker 2: an antenna in your own mind for the goodness of others,
Speaker 2: which of course is not that hard to find once
Speaker 2: you start to look for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One lesson I internalized early for my mom is
Speaker 1: especially when engaging with people in the service industry is
Speaker 1: they're always hearing complaints, and so her goal is always
Speaker 1: to counteract that by every time she has a really
Speaker 1: positive experience, making sure she calls in the manager and says,
Speaker 1: you know, so and so is so amazing and so
Speaker 1: excellent and so. Just the other day, I was flying
Speaker 1: back from New York and our flight attendant was just
Speaker 1: so kind, and I just called her over and I
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, I just need you to know you
Speaker 1: are such a kind, cheerful presence, and it's made my
Speaker 1: day and it's made this flight so much better. And
Speaker 1: I thought in that moment about the impact that sharing
Speaker 1: that with her would have on her. But I didn't
Speaker 1: think in that moment about what you're sharing with me now,
Speaker 1: which is what impact it probably had on me and
Speaker 1: my view of humanity.
Speaker 3: I love that. It's a lot.
Speaker 2: I mean, our culture is so full of people giving
Speaker 2: life one star reviews on yelcha you and giving all
Speaker 2: the people around them one star review use. But if
Speaker 2: that's all we do, if the loudest conversations we have
Speaker 2: are about the worst things that happen, yeah, then we
Speaker 2: will end up with a skewed view of the world
Speaker 2: and of each other.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know how writing this book and engaging
Speaker 1: with the research on hope and cynicism has transformed your
Speaker 1: own outlook on life. Right, So you came into this saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to confess that I am a cynic. How
Speaker 1: has it changed the way that you live your life?
Speaker 1: How has it changed your relationship with some of your
Speaker 1: big fears? Yeah, share with me any reflections you have.
Speaker 2: I don't consider myself an ex cynic. I consider myself
Speaker 2: a recovering cynic.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, In that I work on this all the time,
Speaker 2: I still have the same defaults. I still have the
Speaker 2: same instincts. I think that one of the things that
Speaker 2: this project has changed in me is that I'm more
Speaker 2: aware that when I'm thinking in gloomy or cynical terms,
Speaker 2: that that doesn't mean that I'm right. So I guess
Speaker 2: I trust my sin. This is less I'm more skeptical
Speaker 2: of it. That is something that I can say I've achieved.
Speaker 2: And then this project has changed how I parent. I'm
Speaker 2: much more aware of how, even if I'm taking risks,
Speaker 2: even if I'm trusting people, my default is to stop
Speaker 2: my kids from taking any risks and to protect them
Speaker 2: from all sorts of harm, and especially from harmful people.
Speaker 2: I stand by that instinct one thousand percent, but I
Speaker 2: think oftentimes as a parent, my default has been protection
Speaker 2: over freedom, protection over exploration, and protection over learning, and
Speaker 2: so I've been trying to balance that. And so one
Speaker 2: of our daughters is eight years old, and we live
Speaker 2: in the middle of a big city here in San Francisco,
Speaker 2: and she really wants to be able to go buy
Speaker 2: something on her own, right. She wants to be able
Speaker 2: to go a couple of blocks and pick something up.
Speaker 2: And we've gone back and forth on this for for
Speaker 2: a year now, and I won't say that she's done
Speaker 2: it yet, but we're on the cusp of doing it.
Speaker 2: I got her some walkie talkies so that she can
Speaker 2: be in contact if she needs us. But you know,
Speaker 2: before working on this project, I would have thought, no way,
Speaker 2: I'm letting her go even two blocks. You know, there's
Speaker 2: just too many people out there who could try to
Speaker 2: harm her. And of course, I want, above and beyond
Speaker 2: anything in the world for my daughter to be safe.
Speaker 2: But I also think now that her going a block
Speaker 2: or two is actually a pretty safe thing to do.
Speaker 2: Is something that children have done for generations, and that
Speaker 2: keeping her from doing that isn't actually keeping her safe.
Speaker 2: It's in fact keeping her from learning about the world
Speaker 2: and how to interact with it.
Speaker 1: Jimille can feel like a huge shift to move from
Speaker 1: cynicisms to hopeful skepticism, especially during the time we live in.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm thinking about areas of life that I'm
Speaker 1: very cynical about, and it seems like a herculean effort
Speaker 1: to do that, and so I do wonder you can
Speaker 1: talk just a bit about that.
Speaker 2: This is a process of small steps, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: nobody changes fundamentally how they view the world overnight, really
Speaker 2: change fundamental deep change is a process of building new habits,
Speaker 2: little things that we do slightly differently each day. Another
Speaker 2: thing that I'll say is that cynicism is really most
Speaker 2: powerful in the abstract. If you ask people what are
Speaker 2: people like, they're pretty gloomy. But if you ask them
Speaker 2: what are the people in your life like? And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying your friends and family, but the strangers you
Speaker 2: interact with, your grosser, your neighbor, the person you sit
Speaker 2: next to on the bus.
Speaker 3: If you ask people.
Speaker 2: About their actual communities, they're much more bullish. They think
Speaker 2: that those people are very trustworthy, are kind, They think
Speaker 2: that those communities are generally pretty good. And so I
Speaker 2: think it's important to remember that hope oftentimes isn't out
Speaker 2: there in the ether, It's right here all around us,
Speaker 2: in the communities that we live in.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you liked this
Speaker 1: episode and want to hear more about Jamille's research, we
Speaker 1: recorded another episode with him about how to cultivate different
Speaker 1: kinds of empathy and reduce burnout. You can find a
Speaker 1: link to it in the show notes. We'll be back
Speaker 1: soon with a new episode of A Slight Change of Plans.
Speaker 1: I'll see you then. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
Speaker 1: and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change
Speaker 1: family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate
Speaker 1: Parkinson Morgan, our producers Britney Cronin and Megan Luvin, and
Speaker 1: our sound engineer Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our delightful
Speaker 1: theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: So big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow a
Speaker 1: slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: See you next week.